More game developers flocked to San Francisco this year for GDC than ever before.
Kojima Productions’ Hideo Kojima revealed and shared first looks for Metal Gear Solid 5 during a talk on the Design/Visual Arts Track, and also confirmed plans for a new development office in Los Angeles. The legendary game developer also provided developers with a first look at a new proprietary project called the FOX engine, and described how the technology will provide a platform for further innovation in the game making process.
Creating safe spaces in the game development for everyone has been a hot industry topic of late and GDC made significant efforts to address criticisms head-on with the all new Advocacy Track. A highlight of the track was the #1ReasontoBe session, a panel dedicated to creating an open dialogue about what it means to be a woman in the games industry and what actions are necessary to foster more inclusiveness. Other sessions in the track included an examination of the gaming industry as society’s scapegoat and a lecture that encouraged developers to create more diverse characters and character profiles.
Additionally, several exciting hardware details were shown off at this year’s event for platforms and devices including Oculus Rift, PlayJam’s GameStick, Ouya and Sony’s highly anticipated PlayStation 4 next-gen console.
The popular Classic Game Postmortem series returned this year featuring Franz Lanziger, discussingCrystal Castles, Robyn Miller talking about the creation of Myst, Bill Budge lecturing about his inspirational Pinball Construction Set and Julian Gollop talking about the origins of X-COM: UFO Defense. The creators of each game took attendees on a trip behind the scenes of some of the most influential games of the industry’s history.
