Ready at Dawn, developers of PS4 exclusive The Order 1886, has recently acquired the talent of (now) former Blizzard chief operating officer Paul Sams. In a press release Sams spoke more about the move and what it may mean for RAD in the future:
“Reaching a point where we can develop, own and publish our own games is certainly our aspiration and something that we will actively be pursuing.” Speaking specifically about Sony’s ownership of The Order he continued, “As for The Order, it was absolutely the company’s desire to own it. We love that game and we are proud of it. Unfortunately, we were at a point in the company’s evolution where owning that IP was not possible. We hope to not find ourselves in that position again.”
With Paul Sams coming aboard, it has meant a bit of restructuring at RAD, with co-founder and current CEO Ru Weerasuriya moving into a more creative role as president and chief creative officer.
Though Ready at Dawn are aiming to retain any future IP rights, they’re not regretful of not being able to do so with The Order, “With the amount of work we placed in creating The Order as an IP, our initial desire was definitely to retain ownership. But at the time, we also knew that it would take a partner to place focus and effort into all the ancillary work beyond the game itself.” said Ru. And a sequel certainly isn’t off the cards, he added, “And as I mentioned in the past, The Order was never written as a one-off story. There is a lot more to tell as you can see from the way the game ends. We of course have aspirations for the future of the IP and our involvement in its growth.”
The Order 1886 was hailed as a technical masterpiece, sadly it didn’t quite manage to meet the expectations of both gamers and critics, but there is a solid framework to build on, if Ready at Dawn do work on a sequel, you can expect it to better the first in just about every way.