Interviews// Splash Damage Founder, Paul Wedgwood

SPOnG: I assumed it would be on both next-gen platforms...

Paul Wedgwood: It is going to be multi-platform, but it hasn't been confirmed by Bethesda as to exactly which platforms it will be.

So, we're thinking about the SNES still, maybe the Mega Drive, there are just so many options, aren't there?


SPOnG: I've been looking for a reason to get my Megadrive out again...

Paul Wedgwood: iRiver, that's another one!


SPOnG: Any chance we'll see the game on the Wii, or are you looking at the strictly 'next-gen' consoles?

Paul Wedgwood: I honestly couldn't tell you. That's the reason for not saying – a lot of companies sign a game deal and they immediately go straight into development, and from day one that's pretty much the way they work. At Splash Damage for all of the publishers... for all two of the publishers and (the) one developer we've worked with in our track record of six or seven years, we've really learned to do things the way id do it, which is that kind of “When it's done” model.

As the developer you determine what the scope of the game is going to be, the quality bar that you're after, and from that you can figure out what resources you're going to need and how long it's going to take. The traditional approach is, “You've got until X time to get it done, and that's that. And hey, we're cutting back on the resources that we were going to to let you have”. That affects the quality of the game, and Bethesda have a reputation for stunning games like Morrowind and Oblivion, and now Fallout 3. And so for us, we're now in exactly the right stable to focus on the quality of the game.

But I know that Bethesda would be unhappy with us if we weren't shooting for high review scores, for players being really happy. I've been really satisfied with their take on (the process).


SPOnG: Enemy Territory was really well received, but from what you're saying, it sounds like you're looking to take it a step further with this?

Paul Wedgwood: Yes, absolutely. A perfectly fair comparison would be that within the PC sector Splash Damage, amongst its fans, has a ten star rating. We have very obsessed fans, I think we have 600,000/700,000 messages on our fan forums as it is at the moment. But, within the console community, we're not as well known. And because we didn't develop Enemy Territory for the PS3 or the 360 ourselves, we don't get that opportunity to feel really proud of a significant achievement within console gaming.

For us, it's really important to have complete control over all three platforms and so we're really relishing the idea of working on a bunch of different platforms for a game in the future and having control over the game design and what happens as we move forward.