Straight from the horse’s mouth, ACE Team have just revealed a post-launch Zeno Clash trailer to “celebrate the announcement of ACE Team’s next project; Zeno Clash 2”.
The sequel is to continue directly where its predecessor left off, with both Father Mother and the mysterious Golem making a return alongside an extended cast of characters. Glorious! It’s certainly uplifting, from our perspective, to hear that Zeno Clash has done well enough to warrant itself a sequel. If only ACE Team’s apparent success at capitalizing on the small-scale format did not rather vividly remind us of earlier failures of the similar kind, with the likes of Sin Episodes failing to grow into a full-fledged franchise.
In relation to Michael Russell’s post on Sin Episodes above, one might surmise that a fair portion of the success should be owed to the collective goodwill and support ACE Team managed to accumulate over a relatively short period of time, with developer Carlos Bordeu going so far as to reach out to torrenters in the comment section of a torrent for the game, and with project leader Andres talking often and directly to the likes of ModDB. The game’s unique look must have also contributed to the game standing out from the crowd.
Ultimately, what propelled the game upwards in the sales ranks was the company’s decision to aggressively utilize various guerilla discounts to produce interest and word-of-mouth. Finally, the team never overreached, even choosing to scrap an earlier project of much larger scope in favour of a more concise experience that prudently focused on doing one thing – FPS melee – well.
In retrospect, it’s quite fantastic how Andres’ earlier remarks, that “the unconventional has been the safe thing to do” 1)http://www.moddb.com/games/zeno-clash/features/zeno-clash-interview-part-1, came to be sagacious instead of inauspicious.
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