Golden Ax’s canceled reboot is due out on Steam to mark Sega’s 60th anniversary, but some of its original team disagrees with the decision.
Today we woke up with the news that, to celebrate its 60th anniversary, Sega was going to launch on Steam (and only for 24 hours) a prototype of the canceled Golden Ax reboot, called Golden Axed. A movement for which they claimed to have “communicated with some of the members of the original development team”, who, always in Sega’s own words, “are proud that this project can be revived in some way to share it with the fans” . Well, it seems that the hedgehog company has not spoken with everyone involved … and that not everyone is okay with it. The game’s programmer, Tim Dawson, has written a thread on his social networks in which he assures that he is not the only member of the team surprised by Sega’s decision and denounces that there was crunch at Sega Studios Australia during the development of the game.
this project was my personal nexus of nightmare hours, inept management, industry realizations and heroics achieved with a small team under unreasonable conditions, so it’s an odd feeling to see it surface eight years later without context, credits and with a joke title sequence pic. twitter.com/lBDVWegn3p
– Tim Dawson (@ironicaccount) October 15, 2020
Dawson assures that Golden Axed was his personal nightmare and that of course he feels “a little strange” (to put it mildly) to see it reappear eight years later, without crediting its creators and with jokes from Sega as to its quality. On the Steam page where the prototype will be posted, the company describes it like this: “It can be crazy, it can have bugs and it may be an artifact of its time, but it offers a unique vision of what the project could have been and a rare behind-the-scenes look at what can sometimes be the tumultuous world of game development. “
In his thread, Dawson assures that he worked 7 days a week for more than 14 hours a day and comments that if the development was tumultuous it was precisely because of Sega and the lead designer they put in charge, who constantly changed his mind. One day he wanted a new vision of Golden Ax and the next he was looking for something akin to God of War. All this in the middle of emails written at dawn and chases to talk about the revelations he had had on the train, on his way to work.
I had been working 14 hour days but I went home on time that day
– Tim Dawson (@ironicaccount) October 15, 2020
Sega’s 60th anniversary
At the moment the company has not made any statement regarding Dawson’s statements and continues with its plan to offer a Golden Axed level on a limited basis. Movement that, as we said, Sega will carry out to “thank the fans” on its 60th anniversary and that will be accompanied by other very special releases for the developer, such as Streets of Kamurocho, the mix of Streets of Rage 2 and the Yakuza saga; Armor of Heroes, a retro version of Company of Heroes; and Endless Zone, a tribute to Fantasy Zone. All of them available in the next few days, but only temporarily. You can check here when they will be released and for how long.
from the Steam Page:
“Golden Axed may be janky, may be buggy, may be an artifact of its time, but it offers a unique glimpse into the prospect of a project that could have been”
go fuck yourself, parasites
– Tim Dawson (@ironicaccount) October 15, 2020
