Danny Bilson, who left THQ before that particular ship sank, has recently lifted the lid on the fates of several of the publisher's ill-fated projects.
In an extended and informative interview, Bilson told VG247 that the Warhammer 40K MMO was "well on its way" after development was initially put on the backburner so studio Vigil Games could concentrate on the Darksiders franchise.
"December of 2011 is sort of when the wheels came off for THQ," Bilson said, "and there was a tremendous loss of money in the uDraw situation as well as some tough releases during that year. By the end of the year we had to make cuts."
According to Bilson, they were closely watching Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic, to see how that game fared in the market: "I wanted to see what was happening with MMOs, because it was taking years to make and I was kind of anxiously waiting to see what would happen with the Star Wars MMO at EA, to see if the subscription model is over, or whether it would still work."
As Star Wars "wasn't instantly doing huge numbers and building towards World of Warcraft", marking the beginning of the end for the popular subscription model, and because "we lost a ton of cash that year. There was no way we could gamble on the big bet like an MMO," Bilson said.
It was then explained how the game was to be worked into a multiplayer RPG called Inquisitor: "Then it was much more like a Borderlands kind of game. It was a four-player co-op jump-in jump out, go on these missions with your friends. I was really excited about that. With the commitment of that year we felt we could finish that game and ship it within that year, which would have been summer of 2013. It would have been last summer."
Bilson revealed that some of his colleagues wanted to write off the investment and move on: "There was a lot of game let go there that was pretty great. The combat system was really fun; it was fast, it was exciting. The art was really great, the world was coming along. I thought it had tremendous potential. I was really disappointed when that second iteration that we were calling Inquisitor got cancelled. That was on a Friday, and Monday - I believe the next work day - I left THQ."
It's an interesting article, that covers other titles such as South Park, 1666: Amsterdam, Evolve and Red Faction. Worth a read if you want to more about the story surrounding the demise of THQ.
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