Tag Archives: Patrick Hudson

It’s a big week for Robot Entertainment as the studio bounces back with two big pieces of news! Things have been quiet on the news front for sometime, but no longer as Robot has this week announced its next brand new game in the Orcs Must Die! series…

Orcs Must Die! 3

That’s right – the Orcs are back in town! The much loved franchise is set to return to its roots as a single-player / co-op tower defence game much more akin to its predecessors OMD1 and OMD2. There has been a call from the community for sometime to return to the spirit of the first two titles and now Robot Entertainment is set to deliver on this ask thanks to a great partnership with Google and the Stadia platform!

Take a look at this sweet new trailer:

There is a brand new story mode, moving 20 years into the future our trusted heroes War Mage and Sorceress have trained up their own new apprentices to take on the Orc mob. This time however things have been majorly cranked up. Players will be taking on hordes of Orcs like never before. Huge armies now threaten the rift with the numbers of Orcs now bigger than ever compared to previous OMD games. Players will need to make use of huge traps known as war machines to help keep the mob at bay. 

This is going to be a truly explosive new game! Due to land in spring 2020 the initial launch will be on Google’s new Stadia platform. There are reasons for this and most notably because Google has been a big part in helping make OMD3 possible as Robot’s CEO, Patrick Hudson explains on Reddit:

After shutting down OMDU, Robot had to downsize our studio. We had re-sized and focused on making smaller games than an OMD game. We didn’t know when or if we would get back to the OMD franchise.

We met with Google to learn more about Stadia for our other projects. We discovered that the people at Google are big fans of OMD. That led to an exploration of what might be possible with an OMD game on Stadia. We both got excited about our ideas and decided to go after it.

OMD3 would not be possible today without Google’s support. They are behind the game in a big way. We’ve hired more developers to bring it to life. It’s the OMD game that fans of the first two games have been wanting, and we’re thrilled that we have the opportunity to make it.

If you’re not planning to look at the Stadia platform, do not fear. The initial release will be a timed exclusive to the Stadia platform but other platforms are due to be announced in due course. In the meantime soak up that brand new sweet OMD3 trailer and get hyped!

ReadySet Heroes is coming!

If this big news wasn’t already enough, Robot’s other project also in development is soon to be landing on a PS4 near you. ReadySet Heroes the multiplayer party dungeon crawler is set to land on October 1st 2019! That’s just a few months away. There is a brand new trailer too. Here we can see more of the dungeon crawling and different party challenges. It won’t be long now until you’ll be picking your hero to take into battle!

Available for pre-order now on the Playstation store which includes an exclusive pre-order bonus crown, skin and more!

The time has come to see what has been cooking at the Robot Entertainment factory for the past year. The answer has been revealed today as part of PlayStation State of Play. The answer is ReadySet Heroes! A brand new and original game from Robot Entertainment featuring fast paced multiplayer dungeon crawling. Players choose their own hero who starts with nothing more than a humble wooden sword. Players then take their hero into randomly generated dungeons to do battle and solve puzzles. The twist however is that there is another team competing with the player doing the exact same dungeon with the winner being the team that finishes it the fastest!

The game features single player or co-op play against a team competing in the same dungeon. Once a team reaches the end of the dungeon, depending on their performance they will be equipped to take on the other players in a final showdown to find out who is the worthy dungeon champion and the mightiest hero. The final showdowns take the form of a variety of different activities from an all out arena battle or maybe something a bit more bizarre like snail racing!

The main mode has everything you would expect from a dungeon crawler. Players solve puzzles, grab loot, defeat enemies – all against the clock to try and beat the other team. Items you collect like armour and spells help you in the longer term once you reach the final showdown. The game is designed for short, quick play sessions with friends. One might call it a party dungeon crawler!

Trailer

Check out the brand new first look trailer below.

More information

Robot Entertainment CEO has penned a blog post on the Playstation website talking more about the game. Be sure to check that out to read more. The game will be launching in 2019 with date TBC. It will be available on PS4 for sure and there will not be a requirement for PlayStation Plus. Other consoles and platforms are to be announced and not ruled out.

Keep a close eye out for more news and information on this exciting brand new original game, fresh out of the factory from Robot! Remember this is just one of at least two games that Robot has been working on!

Things have been a bit quiet over the last month or so, both here and at Robot HQ. The silence is usually a sign of big news to come and this is no exception. Today Robot Entertainment has announced how the studio plans to move forward with Orcs Must Die! Unchained following the recent Open Beta. There is some important news here about the future of the game.

The big news

Open Beta is about collecting feedback from players, the community and looking at the data. As players play the game data is collected which tells Robot what people like to play and combined with feedback on forums and reviews helps shape the final game based on players needs. Unfortunately after very careful review the decision has been made to stop work on the PvP Siege mode. This is absolutely not the end of OMDU, instead the Survival mode will now get the studios’ 100% focus. Siege and Survival modes have long been battling against other for studio resources. Balancing the heroes abilities, traps for both modes was becoming very difficult and has been slowing overall development progress for the game.

However the research from the data, the players has shown that there is more demand for gameplay closer to the classic OMD1 and 2 tower defense style. Robot have been working on the Siege mode for a number of years, rest assured that after all this time this decision is certainly not one that has been taken lightly. It is unfortunate but by focussing on making Survival a great game mode ensures solid foundations for OMDU with a strong community of players who can pick up the game and have great fun. Something we all want to see. This is not necessarily the end of PvP play for the long term, it is still open to returning. It will not be in the form that we see right now though.

There will no doubt be many disappointing Siege players reading this news, especially those who have been supporting game from the outset where Siege mode was the main component. For those players I say stick with it. Stick with the game as Robot moves forwards with Survival. What we see with Survival today is not how the game will be looking next patch. The studio has invested all its manpower in the new Survival mode. It’s going to be a big push with a lot of great content coming up. OMDU is heading to its roots. With the foundations in place it is important to remember that OMDU is built to scale, to adapt to new ideas and game modes later down the line. Getting a great Survival mode in place is just the start.

Keeping engaged

Robot Entertainment continues to listen to the community to get the best outcomes for the majority of players. Be sure to check out the full blog post on the Orcs Must Die! website to learn more about the reasoning and the plan ahead.  There will also be an Insider Access tomorrow with Robot CEO Patrick Hudson and Executive Producer Chris Rippy. That’s at the usual time of 3PM CT. Ian Fischer, AKA “Morther” will also be taking to Reddit with an AMA on Thursday September 22nd. You can catch the Reddit right here: http://www.reddit.com/r/OrcsMustDie

Siege mode will be removed from the game with the next update, which so far does not have a confirmed release date. Stay tuned for more news.

Have you been following closely on Facebook and Twitter? If so you may have spotted some very interesting new “Ask Me Anything” features on Reddit. Known as AMA’s players have been asking questions directly to the bots at the studio. Taking part so far has included:

• Chris Rippy – VP Production
• Justin Korthof – Marketing Manager
• Patrick Hudson – CEO
• Nananea – Community Video Co-Ordinator

AMA Highlights

BadVogonPoet asked Justin:

You’ve worked in a community position across several different companies in the video game industry for quite awhile now.

What are some of the differences you’ve seen in Community Management and Marketing over the years?

Do you think it’s easier to with social media as popular as it is or does it make some aspects of marketing and community management harder?

Justin responds:

The largest change has been that Community Management has split up into several disciplines these days. A CM used to have to kind of be a jack of all trades and manage every conversation that was happening online. These days, it’s all split up. There are social media managers, forum moderators, community feature developers, website developers, and so on. More specializations.

As for whether or not it’s easier with social media, it depends on your goals I think. SM has obviously made it easier than ever to connect with a broad range of people at virtually the click of a button. But it’s also inserted ridiculous amounts of noise into word-of-mouth marketing. It can be REALLY hard to stand out in all that noise if you’re not clever.

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RoyalFino asked Chris:

What was the most difficult or hardest part of the production of OMDU that you never experienced with any game you worked on previous?

 Chris responds:

Oh man… OMDU is a giant game, in terms of all the different tech we use, and all the stuff we’re doing for the first time. Having to create a store, an entire networking service, a dashboard, along with a game is a lot to keep up with.

Probably the biggest challenge though is running a “live” game. In other words, while we have a version that is being played online, we’ve got at least one or two other versions of the game running at the office with new features, content, etc. that needs testing. Coordinating when those things “go live” to the public build, and keeping the public build up and running is a good healthy challenge for us. It’s fun :-).

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MrBlue42 asked Patrick:

The Steam ratings for the game are currently rather negative sadly, mostly due to the business model, not the game itself. Do you think the business model is good as it is currently or is there still some tweaking necessary?

Patrick responds:

Syndrogo asked Nananea:

How well do you think OMDU going to do up against all the other free game out today? I know how hard it is for a games to succeed on a microtransaction platform.

 Nananea responds:

I think there is a lot of stigma out there still about free-to-play games, but I feel like OMDU has plenty of gameplay mechanics to set it apart from the pack. The great thing about F2P is that anyone can download and play the game and make their own judgment on the game and that’s a very powerful thing!

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 emelld1324 asked Patrick:

What were the decisions that made you and the team to shift the OMD Franchise towards the MOBA Genre?

 Patrick responds:

We didn’t set out to shift the franchise to the MOBA genre. For us, OMDU was a very logical progression of the franchise based on fan feedback. The first game was single player and fans were clamoring for co-op so we made OMD2. That led to feedback about bigger multiplayer and PvP. For us, we always imagined PvP as two OMD games pitted against one another. Of course, we knew not all OMD fans play PvP so that led us to making the Survival PvE mode. We really hope PvE appeals to the OMD fan that loves killing orcs with friends.

Remember to be on the look out for more AMA’s – subscribe to the Orcs Must Die! Reddit!  https://www.reddit.com/r/OrcsMustDie/

Patrick Hudson, Robot Entertainment’s CEO has taken to the official website to update eager fans on the current status of Orcs Must Die! Unchained and where things are heading. Its been around a year since closed beta and Patrick makes note that this process has truely been a closed beta and not akin to a “pre-release demo”. Indeed we have seen comprhensive changes from what we see today in the closed beta than what we had a year ago.

Patrick’s open letter updates fans on the plan going forward. Things are going to start to take a faster pace as the studio targets the Go Live date for OMDU to be early 2016. This means we will see an open beta between now and then. We don’t have an open beta date just yet, but it should be forthcoming soon.

In a nutshell the priorites for the game going forward are:

1. Improvements to the PvP mode aimed at better combat, hero depth, crafting and general offensive gameplay breadth.
2. New heroes consistently rolled out starting with the next patch.
3. More PvE. We think of PvE as traditional Orcs Must Die! gameplay. We have ambitious plans for PvE that we can’t wait to unveil. The Endless mode recently released is just the beginning.
4. Polish. Lots and lots of shiny polish.

In addition Robot is keen to provide regular updates and more insight for fans on the roadmap going forward, including patch dates and content. On Insider Access, Community Manager, Justin “SixOkay” Korthof hinted of a system where we can upvote certain feature requests.

We’ve got a new OrcsMustDie.com website coming soon along with some detailed updates, including another open letter from SixOkay to give us even more information on the plans ahead coming out later this week. Be sure to keep yourself in the know and look out for this on the OMDU Forums.

Meanwhile take a look at the full letter from Patrick Hudson on the website using the link below:

https://na.orcsmustdie.com/#!/en/news/the-road-to-open-beta

New year, new Robot staffers! Today Patrick Hudson, CEO at Robot Entertainment announced on the studios blog that Paul Hellquist has now joined the team as Lead Designer. Paul has an impressive career in the industry having spent a considerable number of years at Gearbox Software and Irrational Games before that. Paul has worked on Bioshock as Lead Designer and Borderlands 2 as Creative Director. Needless to say Paul brings a great amount of experience to an already strong team.

Patrick Hudson took the company blog, posting:

I spent a considerable amount of time with Paul recently, and I was consistently impressed with his breadth of thinking, passion for great design, and humility. His remarkable portfolio of work is clearly well-earned. Paul is a great fit for Robot, and I expect him to have a profound impact on the games we make, starting with Orcs Must Die! Unchained.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Paul said:

“It’s always difficult to leave a place you’ve spent a huge chunk of your career, but it is always exciting as well. Robot has a great track record and I’m thrilled to join the talented and veteran team. I look forward to adding my perspective and skills to Orcs Must Die! Unchained and future projects.”

REF also welcomes Paul to the Robotic studio – we’re looking forward to the next phase of Orcs Must Die! Unchained due to be announced soon.

For more on Paul’s hire, check out the Robot blog and the article on Gamasutra.

Today Robot Entertainment announced at the PlayStation Experience keynote that Orcs Must Die! Unchained will also be coming to PS4 along side the PC version of the game in 2015. This is Robot’s first return to console since the original Orcs Must Die! on XBLA and is the first title that Robot has produced for a Sony system. Robot’s CEO Patrick Hudson said:

“We’re very excited to welcome PlayStation 4 players to our community, Orcs Must Die! Unchained delivers a unique blend of tower defense and competitive multiplayer action along with the game’s signature humor. We can’t wait for PS4 fans to jump in and start slaying Orcs!”

 

To get us and PS4 fans excited about OMDU, Robot have also released a brand new trailer, with OMD humour aplenty this excellent trailer has been playing at the Playstation keynote:

Its great to see OMDU being launched on an additional platform, expanding the audience greatly. Fantastic news!