Fortnite's pivot from failed co-op zombie game to... well, this... is incredible.
I would love to have experienced that office environment over that year. I can only imagine that the pivot was a "well, we already have most of the game. What can do we do with it?" hail Mary as they considered what to do short of closure.
I may also be misremembering how dire their situation was. But I thought it was quite dire.
Oh man, for some reason Epic Games and Epic MegaGames were distinct in my head. Two companies, one which made ZZT, Jill of the Jungle and Jazz Jackrabbit, and the other which starts with Unreal.
I learned quite a bit from the simple message passing in ZZT-OOP as well as some about timing and inserting new information into logic loops. Most of my programs were closer to what would be done in Twine today, which makes me optimistic about the generation of future programmers that framework is creating.
It just completely skips my mind that Epic has more going on for them than games. Not that I've really tried to understand their business units or offering.
After Unreal Tournament 3 and Unreal Tournament 4 ( still pre-alpha) you could probably extend that 'dire' 'office environment..' to quite a few years.
I would love to have experienced that office environment over that year. I can only imagine that the pivot was a "well, we already have most of the game. What can do we do with it?" hail Mary as they considered what to do short of closure.
I may also be misremembering how dire their situation was. But I thought it was quite dire.