http://pff.iksnet.it/index2.htm
[ January 7th, 2005 ] :: NS, NS retail, NS: Source, NS2, etc. (Flayra)
There's so much confusion and misinformation floating around about all these projects that I think it's time to set the record straight.
First there was Natural Selection. Then I formed Unknown Worlds to make more ambitious retail games. I thought that the best bet for the company's first game was putting NS into retail, on the Half-life engine. This would be like Counter-strike or Day of Defeat in retail, and would've essentially been the same game, but polished up and packaged with the Half-life engine so people could play it without owning Half-life. I then decided that it would be too costly and a little boring too do this project, so it was skipped.
So the next project is likely going to be NS on the Source engine. We don't know for sure if we're doing this, as we haven't had time to evaluate how much work it will be, but everyone on the team is excited to do it, so I think it will happen. We don't know yet if it is going to be a straight port over to Source, or if we're going to redo a lot of the artwork/animations, or if we're going to change a lot of the fundamental gameplay (flamethrowers, physics, etc.). We need to look into it more, see how many months it's going to take (the bad part) and then make a decision. As soon as we know, we'll let you guys know. NS on Source will be done primarily by the current NS team. I'll be doing the game design and overall direction, but the NS team will be doing all the actual work.
The OTHER project, is Natural Selection 2. The game design has been started (hoo-boy, fun stuff), but this will be a full-fledged $50 (or so) retail game, not a mod. It will use a next-generation engine (like Source, Unreal Engine 3, etc.) and will take years and millions of dollars to create. This is what I'm now spending the majority of my time on.
Please trust that as soon as ANY information is available on any of these projects, we will post here on the front-page news of this web-site. You won't have to dig through the forums or IRC chat logs, we're going to broadcast loud and clear. We're also planning on making particularly big announcements to the Unknown Worlds mailing list, so make sure you've registered an account and subscribed there if you're interested.
