Apocalypse Now game in development?
New studio Killspace registers domain.
Could a game of Francis Ford Coppola's seminal Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now be in the works? Superannuation has discovered that a developer called Killspace has registered the domain name ApocalypseNowGame.com.
According to GameSpot, the LA-based developer is a new outfit formed in 2009. Its LinkedIn profile says it is working on "original IP with a major publisher and a licensed IP to be announced".
Killspace has also registered the domain name WarIsNotAGame.net. The developer claims to be working in "third- and first-person character-focused action, horror and sci-fi" and to employ staff from some heavy-hitting west coast studios, including Obsidian as well as the recently closed or downsized Pandemic, EALA and Red 5.
"We take the best practices from games, film, and television to create incredible narrative-driven content and killer brands," says the profile.
Apocalypse Now, released in 1979, overcame a famously fraught shoot to earn a reputation as a powerful, sometimes surreal classic of cinema. Although set against a spectacular wartime backdrop, the film's dark themes of personal obsession and descent into madness - it's based on Joseph Conrad's 19th-century book Heart of Darkness - don't immediately seem like natural subject matter for a videogame. Or do they?
As GameSpot points out, Coppola's work has already been adapted into the videogame medium by EA with the Godfather games, which met with a mixed reaction, not least from the director himself.
"I had absolutely nothing to do with the game and I disapprove. I think it's a misuse of film," he said back in 2005.
Will he feel any different about an adaptation of Apocalypse Now? Do you?