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Namco Bandai’s UK marketing boss, Lee Kirton, has revealed that the publisher still has plans for Ninja Theory’s post apocalyptic adventure, Enslaved.
“We are exploring new opportunities with Enslaved of course.” Kirton told VG247. “As a video game developer and publisher we have learned a lot, and this industry continues to on a regular basis, and yes there would have been some things that would have been done different.”
Although the game has now clocked over 730k units, the game fell well short of Namco’s initial target of 1 million, and was considered a disappointment from a sales perspective. Namco has admitted that it ‘got Enslaved’s timing wrong’.
“Ultimately what we did was put a lot of love behind something that we truly respected.” Kirton explained. “We built a great amount of awareness around the title, we created a ‘word of mouth’ buzz, it got great reviews, got picked all across the national press, lifestyle media, got some great nominations for many awards and Namco Bandai is mentioned as a publishing hero.”
Enslaved: Journey to the West scooped up the Best New IP award at last night’s Develop Awards, an accolade that will undoubtedly help the future of the franchise.
There’s certainly a lot of love for Enslaved in the office. Tom gave it a respectable 8/10 in his review, calling it “an excellent new IP in an era when sequels dominate the gaming landscape”. I was particularly fond of the game, and news that Namco Bandai is looking into ‘new opportunities’ fills me with a warm fuzziness. While it was looking bleak at one point, I’m still crossing my fingers for that sequel.
