Disney supposedly wants to make good and interesting video games, which sounds hard to believe given the company we’re talking about. The company has gained a reputation for only churning out safe and reliable products so this is something of a revelation.
Luigi Priore, the Vice President of Disney, Pixar, and 20th Century Games, claims that the company wants crazy concepts for their franchise video games. Priore brings up how the original Kingdom Hearts was an elevator pitch and feels that the company is down for crazier ideas in an interview with IGN.
“There are devs out there and they might think that, ‘Oh yeah, we'd never be able to do that. Disney wouldn't go for that.’ Right? But it's like, come in, let's have a conversation. With the right partner and that dev team who have that vision we would have that conversation,” Priore states. “It might not always be the right fit or the right time, but we want to find those partners. You never know. I mean, if we didn't do that, even on Kingdom Hearts, we wouldn't be where we are today.”
Seeing Priore claim that Disney wants off the wall ideas for their games sounds surreal, given the company’s current output. From safe Marvel movies to dull remakes of animated Disney classics, the company hasn’t really won awards for originality.
Hearing about crazy pitches also makes us wonder why Disney and Marvel agreed to have AI make the opening for Secret Invasion. If the company is so open to crazy video game ideas, they should have been open to human artists working on the opening. They’ve had humans animate openings for most of their life, making the recent use of AI even more baffling.
Read More: Marvel's Midnight Suns, X-COM dev lays off workers after financial flop
With Disney Illusion Island coming out soon, it does look like the company is willing to make interesting video games again, at the least. Epic Mickey and Kingdom Hearts aside, we have yet to see anyone go crazy with the Disney license.