bethesds-softworks posts

Close to 10 years ago, Paul Wedgwood was living in the UK and making mods for Quake III Arena and other games with a group of friends. Today, Wedgwood is the leader of Splash Damage, already one of the biggest UK based game developers. The team is currently creating Brink, a sci-fi first person shooter for publisher Bethesda Softworks that is aiming to blur the line between single player and multiplayer.

In a brief chat during QuakeCon 2009 on Thursday, Big Download talked to Wedgewood about forming Splash Damage after first creating levels and mods on their own based on id Software games. Wedgewood said he and the small mod team enjoyed their mod work, saying, "We loved it. We absolutely wanted to do this as a job." Indeed they came to previous QuakeCons ago and got to know id Software team members. Wedgewood said they basically pestered id during the shows, saying basically, "Just let us make a game for you, please."

They got their chance when they submitted their idea to id Software for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. The totally free multiplayer only stand alone game was released in 2003. Wedgewood said that about 15,000 people play the game at any one time even today and that half a billion matches have been played. The game led to their first true retail game Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, another collaboration with id which was released to great acclaim by Activision in 2007.

All throughout their life, Splash Damage received "fantastic mentorship from id" and that is actually continuing with Brink. Even though this is their first game based on an original IP, Splash Damage is still using the id Tech 4 engine (with modifications) for the game.

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