Dev: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Has “Healthy” PS4 Exclusivity Period
One particular indie game shined above all else for our team at Gamescom: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, due for release on PC in just two weeks (25th September, to be exact) and announced at Gamescom to be in development for PlayStation 4 as well, for a planned release in 2015. The game won our Gamescom 2014 Award for indie games, and Rosh talked about it in an extensive preview.
However, we managed to snatch Adrian Chmielarz, former Creative Director for People Can Fly and now Game Designer of The Astronauts, away from the crunching phase in order to ask him a few questions.
Today we present you a preview with an highlight on the state of the PS4 version, its exclusivity nature and the likelihood of a release on Xbox One. For PS4, we tried to ask about details on resolution/frame rate but Chmielarz replied that they haven’t really started working on it at the moment, since they’re focusing on the PC launch first.
We haven’t really started with PS4 yet. I mean, yes, we took a look and even had one of the levels up and running, but in the end we have decided to focus 100% on the PC first. Only after the game is released on PC we will go back and continue PS4 development.
As for the Xbox One, the team had previously stated on Twitter that the Xbox parity clause might have been a problem. We noted that Just Add Water had the same issue and was eventually able to move past the clause, and Chmielarz is well aware of this, but it sounds like the game is not coming on Microsoft’s console for a long time - there’s a substantial PS4 exclusivity period first.
We have seen the same thing with Outlast, that appeared on PC/PS4 first, and now is available on Xbox One as well. So I guess if your game’s profile is high enough, you can get past the parity clause gates. If it makes sense for us, we will try to get the game released on Xbox One. But honestly I have no idea if that will ever happen, and if it does, it certainly won’t be any time soon, as there’s a healthy exclusivity period for the PS4 version of Ethan Carter.
Come back tomorrow to read the full interview with more on the game’s inspirations and design.