Hydrophobia Release And Platforms Clarified

28 Apr 2010 at 13:40:34 by

After the contradictory news yesterday that Hydrophobia will be released on the Xbox 360, IncGamers has spoken to Dark Energy Digital boss, Pete Jones to clarify the release of the game.

Jones told IncGamers that the game will be released on the Xbox 360 as a timed exclusive with a PC version to follow, as well as a PS3 version released "at some point."

What Jones did clarify was that the game will be released as boxed, retail code as well as on XBLA, while the PS3 will only see it on the PSN when it is released after the timed exclusivity expires.

"Hydrophobia is of a production quality that only the best at retail can match and yes it is of a comparable gameplay length to an AAA retail game," he said.

Jones explained that the game was always going to be a full release, but the dev team had no idea that the final product, using the proprietary engine (Infinite Worlds), would allow them to create a game that's file size was tiny. Jones explains that this was a side effect of the technology used in the engine.

"We produced the engine principally because it conveys a massive productivity benefit - basically it allows a small team like ourselves to produce a big budget game.

"But it had a spin off effect of producing a game to an impossibly small file size. Impossibly small meaning under 1GB.

"My bizarre analogy for this is Viagra. It was developed as a heart drug but had an interesting side effect."

Jones explained that delivering the game digitally would make more sense, especially using an engine like the Infinite Worlds engine which allows you to create such small file sizes.

"Size matters. Not sure that the industry has quite grasped this one yet. All of a sudden everyone talks about downloading games. But this bright digital future has a big elephant sitting in their virtual room. Until developers produce games with IW or its equivalent it will remain a dream."

So just to clarify. The game will be released EXCLUSIVELY on the xbox 360 for a period of time, which has yet to be confirmed, and will come to all platforms in time, but will be distributed digitally on both the PSN when it's released, and on XBLA.

We'll have more from Pete Jones and the Dark Energy Digital team later in the week, focusing on the engine, the company ethos and the like.  Remember, and in the words of Jones himself: "this is a retail game digitally delivered" an he believes that the "humble Manchester company may be about to spark a revolution."

We hope so!

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