You probably won’t be surprised to hear that director Neill Blomkamp has a passion for geeky topics – after all, his big-budget filmography is all sci-fi, and he even has a Halo short film under his belt. Now, it seems, he wants to try his hand at game development, and he’s pinging some of the industry’s most talented studios to make it happen.
“I have a game I want to ‘direct,’ with …mechs,” Blomkamp says on Twitter. “How would one go about such an endeavour?” He goes on to tag Machine Games, Arkane Studios, id Software, Respawn Entertainment, and IO Interactive – clearly, even if he doesn’t know how to make games, he does know which studios have quality output.
Perhaps we’ll soon add “a Neill Blomkamp game” to our list of upcoming PC games.
The tweet is probably at least half-joking, though he did get some industry responses. The folks at DICE seem especially keen to work with Blomkamp, with a designer and a producer at the studio hopping into the conversation and asking the director to pitch the concept to them. Blomkamp simply says “ok.”
Cliff Bleszinski – who I’ll reference as lead designer on Gears of War and pointedly not mention any more recent projects – also popped in to offer some advice. He suggests pitching with a PowerPoint and charisma, then enjoy waiting for publishers to “arbitrarily approve or disapprove for weird reasons.” He then adds “if approved enjoy the stress.”
I have a game I want to “direct”, with, …mechs. How would one go about such an endeavour? @machinegames @ArkaneStudios @idSoftware @Respawn @IOInteractive
— Neill Blomkamp (@NeillBlomkamp) July 18, 2018
Blomkamp is likely just having some fun on Twitter, but let’s be real – the game industry is weird as hell and nothing’s impossible. So what studio would make the best fit for the director’s proposed mech game? Respawn has experience in that arena, but we already know what that studio’s robots look like – and Titanfall 2 was excellent enough without any additional input.
Personally, I’d like to see IO take on the challenge, giving us a Hitman-style playground in which to pilot a mech and subtly assassinate enemy robots with frozen fish or somesuch. (Maybe I should hit up the Twitter pitch circuit.)