福克斯游戏部门FoxNext负责人谈与漫威合作和X战警版权的获取

原作者：Brian Shea 译者：Vivian Xue

2017年1月，二十世纪福克斯成立了新部门FoxNext，负责公司的电子游戏、虚拟现实和主题公园项目。从即将到来的以《异形》（Alien）为背景故事蓝本的射击游戏，到最近的《猩球崛起》(Planet of the Apes)冒险游戏，FoxNext利用手头IP与多个工作室合作开发了数款游戏。旗下的最新作品《神威战队》(Marvel Strike Force)是一款回合制策略手游，围绕集结众多漫威英雄共同对抗多方威胁。

在与FoxNext副总裁兼总经理Amir Rahimi的交谈中，他同我聊了和漫威合作的感受，以及FoxNext创立的总体规划。以下是我们的谈话内容。

-FoxNext是福克斯进军电子游戏行业的一大步。拥有漫威、异形等众多的IP为你们带来了优势。福克斯创建FoxNext的总体目标是什么？

根据他们向我所描述的，以及我自身的理解，福克斯真诚希望能够主导叙事的未来。电影、电视剧的制作经验使他们精通了这领域的知识，并且希望把它应用到互动领域中。我喜爱的是福克斯公司对待创意的成熟态度。他们真正明白，创意是一切努力的核心；而在其他公司，你不一定能看到这一点，很多时候他们以技术为中心或者以商业为中心。福克斯能够让创作者保持创造性和创新性，这一点真的非常，非常棒。

他们对互动叙事的定义非常广泛，并且让我们这些创作者来决定它意味着什么。对于我们在旧金山的工作室Fogbank来说，它意味着一些更接近于福克斯风格的东西。他们将制作一些有趣的叙事游戏。对我们洛杉矶的员工来说，它意味着为玩家提供工具并让玩家通过深刻而有意义的互动来实现自己的幻想和讲述自己的故事。因此我们的真正的关注点是社交。我们希望创造一个以玩家间互动为剧情的游戏。

-团队如何决定适合游戏的IP？

在福克斯工作最酷的地方是决策并非是自上而下的，他们真的让我们来做决定。我们会从不同的角度来考虑。首先，我们会考虑团队的专业知识和他们的兴趣所在，然后试着找出我们最擅长制作的游戏模式。比如，我们的漫威项目创意总监Jason Bender是《暗黑破坏神3》主机版本的首席设计师之一，也是一位资深的游戏设计师。

我们一直很喜欢回合制策略游戏，所以多年来我们一直在思考一个这样的游戏模型。当我们对游戏机制有一些概念后，我们通过媒体寻找是否有合适的IP。如果没有，我们会培养自己的IP。在这种情况下，对于一个回合制策略游戏来说，没有比收集和使用漫威系列英雄更理想和完美的设定了。当时我们还在Kabam（被福克斯收购，游戏邦注），且和漫威有合作关系，因此我们能够拿到授权。

Marvel Strike Force（from pocketgamer.biz）

《阿凡达》手游与之类似。我们制作即时战略游戏很长一段时间了。很久以前，我们曾是EA 《命令与征服》的开发团队。我们制作过几个《命令与征服》和《指环王》即时战略游戏。在和Lightstorm娱乐的人交流并见证了他们为《阿凡达》续作所做的准备后，我们受到了很大的启发。我们所有人听说了之后，都觉得它会成为一个完美的战略游戏。

我喜欢福克斯的一点是，他们甚至不在乎我们是否用IP；他们想要的是创新以及对我们行业最有益的东西。如果我们决定使用新的IP，他们不会对此有什么意见。尽管他们最重要的《阿凡达》或者漫威IP确实会对你有所帮助。

-你们和影视IP创意团队有互动吗？

有。我们的主要联络人是一个叫Bill Rosemann(漫威游戏执行创意总监)的家伙，他简直是个传奇人物。和那个家伙喝一杯，聊聊漫威真的很有趣。我们几乎能从他和漫威游戏团队那儿得到我们想要的一切。

-《阿凡达》主题的游戏还不是太多，但是像《异形》和漫威这样的IP游戏已经有了成千上万种。你们如何在现有的游戏中脱颖而出呢？

我们实现了一些非常棒的创新。在这一部漫威游戏中，我们在几个方面进行了创新。一个是战斗，以及战斗中的互动。我们从某种程度上实现了电影级的动作和品质，我认为这在移动游戏中是前所未有的。目前的战略游戏很多都基于团队作战，但它们大多无法让你真正同队友配合作战，而像是一个人攻击后，另一个人再攻击，然后他们就这样来回移动。我们正努力创造更酷的团队作战模式。玩家可通过多种不同的方式互相配合，如果你有几对标志性的漫威角色，你可以让他们像在你最爱的电影中一样战斗。

-福克斯拥有漫威电影宇宙的部分版权。你们使用迪士尼旗下的漫威角色会遇到障碍吗？

不。事实上，障碍是反过来的。我们获得了漫威授权，因此我们可以使用所有伟大的漫威角色。但我们之前没有X战警。我们现在已经努力获得了X战警的版权，并不是所有的漫威游戏都能做到这一点，事实上如今这有点困难。

-即使是最新版的《漫画英雄VS卡普空3》也没有。

是的。因此，我们团队对拥有X战警版权感到非常兴奋。他们是漫威宇宙中的高人气角色。我们为此付出了很多。不久前我们才得到了授权，但我们会努力在游戏发行前加入金刚狼角色。

-如果你们在福克斯底下工作，你们的游戏获得福克斯版权比如说X战警的障碍会是什么？

我们所遇到的阻碍绝非来自福克斯。很明显福克斯想让我们拿到授权。漫威也没有以任何不当的方式阻碍我们，他们不会把版权都给某一方，这是他们的原则，我们之前没能得到X战警。因此我们得去争取X战警。我不知道是什么原因导致他们最终同意了。我想他们大概希望我们能从某种程度上证明自己，做出一个值得获得这些版权的游戏。我们同他们保持着密切的合作，并且他们对我们的工作成果一直挺满意的。他们看到了我们的测试版指标，并留下了深刻的印象。如果非要我猜的话，这一点可能在某些方面起到了润滑的作用。

-那么其他的版权呢？比如属于索尼的蜘蛛侠或者确切地说仍然和环球影业挂钩的绿巨人。

这些并没有影响到我们。绿巨人和蜘蛛侠在最初的交易中就被我们拿下了。只有X战警和神奇四侠的版权让我们非常头疼。我觉得他们不会把神奇四侠给任何人。

-漫威最近似乎有意保护他们。鉴于《神奇四侠》电影的惨淡，这也合情合理。

这大概是原因之一，对吧？ 我们如今获得了X战警，以及上百个人物授权。

-X战警版权包括死侍吗？

当然。并且随着《死侍 2》即将上映，我们将在这方面做些大事。

-依过去所见，娱乐公司在游戏行业并没有什么建树，比如迪斯尼曾经涉足游戏制作，甚至全身心地投入到游戏中，然后突然改变了主意。福克斯是出于什么原因制定了这个计划呢？

福克斯进入游戏行业并不是我的决定，我也不相信这与我有关。我认为是因为福克斯看到了娱乐行业的未来并且认为互动将会是其中的一个关键部分。我想他们将为我们提供任何可能成功的方式。我认为如果他们选择退出，原因很可能是我们没能力实现它。我的意思并不是说取决于这一个游戏，我们已经构思出了一个非常吸引人的作品集，我想公司会给我一个机会并且支持我们。如果我们无法实行的话，我不会指望他们给我们这个机会。

-漫威旗下有数千个英雄和反派人物，而《异形》总共就那么几个。《异形》射击游戏的制作团队是如何在角色资源有限的情况下制作出吸引人的游戏呢？

这个游戏并不直接归我管理，因此我无法替他们表达游戏的创作愿景，但是我们对不同IP的采取的态度是挖掘它们的特殊性。我们永远不会——仅代表我们洛杉矶工作室的观点——我们永远不会用《异形》这个IP然后去制作一个依靠庞大的人物支撑的游戏。这是不合适的。这又再次回到我之前提到的‘和你所制作的内容是否合适？’的问题。《异形》给我的感觉更像是一种激烈的生存游戏，也许会有点恐怖，并且你想让玩家沉浸在那个世界里，那么，给他们工具来实现这个幻想。你只需要几个这种世界中的角色和反派就能制作出一个吸引人的游戏。

-您说过，对于FoxNext来说，并不是所有的东西都需要IP，但是您有一个梦想的IP吗？除了漫威之外。

获得漫威IP对我们大多数人来说就像是美梦成真。对这个行业的大多数人来说，我认为也是的。《阿凡达》……我只不过很喜欢其中的世界设定，并且它将会隆重回归。你很难忽略这两者，但是，伙计这太难了。老实说，我愿意再做一个漫威游戏。我们已经开始思考我们将来要做什么，和那些家伙合作太有趣了，我很想选择一种不同的游戏类型，和他们一起制作一些其它的东西。

漫威宇宙中充满了众多有趣的东西。你可以释放你的创作力，只要保持对角色的忠诚。只要蜘蛛侠永远还是蜘蛛侠，而不是给他，比如抓钩绳这种和人物设定大相庭径的道具。

-再比如让他四处乱跑杀人。

(笑)对！千万别给他一把狙击枪或者什么其它的蠢东西！

只要你忠于角色，你就可以在这个世界里尽情发挥。让人感觉很自由。

-在《神威战队》中，有什么你觉得被漫威漫画或电影所折叠的剧情吗？

是的，当然。比如一个叫Ultimus的大反派，漫威对这个角色只是轻描淡写了一番。他是一个极具吸引力的敌人，因为他和灭霸类似，是一个永恒的物种，只是种族不同。据我了解，他是克里帝国的人，是少数几个能够二比三打败雷神的人物，几乎和灭霸一样强大，但却是个一直被低估了的漫威角色。因此我们认为他能够为这个游戏带来一种独特性。

剧情的大体设定是，这个人物一直穿梭于多个维度间，通过精神控制英雄们。所以他一直在试图建立一支由被精神控制的绿巨人、蜘蛛侠和金刚狼组成的军队，并且通过这支军队来控制宇宙。他身处于一个被认为是Nexus地球的地方，这个地球关系到每个存在的地球的存亡。而你作为神盾局下一个名为“Strike”的精英部队的指挥官，你的任务是招募英雄来阻止他控制这个地球，否则他将会控制整个宇宙。

-你们在创作多元宇宙时不会产生顾虑吗？这会让游戏很快变得很复杂。

这一设定最棒的地方就是，对于那些超级休闲玩家来说，多元宇宙归根结底就是一种美丽的幻想，你能够控制绿巨人去攻击另一个绿巨人。玩家们只需要知道那些被精神控制的家伙眼睛是红色的就足够了。而那些真正喜爱这个游戏的玩家们，可以深入地去研究多元宇宙或者他们感兴趣的任何东西。

《神威战队》已在IOS和安卓平台上发行。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

In January 2017, 20th Century Fox formed FoxNext, a new division to head up the company’s video game, virtual reality, and theme park initiatives. From an upcoming shooter based in the Alien cinematic universe to a recent adventure game with the Planet of the Apes license, FoxNext has worked with multiple development studios to create games using the IPs that Fox controls. The latest game to launch under the FoxNext banner is Marvel Strike Force, a turn-based strategy game centered on assembling the various characters across the Marvel universe to take on a multidimensional threat.

I spoke with FoxNext Games’ vice president and general manager Amir Rahimi about what it’s like to work with Marvel, as well as FoxNext’s initiatives as a whole. You can check out our discussion below.

FoxNext is Fox’s big push into the video game space. The benefit of this is that you have Marvel, Alien, and all these different properties. What was the big-picture goal for Fox when establishing FoxNext?
The way that they talked to me about it, and the vision as I understand it, is they are really sincere about owning the future of storytelling. They’ve clearly mastered that across film and television, and they want to take that into the interactive space. What I love about Fox as a company is that they’re so mature when it comes to their thinking about creatives. They really understand that the creative people are at the center of these endeavors; you don’t always get that at other companies. A lot of times, it’s really technology-focused or really business-focused. These guys let creators be creative and innovate. I really, really love that.

What they define as interactive storytelling is really broad and they leave that up to us as the creatives to determine what that means. For our San Francisco studio Fogbank, it means something much closer to what Fox does. They’re going to be doing some interesting narrative games. For us down in L.A., it means giving players the tools and empowering the players to fulfill a fantasy and tell their own stories through deep, meaningful interactions. So we really focus on the social. We love creating a game where all the drama comes from interactions between the players.

How does the team determine which properties to pursue for a game?

Again, the coolest thing about being with Fox is that it’s not a top-down thing; they really let us decide. We handle it from a couple of different directions. One, we look at the expertise of our team and the passions of our team, and we try to figure out what gameplay patterns we would be best at. Like, our creative director on Marvel, Jason Bender, was one of the lead designers on the Diablo III console version, and was a senior designer on the game proper.

We’ve always loved turn-based strategy games, so we’ve been prototyping a turn-based strategy game for many years now. When we have a sense of what the mechanics, we look across media to see if there is a property that fits it like a glove. If there isn’t, we’ll create our own IP. In this case, there’s no better universe in the world than Marvel for a turn-based strategy game that’s about collecting a roster of heroes and using them. It’s just ideal. It’s perfect. At the time, we were Kabam, we had relationships with Marvel, so we had an in and we were able to get the license.

With Avatar, it was kind of a similar calculus. We have a long history of doing real-time strategy games; a long time ago, we were the Command & Conquer team at EA. We made several Command & Conquer and Lord of the Rings RTSs. Talking to the folks at Lightstorm and seeing what they have in store for their sequels, we were super inspired. All of us, hearing about what they have in store, we just envisioned the perfect strategy game.

What I love about Fox is they don’t even care if we use IP; they really want to innovate and do what’s best for our industry. If we would have pitched new IPs, they would have been fine with it. Although, it helps when you’re working on their most important franchise in Avatar, and one of their most important franchises in Marvel.

Do you have any interactions with the creative teams behind the film properties?

We do. Our primary contact is a guy by the name of Bill Rosemann [Marvel Games executive creative director], who is just a freaking legend. Having a drink with that guy and just asking him about the Marvel universe is so fun and so entertaining. We get almost everything we need from him and the Marvel Games team.

Avatar hasn’t had very many games, but IPs like Alien and Marvel have had a million different games based on them. How do you differentiate your games from the experiences that have already been presented?

We have some really awesome innovations in Marvel. The way that we’ve chosen to innovate when it comes to this particular Marvel game is through a few different vectors. One is the combat, and the interactions you have in combat. We’re delivering a degree of cinematic action and quality that I don’t think has ever been done before in a mobile game. There’s been a lot of squad-based games out there, but not a lot of them actually let you team up your guys. It’s like, one guy attacks, the other guy attacks, and they go back and forth like that. We’re doing some really cool stuff with team-ups. You can team up in many different ways, and if you have iconic pairs of characters, you can pull of things like you see in your favorite Marvel movies.

Fox has the license for a particular corner of the Marvel universe. Have there been any problems with getting any of the characters under the Disney umbrella?

No. In fact, the struggle was the other way around! We have the Marvel license, so we have the access to all the great Marvel characters. We didn’t have the X-Men. We’ve now managed to get the X-Men. Not all Marvel games get that; it’s actually kind of hard these days.

Not even Marvel vs. Capcom got it in the latest game.

Right. So, the team is so incredibly fired up about having the X-Men. Some of the most popular characters in the entire universe. We’re already hard at work on the X-Men. It’s kind of recent that we got this, but we’ve pushed to get Wolverine in for launch.

If you’re under Fox, what was the roadblock to get the Fox properties like the X-Men in your game?

There was definitely no resistance from Fox. Fox obviously wants us to have that license. There wasn’t any undue resistance from Marvel. It’s just their policy that they don’t give both licenses to people, and we didn’t have the X-Men. So we had to make a case for the X-Men. I don’t know what factors went into ultimately granting us the X-Men from their side, but as far as I can tell, they probably wanted us to some extent to prove ourselves and get a game up that’s worthy of having the entire universe. We worked closely with those guys, and they’ve been pretty happy with what we’ve done here. They’re seeing our metrics in beta, and they’re pretty impressed. If I had to guess, that probably greased the skids in some respects.

What about the other licenses like Spider-Man being under Sony or The Hulk still technically having ties to Universal?

Those didn’t impact us. Hulk and Spidey were both part of the original deal. It was just the X-Men and the Fantastic Four that are carved out. I don’t believe they’re giving the Fantastic Four to anybody.

It seems like Marvel is kind of being protective of them lately. Fantastic Four has had kind of a rough run in film as of late, so that makes sense.

It probably factors in, right? We have access now, with the X-Men, to hundreds of characters.

Does the X-Men license loop in Deadpool?

It sure does. And with Deadpool 2 coming, we are going to do something really big for that.

We’ve seen in the past, entertainment companies not known for their work in the game industry like Disney dip their toe in with gaming, or even go all-in with gaming, then suddenly change their minds. What is preventing Fox from doing that with this initiative?

Ultimately, obviously, it’s not up to me if this is them dipping their toe. I don’t believe it is. I think that Fox looks at the future of entertainment and really believes that interactive is such a critical part of it. I think they’re going to give us every opportunity to succeed. I think the thing that would probably cause them to remove their toe from the water would be if we don’t deliver. By “we” I don’t just mean this one game; we have a really compelling portfolio that we’re building and I think that they’re going to give us a run at it and really support us in doing that. If we can’t execute, I wouldn’t expect them to, at least with us, keep their toe in the water.

Marvel is on one end of the spectrum where they have a million different characters and enemy types and hero types, but Alien has always just had a couple of enemy types to take on. How does the team behind the announced Alien shooter work within those constructs to make a compelling game while only having a few enemy types from the source material?

I don’t manage that game directly, so I can’t really speak for their creative vision behind it, but the way that we try to look at each different IP out there is that you have to tap into what’s special about it. We would never – again speaking just for my studio in L.A. – we would never take a license like Alien and try to do a game that’s heavily dependent on creating a huge roster of unique characters. It just wouldn’t fit. It goes back to that thing of “Does it fit like a glove with what you’re building, or not?” The way that I look at Alien is that it’s much more of an intense survival, maybe a little horror, and you want to immerse players in that world, and again, give them the tools to fulfill that fantasy. You only need the few characters and enemy types that you see in that world to create something compelling.

I know you said that with FoxNext, not everything needs to be an IP, but do you have a dream IP that you’d love to tackle after Marvel?

Marvel for most people in the studio is a dream come true. For most people in the industry, I would think it is. Avatar… I just adore that world, and it’s going to come back in such a big way. It’s hard to look past those two, but, man… yeah, I can’t. To be honest, I would love to do another Marvel game. We’re starting to think about what we’re doing in the future, and it’s been so fun partnering with those guys that I’d love to pick a different genre and do something else with them.

The Marvel license is so fun because you can get away with so much within that universe. You can do whatever you want, as long as you stay true to the characters. As long as Spider-Man is always Spider-Man and you’re not giving him, like, a grappling hook – something that would be so anti to what he’s about…

Going around, killing people left and right.

[Laughs] Right! Definitely. Don’t give him a sniper rifle or something stupid like that!

As long as you stay true to the core of the characters, you can do so much in that world. That’s been so freeing to have that.

Are there any stories you’re trying to tell in Marvel Strike Force that fold into events in the comics or movies?

Yes, certainly. The big villain is a guy named Ultimus, who hasn’t been touched by the MCU at all. He’s a pretty compelling nemesis because he is an Eternal, the same way that Thanos is. He’s sort of the same species as Thanos, but just a different race. He’s part of the Kree, and as far as I understand, he’s one of the few characters who beat up Thor in two out of the three battles they fought. He’s incredibly powerful… about as powerful as Thanos is, but he’s someone who hasn’t been seen to this point in the MCU. So he’s kind of someone we can have a sense of uniqueness to our game.

The overall premise is that he’s been going from dimension to dimension mind-controlling heroes. So he’s been building an army of mind-controlled Hulks and Spider-Mans and Wolverines, and he’s raising that army to take over the universe. He’s now at what is considered the Nexus Earth. This Earth is sort of the key to every other Earth that exists. You, as a commander of an elite unit of S.H.I.E.L.D. called Strike, are tasked with recruiting heroes to prevent him from taking over this Earth that would basically unlock his ability to rule the entire universe.

Are there any concerns with doing the multiverse? That can get real complicated real quick.

What’s great about that is what it all just really boils down to for the super casual player is that it’s a beautiful conceit for why you might be controlling a Hulk who is fighting another Hulk. You’ll see red eyes on the guys who are mind-controlled and that’s all they really need to understand. Then, through the campaign, we tell the story. For people who really want it, they can dive real deep into the multiverse thing and have as much as they want.

Marvel Strike Force is currently available to download on iOS and Android.（source：Gameinformer ）