In a follow up to their community post on Steam last week, Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power developer, Frozenbyte, has released a brief video in the interest of clarifying the financial and design decisions that have some fans of the series riled. Frozenbyte Vice President Joel Kinnunen, who authored the aforementioned post, returns alongside Kai Tuovinen, the company's marketing manager, to deliver an explanation that can only be described as forlorn in tone.
Tuovinen begins by apologizing to those players who were let down by Trine 3's length. He then elaborates on the decision to truncate the game's story, explaining that Frozenbyte had in fact planned to release the game as a shorter installment all along in order to gauge player interest in the narrative elements.
"In hindsight," he says, "I think our biggest mistake was that we did not let you all know that we had plans about splitting the game's story into different parts."
This would appear to contrast somewhat with Kinnunen's statement from last week, which more so implied that the game's increased financial demands took Frozenbyte by surprise, thus cutting the game's development shorter than they would have liked. How to deliver the rest of Trine 3's story to players is something that the team at Frozenbyte simply hadn't decided during development, and now, a week after the game's launch, the answer to that question is still unclear. According to Tuovinen, the backlash has been significant enough to put further Trine development on hold.
Ultimately, the pair stress that they and the rest of Frozenbyte are proud of the finished product overall. They do regret, however, that the players most let down by the changes were longstanding fans of the series.
Trine 3: The Artifactsof Power is available for Microsoft Windows. The full video can be viewed below.
Quick Take
Well that was depressing. Anyone else notice the part where a random guy throws a giant Trine 2 poster in the trash just as Kai is discussing the uncertain future of the series? Brutal.
Anyway, part of me is distressed by the fact that Frozenbyte tried something new only to get roasted. However, the lack of transparency on the part of their marketing was indeed an unwise move, and one that's all too common unfortunately. They are aware of it though and can hopefully learn from it. Maybe this whole mess can even serve as a parable for other companies in the long run.
