Former Microsoft Games Studio head and current Airtight Co-founder, Ed Fries, recently spent some time chatting with Game Daily about such topics as Dark Void (and the trials and tribulations of pitching projects to Capcom :) ), where the idea's for the game's vertical combat came from, Sony's improving position in the marketplace, the value of Nintendo expanding gaming audiences, the state of the Xbox business and more.

Here's an excerpt:

 "We were talking about doing a sort of continuation of the ideas of Crimson Skies but adding on-foot, but that's a lot to do in three months. ... It was a herculean effort. We got it all together for the prototype meeting but it was just barely holding together. [Fries chuckles] I remember we went down and visited Capcom and we knew it wasn't everything we wanted it to be... In the end, even though there were a bunch of problems with it they agreed to fund the full project. It was weird; we flew home and I had mixed feelings. On the one hand we were excited that we got the project funded, but on the other hand something was kind of eating at me... I realized as soon as you started walking around the game just felt like every other first-person shooter. I felt like we were doing the same thing everyone else was doing.

"I sat down with the team on Monday and told them 'I think we can finish the game as is and it would be an OK game but I don't want to spend the next couple years making an OK game. I want to do something new, that hasn't been done before... If we're going to make a change now's the time to do it; we're right at the end of prototype'," Fries elaborated. And so with that, the project that was to become Dark Void was about to get a facelift.

The reality is, at that time it was waaaay more than a facelift that was about to happen, but a complete "do-over", from the backstory, to the art style to the gameplay mechanics. But that's a story we'll share another day.

In the mean time, Ed talks about a lot of interesting topics, so head over to Game Daily and read the whole story. It's worth your time.