As was reported a month ago, Compulsion Games have released a new making-of doc for We Happy Few entitled “The Cost of Joy”, a free 40 minute documentary that gives insight into We Happy Few’s development.
In addition, in an interview with US Gamer, founder Guillame Provost talked about how the team plans to use what they’ve learned from We Happy Few (which admittedly didn’t turn out as the team had hoped) as they start working on their next project.
According to Provost, part of what made We Happy Few disappointing to some was that, given its Orwellian story and feel, many compared it to BioShock. “Everybody said, ‘BioShock, BioShock, BioShock,’” Provost tells me. “And I went, ‘Whoa, wait a minute.’ BioShock is [Irrational Games], that’s $80 million that’s a budget. That’s way more people than we have. And it’s also expertise that we didn’t have to fulfill those expectations.”
Another part of the game’s setbacks was “scope creep”, where as new team members joined and offered new ideas, those ideas kept pushing things far beyond what the team was capable of doing/properly executing. That being said, it was also a plus for Compulsion, as the new members had the experience and skillset to craft these ideas, flawed as the final result might be.
“Each time we onboarded a new person who would be one of the kind of directors of the game, there was a bit of a gravity shift of what the game became,” Provost says. “Because that person came in with their expertise, their baggage and experience, which would ultimately help us craft a better game but also create some instability in terms of the direction of the game when you’re onboarding them.”
In spite of the setbacks, Provost feels Compulsion is in a much better place now, especially now that they’ve partnered with Microsoft. “Things feel like they’re gonna get a lot easier for us to succeed [in the future],” Provost says. “If we don’t make something much better than the last game, then something is uber-wrong with my direction for the studio.”
We Happy Few is available for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
