Should AAA Studios Let Indie Teams Develop for Their Big IPs?

In my mind, the biggest reason (among many) that the games industry is struggling so hard right now is due to rapidly increasing development time and costs. There was a time when huge franchises like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil were getting new releases every year or two, but now AAA games are in an arms race to get the most lifelike visuals, the most prolific voice cast, the longest runtimes. This is a huge problem. As a result, a game that doesn’t recoup its dev costs often means massive layoffs, which in turn encourages studios to put as much time and resources into that big release to ensure it doesn’t flop. It’s a vicious cycle where nobody wins, as the players get less releases in the franchises and from the studios they love.

Someone with more experience and intelligence than me can tell you how to reverse this devastating problem, because I have exactly zero ideas of how. However, I can think of a way to soften that blow, one that several studios have already begun to experiment with. That is, to loan out your IP to another studio to allow them to give their own take on your established franchise. These lower budget releases are usually spinoffs, with less marketing, but they are interesting, because they allow for a different perspective. Not just narratively, by focusing on lesser known characters and locations, but also mechanically, by adjusting the gameplay loop of the previously established formula.

A few examples I’d like to focus on:

• Silent Hill f

• Silent Hill 2 Remake

• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown

• The Rogue Prince of Persia

I think there’s a reason these are among the most popular of these spinoffs. Both Silent Hill and Prince of Persia are franchises that, until recently, were not in a particularly healthy state. Let’s take a look at the Silent Hill release timeline that I found on Wikipedia:

Anyone knowledgeable about the franchise will agree, the message is clear. The iconic original games that started the franchise came within a few years of each other, before the market became oversaturated with weaker titles. Over time, the franchise was seen as past its glory days, with Konami doing everything they could to prop up the same old ideas. Some of these spinoff titles actually were developed by secondary studios, but they failed, in my opinion largely because they tried to stay too close to the themes and feeling of the original titles.

The first real, significant departure came with PT, the game helmed by Hideo Kojima that was cancelled after its viral demo was released. That title marked a significant departure for the franchise, but due to creative differences, Kojima left Konami. This left fans of the franchise wondering what this game could have been, and a massive gap is left in its wake. Now, in the mid-2020s, the SIlent Hill revival project is underway, reflecting in many ways the Resident Evil Remake projects. While Ascension and The Short Message were unmitigated disasters (and not even traditional games, the former is an interactive web-series, the latter a free-to-play, 1 hour experience), the first sign of hope came with the remake of 2, developed by Bloober Team. Bloober is known for making middling horror games, and they are now being tasked with remaking one of the most influential horror games of all time. However, it ended up being a quite successful project. Bloober kept a lot of the existing game intact, while adding modern controls and adding new sections to encourage exploration and add some new scares. If I had any complaints about 2 Remake, its the bloated runtime, so not all of these changes were welcome, but it worked overall, and critics feel the same way that I do. However, like many of the previous titles, 2 Remake is resting on the laurels of the original team. The true test would be Silent Hill f, the first new real entry in the franchise in 10 years. 

Set in Japan instead of Northeastern USA, and based on more Japanese-style horror, in some ways its hard to recognize Silent Hill f as part of the same franchise. But tonally and thematically, once you sink your teeth in it’s impossible to ignore the connection. At GDC this year, I attended Creative Director Al Yang’s talk, “‘Silent Hill f’: The Challenges of Creating a Melee-Only Horror Game”, where I learned about his hurdles in developing this game. Yang and his team at Neobards were previously more of a support studio, who would be assigned to assist in development for other studios. In fact, they had never created an original game as a studio. So when they were offered by Konami to make the next big release for the franchise, they decided they wanted to put their own spin on it. As the title of the talk implies, combat in this game is focused on melee weapons and getting into the face of enemies. This is vastly different from previous games, where keeping enemies away with pistols and shotguns was the safest way to dispatch them. Yang talked a lot about how, in previous entries, the closer the enemy was, the more danger the player was in, but now, in Silent Hill f, the player wants to be as close as possible to the enemy.

This gameplay loop is something that uniquely came from this team, who so desperately wanted to prove their capabilities in developing a game for a large franchise successfully. They had something to prove. Neobards could easily have made something more reminiscent of the original entries, but instead they used their own perspective, Japanese folklore and horror that they were familiar with, and as a result created something uniquely their own that still fits strongly with the franchise as a whole.

The Prince of Persia franchise is doing something similar, but perhaps even more experimental by entirely changing the genre with their spinoff releases. Take a look at their Wikipedia timeline:

Note that the entries from 2018-2022 are either mobile entries or VR experiences. This franchise has had a similar path as Silent Hill, where the glory days appear to be far in the past. With these two latest releases, on far smaller budgets and scales than even the Silent Hill games we discussed, new perspectives are found within the series. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown is an anime-inspired Metroidvania, featuring an entirely new cast of characters. It was developed by a small sub-team at Ubisoft, far removed from the group that would more often be involved with the franchise. Even more strangely, The Rogue Prince of Persia is a roguelike, with an artstyle completely unrecognizable from the rest of the franchise. Both of these have revitalized interest in the franchise, and if the IP holder Ubisoft has any clue at all, they’ll capitalize on this interest by developing a new high-budget entry.

Both of these studios, Konami and Ubisoft, deserve some credit for trusting these smaller, less experienced teams with these once popular franchises. However, it wasn’t the riskiest bet in the world. Neither seemed to have any interest in working on mainline franchises beforehand, so these projects could be seen as tests to see if there’s enough interest in the franchise to invest in it further. And it’s not like this will always work out so well, there are certainly examples where the secondary studio made something that does leave a stain on the franchise. Some of those middle-era Silent Hill games are a great example of that. However, I think smaller teams will often put forth a great deal of effort if given the opportunity, as it could be their big break into becoming a popular, well-liked studio.

With development times as large as they are at AAA studios, it’s time for the wealth of talent at indie studios to give their perspective on these exciting, huge worlds. Some studios are no doubt protective of their IPs, but we no longer live in an era where one studio can manage those yearly releases, and their fans will no doubt find new games to love in the meantime. It’s time to give indie studios a chance with the properties of the big leagues. The fans get more entries in the series they love, the smaller studios get a chance at their big break, and the AAA studios get more of that money they love so much.