In that timeline, theres no telling whether the studio would even exist today.
We were going a little more into those territories without betraying what we liked, Colantonio says.
And hopefully we would do things that were a little more mass market.
With The Crossing, Arkane intended to travel further down that path, building a full-onFPSin Valves engine.
Which was so shooter-oriented already, Colantonio says.
And so that was a natural evolution.
The tools dictate so much of what you do.
But there the similarities with mainstream noughties shooters would end.
It really started with a silly conversation, Colantonio says.
Imagine someone was playing Half-Life 2, and you could choose to drop in and randomly incarnate the enemies.
There was something beautiful about the idea itself.
We didnt know if it would be fun or possible.
It became an obsession.
Now he was returning from the US to France, where Colantonio and his team were based.
He was quickly sold on the premise of The Crossing, and in particular the universe behind it.
And there was this alternate dimension where the Templars had actually survived and created an entire world.
They did not get eradicated by the Church, they were in power.
Somehow a portal has been created by scientists who are just going there to scavenge, Colantonio says.
moments in which you realize you’ve seen this same situation or conflict from a different perspective.
It was actually really smart at the end, Colantonio says.
It took a lot of iterations.
They had the benefit of mobility and a beefy health bar.
But the enemy players, SWAT-esque soldiers dubbed Griefers, had numbers on their side.
They had their own gadgets, but different, and it was four versus one, Colantonio says.
Typically, the Archon would get gunned down in their first round.
Every time we would show it to publishers it was so fun.
The director remembers demoing The Crossing for a major publisher.
They were screaming in joy and laughing, he says.
Once the play session was over, however, the smiles would quickly fade.
Publishers would ask: what happens if the players are of different skill levels?
And thats where the concept would break every time.
Colantonio didnt have 100 people.
Me being me, I contacted him, Colantonio says.
It sounded like maybe someone could save us.
With him on board, Arkane was convinced a good deal was around the corner.
But it never came.
We hadnt done Dishonored.
Are you sure youre gonna pull off the matchmaking thing youre talking about?
How is it going to be fun for the Griefers to be killed all the time by the superhero?
There were so many constraints.
The most enjoyable part of all this process was to tell them, No.
They really thought they had us.
They were kind of evil, frankly, as businessmen.
But the unhappy outcome of working on The Crossing had been bruising in the extreme.
It was my pet project, Colantonio says.
The team was devastated, Colantonio says.
I took it so to heart.
You cant be too Buddhist about it.
The cost of that is that when it doesnt work, youre crushed.
Colantonio reckons it took him seven or eight years to get over the pain.
Specifically, it took the release and reception of Arkanes breakthrough hit.
We needed Dishonored to heal from The Crossing, he says.
We needed that game and its success to feel good about ourselves again.
But Colantonio was never tempted to exhume the project afterwards.
We talked about it with Bethesda, he says.
For me thats like an ex-girlfriend at this point, Ive moved on.
Coming back to it came with too many memories, too much pain.
And yet, almost every element of The Crossing has appeared somewhere in Arkanes work since.
We had worked together and trained with Viktor and Dishonored was ready to be made.
Swap the Nazis for Templars and youll recognise The Crossing.
I remember thinking the same, Colantonio says.
Its the same art director, so no surprise.
And then, finally, theresDeathloop, which entered development around a year before Colantonio left Arkane in 2017.
They saw it as an opportunity to re-explore some of the concept of The Crossing, Colantonio says.
To all of us, frankly, The Crossing stayed as this kind of unfinished business.
Once again, Arkane was making a campaign FPS that could beinterrupted by player invasions.
Colantonio was supportive, but a little afraid.
For many years, playing The Crossings prototype was a rite of passage for new employees joining Arkane.
Today, Colantonio would like to see that build released to the public.
It would be cumbersome to make work, he says.
It was not ready for market.
But someone would figure it out.
