TITLE
The story of The Crossing, Arkane’s lost game
AUTHOR
Blake Hester
PUBLICATION
Polygon
YEAR
2018
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
When asked about The Crossing, Raphael Colantonio and Viktor Antonov, two of the game’s leads, liken it to an ex-girlfriend. They were passionate about the project. They still have love for it. When they walked away, it was painful. But they’d never go back. Rather, they took the lessons learned and applied them to the rest of their respective careers.The Crossing, at its core, was an experiment. It was a test to see if single-player and multiplayer could be one in the same, replacing a game’s AI with real-world players. It was also an homage to and examination of Paris — the city where both lived at the time. It was a risk, financially and commercially, that never came to fruition before Arkane Studios, on its own terms, cancelled the project. The team went on to develop the critically-acclaimed Dishonored series, and most recently Prey. The Crossing is in both the DNA of these games and Arkane itself.
To find out what happened, we talked to some of the game’s leads about what The Crossing was, how it played and why Arkane walked away from it. What we learned is a story of ambition, passion and pain, all wrapped up in something no one outside of Arkane will ever play.
COMPANIES MENTIONED
Arkane Studios
GAMES MENTIONED
The Crossing
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Viktor Antonov
Raphael Colantonio
TOPICS MENTIONED
Canceled Games