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Black Rock tried to change Split Second to fit Disney's shift in focus

Former Black Rock game director Nick Baynes has revealed to EDGE that the studio tried to "scale back" their AAA racing game Split Second to better fit Disney's shift in focus away from AAA titles.


Speaking to the magazine for a 'making of' piece on Split Second, Baynes revealed that the studio based in Brighton, England saw Disney's change of focus coming.

"We investigated whether we could maybe do a scaled down version that would fit with the new market dynamics," Baynes told the mag. "But to do a Split Second that's in any way constrained or scaled down, it's not really Split Second anymore."

Development on the game went ahead largely as planned and Split Second launched right next to another major high-octane British racer - Blur, from Liverpool-based Bizarre Creations. Split Second came out of that particular battle slightly better off, but the end result was both games failing to meet expectations.

With Disney already having indicated it had decided AAA games were too risky a business, Black Rock suffered deep job cuts several times over before finally being shuttered in July this year. Bizarre were also closed by their parent company, Activision.

There's more from Baynes over at the EDGE website, and the full feature can be found in their latest issue, EDGE 233.

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Alex Donaldson avatar

Alex Donaldson

Assistant Editor

Alex has been writing about video games for decades, but first got serious in 2006 when he founded genre-specific website RPG Site. He has a particular expertise in arcade & retro gaming, hardware and peripherals, fighters, and perhaps unsurprisingly, RPGs.

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