► Project Maxim
In the year 200X, the up and coming video game developer Crosscom, fresh off their acquisition by Parallax Systems, had reached perhaps their greatest milestone yet with the release of the highly anticipated spiritual successor to their home computer sleeper hit
Stray Blades, eventually being known for its detailed RPG elements, ambitious level design, and reasonable price tag. Now after so many years,
Exolution was poised to pick up where its predecessor left off, only this time to amazing critical and commercial success.
Eager to use all the leadership experience and technical expertise he'd earned from helping to revitalize the decision simulator genre with his critically acclaimed reboot of the
Everybody Dies series, lead studio director Sullivan Meyers envisioned a cutting-edge yet not too distant future of cybernetics-fueled international espionage and world-shattering conspiracies, one where the player's actions well and truly mattered, a remarkable first for the industry. In an interview with
Big Hunt Gamers soon after the title's June debut, who themselves had given the game an emphatic 10/10, he opened up about his experience while implementing this most renowned feature.
"
You could say that, if most playthroughs seemed like a series of happy accidents, then making the thing was even more so. For months after fully implementing the Butterfly System, I'd always arrive for the day to hear that the play testers ran into something. And as the project lead, my mind is all 'Oh boy, what's the problem this time', but half of the time it'd turn out that they just ran into an in-game event or situation that surprised them we'll say. I always got the sense that we were onto something special every time that happened. (Chuckle)"
- Sullivan Meyers
Yet it was unclear at the time of the interview if even Sullivan could have guessed what the long term reception to his new project would be. While the original sold exceptionally well, easily fueling parent company Parallax's interest in a sequel, it soon became clear that the gameplay features on display in the budding franchise weren't the only things that were perceived as ahead of their time. Over the course of their flexible, lengthy campaigns, players would find all manner of themes and predictive occurrences of wold-building as per the setting. Many were easily dismissed as harmless worldbuilding, but in the cases of some elements, renewed interest would ripple throughout the gaming community and beyond, debates sparking over the series' uncanny ability to predict real-world events in advanced.