Doug Elfman is an award-winning entertainment columnist who lives in Las Vegas. He blogs at http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/Doug_Elfman.html. Twitter at VegasAnonymous. By DOUG ELFMAN ADVERTISING Curt Schilling, the former Boston Red Sox pitching ace, has created a big video game, and it’s
By DOUG ELFMAN
Curt Schilling, the former Boston Red Sox pitching ace, has created a big video game, and it’s not about baseball. How did this happen?
When Schilling, 45, pitched in the majors, he had a lot of extra time on the road. He played MMOGs — massively multiplayer online games — from “Ultima Online” to “EverQuest” then “World of Warcraft.”
In 2006, he founded 38 Studios with the goal of launching many games. His initial MMOG is still in development for Electronic Arts.
But 38 Studios’ first release on Feb. 7 is a single-player, role-playing action game of fantasy lore, combat and magic, called “Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning.”
Schilling assembled a team of heavy hitters.
“Amular’s” head designer is Ken Rolston of “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind” and “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.”
The story is by fantasy author R.A. Salvatore. Concept artwork comes from “Spawn” comics’ Todd McFarlane.
Schilling is extremely confident in his designers’ work.
“I believe it’ll be up for game of the year. I honestly do,” Schilling tells me. “The player experience they delivered is spectacular.”
The game has been billed as “God of War”-meets-“Oblivion.” You can play the 40-to-60 hour “God of War”-esque combat adventure, and/or indulge in hundreds of hours of “Oblivion”-esque role-playing adventure, Schilling says.
You portray a man or woman (your choice) who is the first person to: Die, travel the well of souls, then be reborn without a fated future.
“You have been plopped down into the world full of people that have a pre-determined fate and destiny. You’re the only person who doesn’t,” Schilling says.
He says the game ponders: “What kind of impact would that have on the church? What kind of impact would that have on the governments of the world?”
“At the same time, we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously, because the game’s gotta be fun.”
Schilling didn’t force designers to include his favorite ways to kill fake people. He applied baseball philosophies.
“To be the best manager, you have to have incredibly talented people, and you have to back away, and let them do what they do,” he says.
“I had suggestions early on in the process here. The rebuttals led me to believe I was doing nothing but costing us money and time by making them.”
He didn’t want the game to be buggy, since that’s been a knock against Bethesda’s “Elder Scrolls” games.
“We had an extra six months to polish this game. We have worked as ardently and fervently as we could to ship this game with no bugs.”
The game has cracked GameStop’s Top 10 Sales as a pre-order.
So that’s how a three-time World Series winner is throwing his first pitch on new ground.
Doug Elfman is an award-winning entertainment columnist who lives in Las Vegas. He blogs at http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/Doug_Elfman.html. Twitter at VegasAnonymous.
