Unlike what happened 10 years ago, the release of Furiosa Mad Max was not accompanied by a video game. It must be said that the disappointing sales of the Warner Bros Games game in 2015 have calmed the enthusiasm of the American publisher. Some players wondered why Warner did not take advantage of the release of Furiosa to release at least a remastered version of the game developed by Avalanche, in order to take advantage of the enthusiasm surrounding George Miller’s latest film. Given the frankly poor launch of the film, particularly in the United States where it is flopping badly ($32 million in 4 days, in the middle of Memorial Day, since Monday was a holiday there), we might as well tell you that the cinema industry is on its knees as the summer blockbuster season begins. That didn’t stop a certain George Miller from singing the praises of Hideo Kojima while attacking Avalanche Studios’ game in the throat, like that, for free. Not only did it provoke the ire of the game’s former game director, but it also shook many players for whom the 2015 game Mad Max is undoubtedly one of the most underrated games of these years. Last 10 years. And they are completely right.
It was about ten days ago, during the London premiere of Furiosa, barely two days after the Cannes event, George Miller was asked about the possibility of a new Mad Max video game by the GamingBible website. That’s when the filmmaker mentioned the 2015 game Mad Max developed by studio Avalanche, for which he had these hurtful words:
It wasn’t as good as I would have liked. It was not in our hands. I’m one of those people who would rather not do something unless I can do it at the best level.
We can say it, George Miller did not go out of his way to demean the work of the developers of the time. Is this really justified? Clearly not, and we will have plenty of time to explain to you that not only did the game understand all the intensity of what we expected from a Mad Max game, but above all that the game was also underestimated by the press during of its release in 2015. Besides, what criteria does George Miller use to say that the Mad Max game is disappointing in his eyes? Because until proven otherwise, the Australian filmmaker is not a gamer, and I even wonder if he has ever put his hands on a controller. Obviously, he didn’t go into detail, but we’re pretty sure that Miller is probably basing this on the very mixed reception from the press at the time.
You just have to go to Metacritic to see that the game comes away with a low score of 69%, an average obtained on the basis of 72 tests, ours included.cI remember that at the time, it was a freelancer who had tested the game, a certain Florian Huvier and he gave it a score of 15/20. A rather good score, but obviously, 15 for a game of this magnitude, it’s almost considered a disappointment for publishers and studios, especially with the Metacritic scale which consists of passing games that have less in “yellow” color. 75% on average. For my part, I platinumed the game a few weeks after the game’s release and it was one of my favorites of 2015, to the point where I put it in my Top 5 of the best gaming games. the year.
When you accumulate more than 80 hours on a game, and you come to have dreams about it, it’s good that something happens. Mad Max was quite simply the Shadow of Mordor of 2015: a game that didn’t look like much, that no one expected, that was underestimated, underrated and yet still made me enjoy it like never before. However, the title was in bad shape, especially after the first demo which was done in 2013, during a very select behind closed doors at E3 where the game was still planned for a cross-generational release, that is- i.e. on PS3 and Xbox 360 as well as on next gen consoles. At the time, the game was ugly and the demo was not interesting enough for us to come away captivated. Postponed several times, even to the point of missing the shooting window for the cinema release of George Miller’s reboot (the film of the year 2015 in fact!), Mad Max had the bad idea of waiting for the return of the classes to try to find a place on the shelves. Bad luck, it was also at that time that Konami decided to market its Metal Gear Solid V, for which the media hype between Kojima and the Japanese publisher was at its peak. Result of the races: Mad Max has sold 1.8 million copies worldwide throughout its career and on all the consoles on which it was released. It is clearly a flop and the game was not profitable either for Warner Bros Interactive or for its studio Avalanche Studios, the title having required almost 4 years of development.
Christofer Sundberg, the former boss of Avalanche Studios, reacted to George Miller’s comments on his Twitter account, and even if he was restrained, we still sense a certain sourness in his comments. And that’s normal, who wouldn’t be with such comments. He also returned to the commercial failure of the game, recalling that the release of the game was head-on with Kojima’s MGS 5.
As we were forced to release Mad Max on the same day as [Metal Gear Solid V]they blamed us for poor sales and canceled a bunch of DLC that was just waiting to come out.
So, for people like me who never understood why Mad Max couldn’t benefit from DLC after its release, you have the answer today. No fault, however, on my part for having regularly called the Warner Bros Games press service to understand why there was no follow-up on this game which I found hypnotizing at the time I played it. Moreover, Christofer Sundberg also defended his team by reminding that it deserves better than to be despised today for a project in which it has invested enormously, sometimes leaving a few feathers. For Sundberg, the one and only culprit in this story is Warner, who would therefore have both sabotaged the launch of the game, but also its development. And it’s a bit reminiscent of what happened with Suicide Squad, which is also a cursed, complicated project. I know it’s still too early for tongues wagging, but I know for a fact that the development was extremely complicated, that Rocksteady never wanted this game. NEVER. Result: 200 million losses. It might be time to question ourselves.
Christofer Sundberg took advantage of George Miller’s exit to settle the score and revealed that Mad Max was initially supposed to be a true open world, but they were forced to convert the experience into a more linear structure. But whatever, it’s not too late to get started, because even though it’s more linear than expected, the game has some really good qualities. If like me, you like massive open-worlds, post-apocalyptic atmospheres, explosive chases in death machines that can be customized at will, loot galore and ultra-packed close combat (strongly inspired by of Batman certainly, but so effective!), let yourself be tempted, you will not be disappointed. In addition, the game really looks great, especially the Wasteland, magnificent in its beauty and diversity. And players have realized this over the years, to the point where it is today considered not a cult game, but a rather good game, supported and defended by an entire community which does not hesitate to not to step up and make it known. On Metacritic, it even today has a very good average of 7.9/10 player rating, and still gets very good feedback today.
However, the irony of this sad story is that George Miller has made it known that he would love for Hideo Kojima to make a Mad Max game. And when we know that it was Metal Gear Solid 5 which almost killed sales, indirectly I mean, it’s not its fault, even it shouldn’t have been released on the same day, it’s quite funny. Now, didn’t George Miller play on his friendship with the Japanese game director? Given that Hideo Kojima was with him at the premiere, given that Kojima hired him to appear in the upcoming Death Stranding 2, it’s a somewhat elegant way to return the favor to the Japanese creator. Once again, I highly doubt that Miller plays video games, he just rubbed his friend the wrong way, even if it meant putting a few throat-grabbing attacks on the developers of 2015’s Mad Max who clearly didn’t deserve that.
