Intel: Check out this "GPGPU" we made, it's a processor that can run AAA games. It can even do ray-tracing You made this? Intel: Made what? What are you talking about? I know NOTHING! (runs away)
Runi The big thing was Larrabee was in no way feasible as a product. It was too hungry, too expensive, and based on a massive number low-perf x86 cores. This way before Sandy Bridge blew the lid off CPU perf. The big thing that separated Larrabee was branch prediction. You basically had a smart GPU with certain limitations.
What a dick move of intel to not let them have their IP and engine back since they had no interest in doing anything with it after larrabee was killed.
Sorta like what happened to Fallout. Both Troika and Black Isle wanted to buy the IP, but talentless Bethesda made the bigger offer so now it sits in their cold, undeserving clutches being bastardized by people that don't understand Fallout and don't even want to.
Sadly, that´s how all companies work, they never, ever, ever give back IPs to their creators, even for un-released projects that they will never have any intentions of using. You can thank lawyers and a greedy mentality for those rules. This happens in the TV, the cinema and games industries. That´s why it was such a big deal when Sega happily handed over Yu Suzuki´s Shenmue license.
Defo a dick move, but thats pen-pushing fat-cats and executives for ya. Similar "executive rapes" happened to Tomb Raider (thats why its nothing but a 3rd person shooter now), same happened to Silent Hill, same happened to Tenchu, same only just happened to Metal Gear Solid; Also happened to Ridge Racer, Devil May Cry and very likely Saints Row (thats why after SR2, the series became a brain melting pot of purile stupidity that only appeals to people with the brain of a 4 year old), and thats just in the realm of games. In other words when you "sell your baby", you better hope the publisher is on the same wavelength as you, because if they're not, you just sold your baby to be twisted out of shape and recycled into a hollow shell of its former self, sharing nothing in common with its ancestor except the name (again, Tomb Raider comes to mind...). Maybe if theres a moral to the story its "don't sell ANY of your creations that you're not willing to see twisted out of all recognition later on down the line"! Google "Unseen64", its basically a bible to ALL those games that shared a similar fate to this!
You see the wonderful think about capitalism is that it is based in consent, two parties have to agree to make a transaction. Intel didn't want to sell property they owned, they have every right not to.
These videos of yours are always so depressing. Dreams, years of hard work, talent, and an unknown future in gaming crushed due to incompetence, greed, or outright petty vengeance. My only hope is that these videos will inspire future generations and create another dream. Much like how Spec Ops was to 6 Days in Fallujah or Death Stranding was to Silent Hills, another project to avenge the fallen.
This is the reason crowd funding does so well today. Imagine Star Citizen being backed by a publisher instead of the players. It probably would've been a simple flight sim with cutscenes.
Nicely said Harvey... Agreed, don't fight the big guy, they own so they can bastardize it and mess it up let em. A hardware company making a software video game? Smells like some marketing idiot thought the Intel vid card would look good with the software tech this game had. Get even by creating better games and find ways to support new tech, new story lines, new vision.
Yeah, I don't know why some companies refuse to let go of licenses for games which they have no intention of ever completing. Maybe they fear a new game would not live up to the promise of the cancelled one, which would then reflect poorly upon the original license holder, or it's just spite : if we can't make it work, nobody else ever will either. I'm reminded of the Wheel of Times fantasy book series, the original author (Robert Jordan) unfortunately passed away before finishing the series he'd been writing for well over a decade, but left enough notes and outlines for another author (Brandon Sanderson) to pick up the pieces and finally complete the last three books.
Ah, another story of how someone creates a unique thing, giant corporation buys it, then kicks the creator out, and does nothing with the unique thing, and refuses to give it back. A tale as old as time ~
Back when game publishers were studying ways to make games better, than now which are studying ways to maximize profits. All of R&D has gone from fidelity and performance to manipulative psychology and political market trends.
its saddens me. I would love to develop games as I would enjoy it AND get satisfaction from others enjoying them... I would hate designing games just to have people pay actual money making everything I did obsolete.
Damnit, I've wanted nothing more than a studio to challenge Bethesda in the market. They need competition so that they stop dumbing down their titles without consequence of losing their older fans.
Vurtax The Witcher 3 Assassin's Creed Origins (and all the others) Far Cry Primal Horizon Zero Dawn Zelda BOTW Kingdom Come: Deliverance Overgrowth Divinety Dragons Dogma Dark souls (all of them) Bloodbourne Knights of the old Republic To name a few. Keep in mind I'm only listing ones with the fantasy/history slant...
Thank you for fulfilling my suggestion on having the next Investigation topic be about Project Offset. I really wanted everyone to know more about this game. Hopefully BLACK 2, Mega Man Legends 3, Silent Hills and Coded Arms Assault will get their very own investigation videos one day.
It's strange that developers work so hard to make something so fantastic, only for things to screw up big time. This was an great look-back, great job!
I designed that Dark Elf in the End! I really wish we were able to ship this game. It's really sad. I love the team. Thank you for sharing this and bring me back to that amazing time in my career. I was also lead story aside from Lead Character designer.
i remember my friends and i freaking out over the first announcement of this game when we were in high school. it looked incredible as much as i like this video, i feel like it doesn't really emphasize just *how* insane the things they were doing with their engine were at the time. they were pretty much 7-8 years ahead of everyone else. the xbox 360 wasn't even out at that time and the ps3 was still years away. just insane
My thoughts too but really, that's what happens every time a new console and it's exclusive games are announced but yeah this is on a whole other level...
Wtf Intel? At least sell off the IP if you aren't going to make a game based on it. What's the point of just letting it collect dust in your acquisition portfolio?
It's assholish but I can see why. The point is so that though they aren't willing to put the time and money to make something out of it, they don't want someone else who would. It would suck to sell the rights only for it to become a highly successful franchise.
Yep, the very same reason Microsoft won't sell anyone the Fable IP. They know anyone else would make a more successful go of it-and without shoehorning in Xbox gimmicks-so they'd rather it die instead.
Modern game engines can do all of what was showcased and far more, not to mention how many calculations GPUs can perform now compared to even the best of the best in 2005-2009. It would only take a small, knowledgeable, motivated studio to take the premise of the game and its emphasis on physical simulations to churn something like this game out in a few years.
@@gr8b8m85 They were among the first to do what they did, though, and it was highly optimized. That level of expertise... Had it been released, no doubt it would have been a success, and with the income, improvements to their tech. They would have been major players on the level of Epic, Valve, Id... I wish Intel wasn't such a shady-ass company.
Gameplay would've been superior to Skyrim, but a lot of games have that advantage over it. Probably still wouldn't have been a huge contender in the marketplace. As you say, looks more akin to DMMM.
Destruction, class-based gameplay, intertwining stories, multiplayer and a engine that's light years ahead of fucking Gamebryo? Todd and Skyrim would've had nothing on this.
I remember this one. But never saw the footage you showed here. Amazing. I always thought it was just a tech demo and not an actual game and assumed that was why they canceled it.
Dude i have searched like forever to find this footage. When this footage was new, especially the part with the troll and the castle battle i was like 13 years old or something and was dreaming that this might be a tech demo of some new elder scrolls titel^^ I always think of that stuff because it is just stuck in my head for the awe it inspired. Thanks for that video. I never knew there was this much footage of it. Also didnt remember the name... You did me a great nostalgic service :) regards from Germany.
I remember how exited I was for Project Offset way back in the day. It really sucked when I heard it was canceled, and I have to say it really makes ma sad, and angry to here that this is how it ended. I would absalutly love to see a game with it's style, and systems be made with the Unreal engine.
Project Offset was ahead for its time. Even today it looks good, and the game itself shows things we have not seen in other games. When I saw it over almost 20 years ago, its the same feeling I had when I saw Unreal Engine 5. At everyting is porsible. The story about Project Offset is sad.
I sincerely hope that one day the source code for this gets released so that the community can put its hands on it and get it to playable stage. Or even expand it and finish it. It would be a dream coming true. The world deserves this game.
jeah so basically... intel just said:" Hey tommy, gimme your toy for a moment, I want to play with it. Oh... my other toy broke... Sry tommy you can't have yours back" and then tommy got smacked by his mother for loosing his toy...
I remember following this game, including that interview on G4TV with McGrath demoing the physics & character models. A lot of these scenes must be from later on as I never saw them. It really was disappointing & frustrating that a huge corporation would take such intellectual property & then cancel it. Just as in the video above, I did remember that reason why Intel took this game as a way to help them with their graphics circuits in the years after their i740. And this was ironic for me personally as I used to work for Intel, as me & many people were hopeful & confident that someone as huge & prestigious as Intel Corp would have continued progress on the game. Nope!
Sounds like a typical gaming project where the reason for cancellation is blamed on funding but really comes down to the game being too idealistic for the cost and time, and not enough solid builds coming together to form a final product.
Thanks for making this video. I'd been so excited for Project Offset and I watched the tech demos they had released over and over, dreaming of the day I'd finally get to play this amazing looking game. I was extremely sad when I found out the game was cancelled, but I never knew that they'd been bought out by Intel. There was lots of game play footage I'd never seen, that you showed which just makes me even more sad that the game was never completed.
You guys should do a topic video about EA murdering studios like (visceral and most notably westwood) that led them to their downfall. Also their iconic good games gone very very bad.
*_Next do an episode about small studios such as Unknown Worlds making amazing games. They started with a Sudoku game then they did the mod for Half Life 1 Natural Selection and then they made their own game as a sequel called Natural Selection 2. On top of that their odd yet amazing game Subnautica is crazy good._*
Thank you for this video! I remember seeing this being talked about on websites back in the day, and seeing that Attack of the Show segment. Every once in a while, I thought of this game and wondered whatever happened to it. The last couple days, I couldn't remember the name, but was trying to figure out what that tech demo was that I saw. Such a shame this didn't finish development. I definitely learned a lot from your video though. Great work.
Intel bought this game to help push their Larabee GPU that never came to be. When it failed, they fired the devs. for those who don't want to sit through the video
Someone actually got a hold of a demo of the game and I saw a 15min video on youtube played by some Russian guy but now looking at it, the video can not be found. From what i recall, the demo was not impressive as the videos we see.It even reminded me of thief 3 actually as you can switch between first and third person.
Played in the beta of Firefall back in 2012, the game was amazing and the graphics and the world was breathtaking. I think Offset would be a champion among the bigger engines today like Crytek, Unity and Unreal if it had a continued support.
Some of it still looks pretty good you know. Bar some low res textures, the lighting and animation look just as good as anything coming out these days. I love it when devs pay attention to the little things, like shooting the arrow through the fire and smoke bit. Really cool stuff. No one really does that sort of thing anymore. What a shame this never made it.
Sounds to me like they made a project that was too ambitious and they didn't have the necessary resources to finish it before parts of it started to become obsolete.
Lesson? One I know well. Do not sell out to a big corporation. They come in all smiles and unlimited promises. As soon as they have full control? You are thoroughly screwed and then tossed into the dumpster. And the products you devoted large portions of your productive life to? They are cheapened all out of recognition and/or eliminated entirely. Big corporations go through this process to eliminate future competition; not because they value you or your products. DO NOT SELL OUT!
Oh man; I completely forgot about this until I saw this video! Jeez - I'm glad you guys hunted this info down and put this together. I always DID wanna know what happened with it. If you guys ever find out what happened to Huxley: The Dystopia - that big Unreal 3-powered MMOFPS that was supposed to hit early on in the Xbox 360's life - I'd love to hear about that too ;)
More time should've been spent explaining Larrabee to those who are unaware of it. Larrabee was not just a GPU but an x86 based GPU utilizing a large number of early Pentium derived cores, modified with very wide SIMD Vector Units 512 bits wide to act as the SIMD shaders found in GPUs. Texture Units were the only "normal" GPU common components to be included in the Larrabee architecture, with everything else being done on the x86 cores and highly software based - the software reason being the biggest strength of the idea of Larrabee. Instead of weird instruction sets and specific drivers to interact with DirectX or other APIs, developers could use commonly known x86 programming to execute operations on the Larrabee GPU. The work done for Larrabee, would go on to be used for the Xeon Phi many core processor.
I didn't know about this one, but the footage that has been shared with the public looks quite nice, especially for a game that would have already been quite old
Difference is you can play Star Citizen right now, in ten years time the game will have been released but you will still have people saying it's dead. The people who say the game is dead are the same ones that don't keep up with its dev.
I don't get why companies will just hoard IP and assets that they have zero intention of ever using. Even when devs are willing to buy back their work companies refuse. It's insane.
Thank you for doing a video on this game! I remember seeing it years ago but for the life of me couldn’t remember the name of it. Sad to see that it was never realized but like many games seems it’s main flaw was being too ambitious.
5:58 each of which were unique in appearance and skillsets. No, if you slow it down there were 3 different goblins, normal ones, ones with red shirt, and normal ones with shoulders pads on.
I'd never heard of this, but it looks beautiful for even a 2017 game. This is why any time a developer sells out, they need to build in an ironclad escape clause, so that if the publisher ends up cancelling the project, they can automatically take that project someplace else.
This is such a unique game, it sucks what Intel did. I feel like this game would actually do pretty well if it was released today with the same graphics and mechanics and everything.
"Check out this groundbreaking engine we made"
Intel: You made this?
Yes.
Intel: I made this
Weekly Cringe this made me chuckle
Intel: Check out this "GPGPU" we made, it's a processor that can run AAA games. It can even do ray-tracing
You made this?
Intel: Made what? What are you talking about? I know NOTHING!
(runs away)
Exactly how it went down too..
Runi The big thing was Larrabee was in no way feasible as a product. It was too hungry, too expensive, and based on a massive number low-perf x86 cores. This way before Sandy Bridge blew the lid off CPU perf. The big thing that separated Larrabee was branch prediction. You basically had a smart GPU with certain limitations.
"Hey, could we buy the license for Project Offset?"
"No, you can't buy our license"
"Are you doing something with it?"
"No"
Nice.
Rhys Young fallout 3 ?
Probably has something to do with the code being used in other game engines.
This is exactly how EA do to their fucking games.
We need dragon slayers, Dovakin maybe =)
It's Intel. Nobody should be surprised.
What a dick move of intel to not let them have their IP and engine back since they had no interest in doing anything with it after larrabee was killed.
intel has always been a dick company. support amd for openness, fairer pricing and not doing socket-scumming
Sorta like what happened to Fallout. Both Troika and Black Isle wanted to buy the IP, but talentless Bethesda made the bigger offer so now it sits in their cold, undeserving clutches being bastardized by people that don't understand Fallout and don't even want to.
Sadly, that´s how all companies work, they never, ever, ever give back IPs to their creators, even for un-released projects that they will never have any intentions of using. You can thank lawyers and a greedy mentality for those rules. This happens in the TV, the cinema and games industries. That´s why it was such a big deal when Sega happily handed over Yu Suzuki´s Shenmue license.
Defo a dick move, but thats pen-pushing fat-cats and executives for ya. Similar "executive rapes" happened to Tomb Raider (thats why its nothing but a 3rd person shooter now), same happened to Silent Hill, same happened to Tenchu, same only just happened to Metal Gear Solid; Also happened to Ridge Racer, Devil May Cry and very likely Saints Row (thats why after SR2, the series became a brain melting pot of purile stupidity that only appeals to people with the brain of a 4 year old), and thats just in the realm of games.
In other words when you "sell your baby", you better hope the publisher is on the same wavelength as you, because if they're not, you just sold your baby to be twisted out of shape and recycled into a hollow shell of its former self, sharing nothing in common with its ancestor except the name (again, Tomb Raider comes to mind...).
Maybe if theres a moral to the story its "don't sell ANY of your creations that you're not willing to see twisted out of all recognition later on down the line"! Google "Unseen64", its basically a bible to ALL those games that shared a similar fate to this!
You see the wonderful think about capitalism is that it is based in consent, two parties have to agree to make a transaction. Intel didn't want to sell property they owned, they have every right not to.
These videos of yours are always so depressing. Dreams, years of hard work, talent, and an unknown future in gaming crushed due to incompetence, greed, or outright petty vengeance. My only hope is that these videos will inspire future generations and create another dream.
Much like how Spec Ops was to 6 Days in Fallujah or Death Stranding was to Silent Hills, another project to avenge the fallen.
damn, the story behind the fail of 6 Days in Fallujah infuriated me
This is the reason crowd funding does so well today. Imagine Star Citizen being backed by a publisher instead of the players. It probably would've been a simple flight sim with cutscenes.
Nicely said Harvey... Agreed, don't fight the big guy, they own so they can bastardize it and mess it up let em. A hardware company making a software video game? Smells like some marketing idiot thought the Intel vid card would look good with the software tech this game had. Get even by creating better games and find ways to support new tech, new story lines, new vision.
Mandy's smile tore reality apart....
Yeah, I don't know why some companies refuse to let go of licenses for games which they have no intention of ever completing.
Maybe they fear a new game would not live up to the promise of the cancelled one, which would then reflect poorly upon the original license holder, or it's just spite : if we can't make it work, nobody else ever will either.
I'm reminded of the Wheel of Times fantasy book series, the original author (Robert Jordan) unfortunately passed away before finishing the series he'd been writing for well over a decade, but left enough notes and outlines for another author (Brandon Sanderson) to pick up the pieces and finally complete the last three books.
Games like this never made it to market, but games like Ride To Hell: Retribution did?
Is there no justice in the world???!!!
Yes. There is no justice. The world is awful
Ah, another story of how someone creates a unique thing, giant corporation buys it, then kicks the creator out, and does nothing with the unique thing, and refuses to give it back.
A tale as old as time ~
Song as old as rhyme ~
Bullshit and the Beast ~
Truth as old as song
Firestar4041 they sold this IP for money, someone bought and it's obvious that one decides should be its future.
The Microsoft & Rare story.
YESS! FINALLY YOU DID PROJECT OFFSET! And there's some footage here I've never seen before. You guys are constantly outdoing yourselves!
Back when game publishers were studying ways to make games better, than now which are studying ways to maximize profits. All of R&D has gone from fidelity and performance to manipulative psychology and political market trends.
Exactly. So very sad. -_-
*cough* Activision loot boxes trademarks *cough* sorry what was that?
its saddens me. I would love to develop games as I would enjoy it AND get satisfaction from others enjoying them... I would hate designing games just to have people pay actual money making everything I did obsolete.
fuck that and fuck King and that shit Candy game.
Damnit, I've wanted nothing more than a studio to challenge Bethesda in the market. They need competition so that they stop dumbing down their titles without consequence of losing their older fans.
Vurtax Are you joking? The open world action/RPG genre is perhaps the most crowded (excluding FPS games)
Tiernan Devine please name some of these titles so that i may play them. Outside of Risen, Elex, and MMOs
Vurtax
The Witcher 3
Assassin's Creed Origins (and all the others)
Far Cry Primal
Horizon Zero Dawn
Zelda BOTW
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Overgrowth
Divinety
Dragons Dogma
Dark souls (all of them)
Bloodbourne
Knights of the old Republic
To name a few. Keep in mind I'm only listing ones with the fantasy/history slant...
The only thing that I see that was dumbed down was the floating questmarkers on NPCs.
Kingdoms of Amalur was a pretty fun game that came out around the time Skyrim did.
Thank you for fulfilling my suggestion on having the next Investigation topic be about Project Offset. I really wanted everyone to know more about this game.
Hopefully BLACK 2, Mega Man Legends 3, Silent Hills and Coded Arms Assault will get their very own investigation videos one day.
It's strange that developers work so hard to make something so fantastic, only for things to screw up big time.
This was an great look-back, great job!
This game is too superior for ps3 which is has inferior hardware back then. No wonder it got cancelled.
Indy ramadhan Yea but its main release sytem was gonna be for pc
Man, even in 2020 we still don't have particle field and destruction physics like that.
I designed that Dark Elf in the End! I really wish we were able to ship this game. It's really sad. I love the team. Thank you for sharing this and bring me back to that amazing time in my career. I was also lead story aside from Lead Character designer.
nice, what are you guys working on atm?
Cool.
I followed this back during it's development. It was painful to see it die in Intel's hands. Thanks for the overview.
Same here, followed it since 2005. I'm surprised at how good it looks after being dead for 10 years. :'(
This game looked incredible, what a shame they didn't get to finish this masterpiece :\
i remember my friends and i freaking out over the first announcement of this game when we were in high school. it looked incredible
as much as i like this video, i feel like it doesn't really emphasize just *how* insane the things they were doing with their engine were at the time. they were pretty much 7-8 years ahead of everyone else. the xbox 360 wasn't even out at that time and the ps3 was still years away. just insane
At the time? Dude, we have nothing like that, as a game, currently and i still remembered their tech demo so many years later.
well duh is a PC exclusive game PC is and always will be years ahead of consoles.
looks better than skyrim
Honestly, it looks like it would have spanked the Elder Scrolls crap that has been produced, and with ease.
So you're telling me that making a game depend 100% on unfinished and even unconfirmed hardware was a _bad_ idea!?
Sonic Boom could have learned from this games failure.
It didn't depend on the Larrabee hardware, Intel wanted some Larrabee-exclusive features to debut with it... It's like what RTX is today.
My thoughts too but really, that's what happens every time a new console and it's exclusive games are announced but yeah this is on a whole other level...
That's shintel for you
Great info as always. Maybe you can do an investigation into the Gothic Sequel canceled game and other canceled projects of Pyranha Bytes?
well that's easy. Jowood is to blame or PB, because they bit off more than they can chew... again.
Wtf Intel? At least sell off the IP if you aren't going to make a game based on it. What's the point of just letting it collect dust in your acquisition portfolio?
It's assholish but I can see why. The point is so that though they aren't willing to put the time and money to make something out of it, they don't want someone else who would. It would suck to sell the rights only for it to become a highly successful franchise.
Yep, the very same reason Microsoft won't sell anyone the Fable IP. They know anyone else would make a more successful go of it-and without shoehorning in Xbox gimmicks-so they'd rather it die instead.
Modern game engines can do all of what was showcased and far more, not to mention how many calculations GPUs can perform now compared to even the best of the best in 2005-2009. It would only take a small, knowledgeable, motivated studio to take the premise of the game and its emphasis on physical simulations to churn something like this game out in a few years.
@@gr8b8m85 They were among the first to do what they did, though, and it was highly optimized. That level of expertise... Had it been released, no doubt it would have been a success, and with the income, improvements to their tech. They would have been major players on the level of Epic, Valve, Id... I wish Intel wasn't such a shady-ass company.
@@HickoryDickory86 hey I k ow your comment was 2 years ago. But just wanted to tell ya playground games is currently developing the new fable!
This doesn't look like it has much, if anything in common with Skyrim. More reminiscent of Might and Magic: Dark Messiah.
I loved that game, need more games of that genre imo.
yes
Even better.
Gameplay would've been superior to Skyrim, but a lot of games have that advantage over it. Probably still wouldn't have been a huge contender in the marketplace. As you say, looks more akin to DMMM.
And coincidentally Dark Messiah lost to Oblivion.
You should do commentary for documentaries.
I'm pretty sure he does, I believe I've heard his voice in documentaries
yea, he sounds really familiar.
Just letting u to know that there is many services out there can do for u a voice over, you just need to pay some
He does, you're looking at one
The History of Grand Theft Auto (Documentary) on youtube and the rise and fall of command and conquer are voiced by him
Destruction, class-based gameplay, intertwining stories, multiplayer and a engine that's light years ahead of fucking Gamebryo? Todd and Skyrim would've had nothing on this.
Normalized this would put Skyrim to shame corner. From groups unknown programmers. What a shame that it was cancelled. Pretty big loss here.
This seems like it would have been far less sandboxy and free than beth games. Just the fixed classes are a turnoff for me compared to TES games.
I am praying that Bethesda finally cans Gamebryo and Gamebryo based engines entirely
Yeah, I don't know why can't Bethesda just use id tech 5. They do own id software.
Well modding would have had to be way harder for this tho
I remember this one. But never saw the footage you showed here. Amazing. I always thought it was just a tech demo and not an actual game and assumed that was why they canceled it.
Dude i have searched like forever to find this footage. When this footage was new, especially the part with the troll and the castle battle i was like 13 years old or something and was dreaming that this might be a tech demo of some new elder scrolls titel^^ I always think of that stuff because it is just stuck in my head for the awe it inspired. Thanks for that video. I never knew there was this much footage of it. Also didnt remember the name... You did me a great nostalgic service :)
regards from Germany.
Fantastic video. :) I've always wondered what happened to Project Offset. I remember being blown away by those early test videos.
*Never stop this awesomeness videos*
Since they still own the licence to the title, they should remake it, or pay someone to make it, as an Xe graphics partner title.
EPIC VOICE MAN IS BACK TO BLESS OUR EARS ONCE AGAIN
I remember how exited I was for Project Offset way back in the day. It really sucked when I heard it was canceled, and I have to say it really makes ma sad, and angry to here that this is how it ended. I would absalutly love to see a game with it's style, and systems be made with the Unreal engine.
Project Offset was ahead for its time. Even today it looks good, and the game itself shows things we have not seen in other games. When I saw it over almost 20 years ago, its the same feeling I had when I saw Unreal Engine 5. At everyting is porsible. The story about Project Offset is sad.
I remember anticipating this games release. The idea of a fantasy themed, class-based, team objective FPS was intriguing.
did you not think we would notice the age of empires 3 gamplay music!!
I sincerely hope that one day the source code for this gets released so that the community can put its hands on it and get it to playable stage. Or even expand it and finish it. It would be a dream coming true. The world deserves this game.
jeah so basically... intel just said:" Hey tommy, gimme your toy for a moment, I want to play with it. Oh... my other toy broke... Sry tommy you can't have yours back" and then tommy got smacked by his mother for loosing his toy...
Man I was so excited for this game. Spent years just rewatching all their tech demos.
Me: what ever happened to Project Offset? I bet that channel Gvmers has a video on it...
GVMERS: Hi.
I remember following this game, including that interview on G4TV with McGrath demoing the physics & character models. A lot of these scenes must be from later on as I never saw them. It really was disappointing & frustrating that a huge corporation would take such intellectual property & then cancel it. Just as in the video above, I did remember that reason why Intel took this game as a way to help them with their graphics circuits in the years after their i740. And this was ironic for me personally as I used to work for Intel, as me & many people were hopeful & confident that someone as huge & prestigious as Intel Corp would have continued progress on the game. Nope!
This would have been a game changer. Graphics like that were not common in the mid 2000s.
Sounds like a typical gaming project where the reason for cancellation is blamed on funding but really comes down to the game being too idealistic for the cost and time, and not enough solid builds coming together to form a final product.
So EA isnt the only company capable of buying and killing studios
Basically, if you are a Dev, don't EVER sell your shit to another company with "hopes" they won't step all over it.
3:52 the beautiful soundtrack of Age of Empires 3. It fits so well!
This was my most anticipated game at the time.. I still prefer those graphics over any other similar games graphics
This video feels like I'm watching a documentary about something more important than video games.
I like the subtle use of Dragon Age music
AGE OF EMPIRES 3 MUSIC!! THE MEMORIES!!
what is the soundtrack called?
It's the second half of the track called "Get Ye Sum"
ruclips.net/video/aG-4dfbKQh4/видео.html around 2:03
I remember showing everybody the footage from Project Offset. I'm surprised to see it being brought up again so much later.
I remember this game! Jesus even now it still looks amazing than most games that are out right now lol
So sad
Thanks for making this video. I'd been so excited for Project Offset and I watched the tech demos they had released over and over, dreaming of the day I'd finally get to play this amazing looking game. I was extremely sad when I found out the game was cancelled, but I never knew that they'd been bought out by Intel.
There was lots of game play footage I'd never seen, that you showed which just makes me even more sad that the game was never completed.
I remember watching this when it came out and being blown away. I followed it for years and always wondered what happened. So damn sad.
Why the best games always get cancelled? I would play this over Skyrim all day long.
God... I want this. I WANT THIS.
I was very confused by Dragon Age music played over Oblivion footage.
You guys should do a topic video about EA murdering studios like (visceral and most notably westwood) that led them to their downfall. Also their iconic good games gone very very bad.
I hate videos like this because it's ALWAYS something that looks hype as fuck and I end up sitting here salted as fuck that it never came to happen
So, both GVMERS and Raycevick uploaded a new video today. Excellent.
Looks pretty impressive even today.
Still looking impressive 3 years from your comment.
Ah, Project Offset... first time I saw motion blur. And I instantly hated it.
This shows that there's a HUGE gap between tech demos and actual games.
*_Next do an episode about small studios such as Unknown Worlds making amazing games. They started with a Sudoku game then they did the mod for Half Life 1 Natural Selection and then they made their own game as a sequel called Natural Selection 2. On top of that their odd yet amazing game Subnautica is crazy good._*
even if this got released recently it would still be amazing
Criminally underrated video with loads of info on tech behind it
Thank you for this video! I remember seeing this being talked about on websites back in the day, and seeing that Attack of the Show segment. Every once in a while, I thought of this game and wondered whatever happened to it. The last couple days, I couldn't remember the name, but was trying to figure out what that tech demo was that I saw. Such a shame this didn't finish development. I definitely learned a lot from your video though. Great work.
They worked on Hawken? No wonder I loved Hawken. Another great game left to die through mismanagement :(
its sad so many good games were made that we'll never get to play
I bet many people cried when you saw Resistance at the beginning...
I still miss this game. I even won a prize back in the day... It's were two T-shirts with project offset written. I still have them
I was so hyped for this back in the day. Wish it was finished and released,
who didn't see that coming? A huge corp is only interested in parts of your ideas... not your idea as a whole.
Intel bought this game to help push their Larabee GPU that never came to be. When it failed, they fired the devs. for those who don't want to sit through the video
Damn it's too bad that Project Offset didn't come to life, o would love to see him go toe to toe with Skyrim
Someone actually got a hold of a demo of the game and I saw a 15min video on youtube played by some Russian guy but now looking at it, the video can not be found. From what i recall, the demo was not impressive as the videos we see.It even reminded me of thief 3 actually as you can switch between first and third person.
Yet another tale of "publisher killed it"
Played in the beta of Firefall back in 2012, the game was amazing and the graphics and the world was breathtaking.
I think Offset would be a champion among the bigger engines today like Crytek, Unity and Unreal if it had a continued support.
It looks like an interesting game but I don't know if it would've competed with Skyrim. It also looks like it was trying to do too much.
This is why you never sell away you rights to anything you create.
Some of it still looks pretty good you know. Bar some low res textures, the lighting and animation look just as good as anything coming out these days. I love it when devs pay attention to the little things, like shooting the arrow through the fire and smoke bit. Really cool stuff. No one really does that sort of thing anymore. What a shame this never made it.
Sounds to me like they made a project that was too ambitious and they didn't have the necessary resources to finish it before parts of it started to become obsolete.
How is it possible that you guys have less then a million subscribers? Great content as always
Lesson? One I know well. Do not sell out to a big corporation. They come in all smiles and unlimited promises. As soon as they have full control? You are thoroughly screwed and then tossed into the dumpster. And the products you devoted large portions of your productive life to? They are cheapened all out of recognition and/or eliminated entirely. Big corporations go through this process to eliminate future competition; not because they value you or your products. DO NOT SELL OUT!
I've been thinking about the initial reveal trailer in recent weeks, not being able to remember the name, wondering whatever happened to this.
Oh man; I completely forgot about this until I saw this video! Jeez - I'm glad you guys hunted this info down and put this together. I always DID wanna know what happened with it.
If you guys ever find out what happened to Huxley: The Dystopia - that big Unreal 3-powered MMOFPS that was supposed to hit early on in the Xbox 360's life - I'd love to hear about that too ;)
Just like the good old days of G4. Love you guys.
More time should've been spent explaining Larrabee to those who are unaware of it.
Larrabee was not just a GPU but an x86 based GPU utilizing a large number of early Pentium derived cores, modified with very wide SIMD Vector Units 512 bits wide to act as the SIMD shaders found in GPUs. Texture Units were the only "normal" GPU common components to be included in the Larrabee architecture, with everything else being done on the x86 cores and highly software based - the software reason being the biggest strength of the idea of Larrabee. Instead of weird instruction sets and specific drivers to interact with DirectX or other APIs, developers could use commonly known x86 programming to execute operations on the Larrabee GPU.
The work done for Larrabee, would go on to be used for the Xeon Phi many core processor.
Idc if the Offset engine is becoming obsolete. It still looks fucking amazing. Better than most games right now.
I didn't know about this one, but the footage that has been shared with the public looks quite nice, especially for a game that would have already been quite old
If you guys did an "Investigating Scalebound" video, I'd be eternally grateful.
Very well done! Interesting to hear about this game, a decade later. Impressive still!
It's 2022 and Project Offset still looks gorgeous!
if i ever start making games, i'll NEVER sell my IP. big corporate arseholes eventually ruin everything they touch
10 years from now:
"Investigating Star Citizen"
Difference is you can play Star Citizen right now, in ten years time the game will have been released but you will still have people saying it's dead. The people who say the game is dead are the same ones that don't keep up with its dev.
AYYYYYE you guys did my suggestion!
I remember being so hyped after seeibg trailers for this game. Then it never came out.
I don't get why companies will just hoard IP and assets that they have zero intention of ever using. Even when devs are willing to buy back their work companies refuse. It's insane.
Thank you for doing a video on this game! I remember seeing it years ago but for the life of me couldn’t remember the name of it. Sad to see that it was never realized but like many games seems it’s main flaw was being too ambitious.
This looked like something a lot of people would enjoy.
What is that music at the start of the video? it reminded me of dragon age inquisition's main theme
5:58 each of which were unique in appearance and skillsets. No, if you slow it down there were 3 different goblins, normal ones, ones with red shirt, and normal ones with shoulders pads on.
I'd never heard of this, but it looks beautiful for even a 2017 game. This is why any time a developer sells out, they need to build in an ironclad escape clause, so that if the publisher ends up cancelling the project, they can automatically take that project someplace else.
...Another potential gem that we shall never see....
This is such a unique game, it sucks what Intel did. I feel like this game would actually do pretty well if it was released today with the same graphics and mechanics and everything.
Yeah, I didn't even know about this. What a pity.