threewave-software posts

It's been a very bad year for established game developers with quite a few that have closed their doors and this weekend word got out of yet another possible shut down. Vancouver-based Threewave Software has definitely let go of some of its employees but as Gamasutra reports, their CEO Dan Irish has denied that the company has shut down entirely, saying "Some, not all of our employees were given notices. We are trying to move forward in a manner that reflects today's realities."

Threewave Software was established by a group of team members who first got started in the Quake mod community as they helped to create the popular Threewave Capture the Flag mod. The team then decided to become a professional game developer and while they never made titles on their own they were contracted to do multiplayer maps and mods for a variety of games including Doom III, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Turok and others.

Gamers were upset when it was learned a few days ago that the PC version of Ghostbusters would lack the multiplayer features that its Xbox 360 and PS2 counterparts have. We asked the game's publisher Atari for comment on this issue and they sent over a response from Dan Irish, the CEO of the game's multiplayer developer Threewave Software:

Multiplayer for the PC version of Ghostbusters is something that Threewave and Terminal Reality always wanted to do. However, our focus was on making the console version the best that they could be - an experience that allows multiple players to re-live and re-fight many of the themes from the movies. When we looked at the resources necessary to pull off multiplayer on the consoles and the PC, it became a question of what could we do and still be excellent in our execution. We couldn't do all versions with multiplayer simultaneously with the resources that we had available - there was simply too much to do. Something would have to suffer. Therefore, we kept our focus on making the console versions deliver on the promise of being an integral player on the Ghostbusters team.

We have yet to receive a response to our other question on if Atari plans to add multiplayer support for the PC version of Ghostbusters via a patch.

While Atari has pulled out of exhibiting at E3 next month they are still planning to publish the long awaited Ghostbusters game later in June for the PC in North America (Europeans have to wait until later). Today GameTrailers debuts a new movie that shows of the multiplayer action in the game.

While Terminal Reality handled the single player portion of the Ghostbusters game it was multiplayer game specialists Threewave Software that created the multiplayer modes. The trailer shows off the fact that the game will allow you to play as any of the Ghostbusters team in co-op style multiplayer against AI ghost enemies so your dreams of playing as Dr. Peter Venkman can now be fulfilled. Look for the final version to be released on June 16.