GB Feature: Titan Quest Post-Release Interview

We’ve published a short interview with Iron Lore’s Mike Verrette, in which we quiz the associate producer about the team’s plans for the future of Titan Quest.

GB: Looking back, is there anything about the development of Titan Quest that you would have liked to change? Were you forced to remove features or cut any content due to cost or time constraints?

Mike: The biggest challenge we faced in making Titan Quest was building the team at the same time we were building the game. I frequently see people mention that Titan Quest was in development for 5-6 years. In actuality, Iron Lore was in development for 5-6 years but the first two to three years were spent forming the company, the product goals, and building relationships with publishers and creating technology demos. The actual game was only in production for about two and a half years. And during those two and half years we had to move the company from a six man team in a basement office to a full production team of close to 40 people. That growth process is never a predictable one nor is it a linear one, so for those reasons there were a lot of development changes that did take place on the game.

Some of the features that we wanted to include the most in this product were things like a rotatable camera and secure character storage. Also additional multiplayer game types and features… more in depth character creation at game start. Unfortunately the reality of game development just did not allow for those things. There are budgets and there are time constraints and schedules – especially for a start up developer working to get their first product to market. And through all of that THQ has been a great partner in helping us make the difficult choices in determining what features had to be cut and which features would make release, believing in Titan Quest and committing to supporting it post release as well.