Prepared at Daybreak, a now-shuttered studio that was acquired by Meta in 2020 and shut down in 2024, has an extended historical past in recreation growth. Whereas by no means fairly a AAA studio, the Irvine, California-based developer labored on video games like Daxter, God of Battle spin-offs, and the extremely profitable VR titles Lone Echo and Echo Enviornment. The latter titles acquired the eye of Oculus Studios beneath Meta, prompting their acquisition.
Earlier than the Meta acquisition, Prepared at Daybreak created a number of titles beneath completely different publishers, most frequently PlayStation. In an interview with MinnMax, Prepared at Daybreak co-founder Andrea Pessino spoke candidly about working with these completely different publishers, together with a doomed mission with French online game developer and writer Ubisoft.
“We had an entire stint with a unique mission we had been making with Ubisoft,” Pessino says. “I’ll let you know one other time,” he follows up, earlier than being cajoled by host Ben Hanson to discuss it now.
Pessino relates a narrative the place Prepared at Daybreak was making a recreation for Ubisoft and having month-to-month conferences in Paris that included Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. Throughout one assembly, the builders at RAD acquired notes from the writer about adjustments the writer wished to see from the sport. After lots of reward in regards to the recreation, the checklist of adjustments included that the younger girl protagonist the builders had been intending on was not, by Pessino’s recollection, “badass.” Ubisoft needed the builders to alter it to a person. “To which we needed to maintain within the puke,” Pessino added.
Prepared at Daybreak then selected to train an escape clause of their contract whereas work on the sport was nonetheless early and cancel the mission on their finish.
Whereas Pessino doesn’t state a selected time this occurred, he signifies this mission was between the 2 God of Battle titles that Prepared at Daybreak had developed for the PSP. This could put their mission for Ubisoft someplace round 2008 – 2010. A 2020 article from Bloomberg reported that Ubisoft would typically intervene in video games in growth across the described time to forestall ladies from being sole protagonists of video games to make sure they promote higher.
“That’s not gonna fly,” Pessino says of the writer interference.
