![]() "I'm so proud of what we were able to accomplish.We made the best game we possibly could under difficult circumstances, and that's all I could have hoped for." Ravages of Apocalypse did not end up being a saving grace for Marvel's bottom line, nor did it turn into a lucrative career in games for Gorden, though he has continued to work in entertainment to this day. This is to be expected given the conditions that led to its release, and Gorden feels the same. Critics were not kind, admonishing the game for being excessively difficult, too similar to regular Quake, and all-around a sloppy project. This schedule is an echo of the crunch culture that now plagues development studios, with workers being asked to devote unhealthy amounts of time to deliver games on schedule.Īfter a beleaguered development cycle, Zero Gravity Games' first project finally hit the public eye. Gorden recalls working 20 hour days, 7 days a week for two months. With just a few months to go and nowhere near enough money to cover their expenses, the team worked endlessly. To meet the growing demand, more and more people were brought on from around the world, bringing the final team to about 26. This meant that Gorden and his team had to add more levels to complete the project, eventually landing on a total of 12. RELATED: 5 Ways Maximum Carnage Is The Better Game (& 5 Separation Anxiety Is) To combat the tide, they were only accepting projects that made a substantial change to the existing game's content. However, thanks to the easy nature of Quake modding, id Software was receiving thousands of requests for official licensing. Add in a few characters, and it would be an achievable goal. His initial plan was to design a single level, X-Mansion, and use existing Quake levels for the rest. With his original idea, this seemed doable even on the less-than-shoestring budget Marvel gave them. Marvel wanted to release the game in time for Christmas 1997, which gave Gorden and his small team only three months to deliver. They were impressed with Gorden's work and decided to take Ravages of Apocalypse on as an official project. In an effort to combat this, they created Marvel Entertainment, a division tasked with seeking out opportunities to expand the franchise into other media formats. Marvel was in a slump in the mid-'90s, having seen a massive drop in popularity. But he didn't need to wait long, as within a month he received a call from Kyle Bousquet, a licensing manager with contacts at Marvel. "It really wasn't a problem until I was ready to release something," he said in his interview with Murphy. There were other mods that made use of big IPs, but they were often forced to be taken down by the rights holders. But Gorden wasn't worried, instead choosing to focus on development. One of the biggest questions was that of legality. He found it very quickly, with people from all over the world making inquiries into the project. Once he realized he wanted to make a full X-Men mod for Quake, Gorden began promoting the project to garner interest.
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