One of the properties you are associated with is Championship Manager. Its rival, Football Manager 2009, has been quite big; there have been many changes and there’s been online integration. Can we expect something similar from Championship Manager, or do you have something better in mind?
Championship Manager has been very close to my heart since 1993, when we first released it, and as everybody knows, the developers of Championship Manager were the Collyer brothers at Sports Interactive. We separated a number of years ago and they were bought by Sega. They created Football Manager and well done to them; they’ve done a great job. So when we started working on Championship Manager without Sports Interactive, we started, not from scratch, but from a new position, and it’s taken a couple of years to get the game up to the quality that we want. But I think most people will agree that the Championship Manager that you’ll see this year will be at least comparable and perhaps better than Football Manager. I can’t guarantee that it’s going to be better, but personally, I firmly believe that it’s going to be a better experience because if you look at the forums, there has been some disappointment with Football Manager, and there’s also been a lot of anticipation for the new Championship Manager. So we’re back in the game, and we have a good chance of getting the win this year.
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Can you give us some details about the next Hitman game?
It’s being worked on, but there’s been no announcement on the release date yet. We haven’t even announced the game yet, so everything you hear about the next Hitman game is purely speculation at this point.
Will it be IO Interactive working on this one as well?
Yes, it’s IO Interactive. They’re making Hitman, Kane and Lynch and also Mini Ninjas; all at the same studio.
Is Kane and Lynch 2 on schedule for release this year?
There’s a target date for September, but as you understand, these games often slip because the production times are so difficult to predict due to the amount of work they have to put into them now in high-end consoles. It’s a tough business.
What about the Kane and Lynch movie?
Yes, hopefully there will be a Kane and Lynch movie. They haven’t started production yet, but it’s getting close.
Has the cast been decided yet? There has been talk of Bruce Willis.
Yes, we understand Bruce Willis will be in the film. Unfortunately, I can’t talk too much about it at the moment. We’re very excited in general that Hollywood sees value in the characters we’ve created. Hollywood initially created its own characters; then they looked to books and comic books for stories and characters, and now they’re looking at games, because they see the rise in the popularity of these video game characters. So it’s great that we’ve had Tomb Raider movies, we’ve had a Hitman movie; now there’s a Kane and Lynch movie and possibly another Tomb Raider movie. We’re also looking at the possibility of a television animated series based on Mini Ninjas.
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Tomb Raider has probably been your biggest franchise over the years. But sales for Underworld haven’t been up to the mark. Do you think the series is losing steam now?
Underworld has met our target expectations, but it’s a tough market at the moment. There aren’t as many PlayStation 3s or Xbox 360s in the world as there were PlayStation 2s or PlayStation Ones. The hardware is quite expensive and production costs are rising. So there are certain challenges, but as a franchise, I don’t think Lara Croft is going down at all. In fact, her popularity continues to increase. Not every game has been brilliant; Angel of Darkness is probably the dark point in her career. If you look at movies, James Bond has survived 40 years. Not all those films have been great, but the character remains strong. The next Tomb Raider, I think, will surprise a lot of people and reinvigorate the franchise. There are some remarkable things we’re doing in the next Tomb Raider to make you say, “Oh Lara, I love you so much!”
Eidos Montreal are currently working on Deus Ex 3, and they’ve announced that they’re working on a secret second project.
Yes, they are.
Could that be Thief IV?
You might think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.
Okay, do you plan to release another Thief game in the future?
Well, we did some research on all our franchises and the one that was most wanted was Thief. So you might want to draw your own conclusions, but I cannot confirm that.
Is it an entirely new team that makes up Eidos Montreal and the team working on Deus Ex 3 or does it include people who’ve worked on the previous games?
It’s an entirely new team. Most of them are Montreal-based and they’ve come from various other studios based there. So we’ve hired the best people in the business from Montreal and also from outside Canada to work on Deus Ex. It’s an incredible studio; the most advanced studio I’ve seen. And of course, for a franchise like Deus Ex, everyone wants to work on it because of its legacy and history. So there’s a lot to live up to as well.
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So is Deus Ex 3 coming this year?
No, not this year.
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