Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning - What Happened? 

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A rare case of a bad company producing a good game before it died

I'm a Rhode Island local and remember being excited thinking "oh wow maybe I can work at 38 Studios someday." Oh how I was an ignorant little bahby.

I hope Spawn's entrance animation for MK11 is Todd McFarlane at his desk turning around and saying "dont ask me about kingdoms of amalur"

I'm not sure about all the riffs on Todd McFarlane not being fantasy artist in this video. After all, he is connected to the all-time greatest fantasy franchise through his work on one of the Shrek video games.

I went to school with and am still friends with Curt's son. He never really mentioned what happened except for a joke every once in a while about it

When I was in college, 38 Studios was recruiting new graduates out of my alma mater's computer science program. We thought it was a cool idea, but ultimately none of us pursued it, probably for the best. Later, we were notified of 38 Studios' closing. When they liquidated, to try to pay some of the bills they held a huge auction of all of the equipment that was purchased for the studio. It was absurd; tons of INCREDIBLY expensive, state of the art engineering computers, some of which was never used, top of the line CAD tools, music production equipment, just a massive budget of tech. What a waste.

"Uh s-s-sir...this is a Wendy's"

The Rhode Island governor that made the deal with 38 Studios had previously said that expanding the state's welfare programs were unsustainable. Probably true, when you just dump all your tax revenue into the passion projects of rugby celebrities.

Hey! Thanks for the shout out. I’m sad you couldn’t find a picture of me though 😂

You may want to release an update, Kingdoms of Amalur actually had some life pumped into it recently! An (admittedly paid) update called "Re-Reckoning" was released September 8th of this year giving the game a graphical remaster alongside a number of QoL improvements like new difficulty levels. Additionally, a new campaign DLC named "Forsworn" is slated for release sometime next year (2021, assuming the Corona or other setbacks don't push it back). Obviously this is being handled primarily by THQ Nordic and has virtually nothing to do with Curt or 38 Studios, but it does at least mean the IP itself lives on. At least, for now.

If you play as a female character, about halfway through the game it suddenly forgets your gender and starts referring to you as male. I don't know if that's a bug or if they literally just ran out of money and couldn't afford to record a few extra lines of dialogue lmao

The most confusing part of this whole story is why you didn't go with "disastrophe."

Thank you 38 Studios for flooding New England with veterans right as I was graduating college with a degree in game development. That didn't make things difficult at all.

When I saw the game being covered, I had the immediate realization what this show really was... And I now have to brace myself for really sad stories of good games disappearing because of companies going bankrupt... RIP Kingdoms of Amalur...

As an RI native I made sure to buy the game because it was my tax payer duty to do so.

What happun? Def Jam Icon Please

11:11 During the competition phase, it should be mentioned Mass Effect 3 released March 6th Less than a month after Amalar Also published by EA A dumb corporate decision, just like launching Titanfall 2 in between CoD & Battlefield

This is what I don't get about some people who start up a business. Yes, you may have Benjamins for days, but shouldn't you, y'know, start out small? Make something successful and build your brand? I mean, if we're going to be honest, Bayonetta had a ton of cost cutting measures (still frame animations, re-use of still frames, enemy recolors, etc) and that game practically put Platinum on the map.

I worked on KOAR, it's the reason I no longer work in video games, and this was really hard for me to watch.

I just love the amount of disbelief Matt is giving about Todd Mcfarlane

Actively playing on the Xbox One. Would be so down for a sequel! Chakrams for life

Solid game, still have my copy. Hopefully THQ Nordic actually do something with the property.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was such a great game. It's always so painful to see genuinely great videogames fade into obscurity because of studio mismanagement, money issues or corporate shenanigans.

A shame. It was a little janky but pretty fun overall. I was definitely looking forward to more from the studio.

Maybe the real Kingdom of Amalur was the Rhode Islands we broke along the way.

I really liked the game, made it about 100+ hours before stopping though because the game was too damn big with too much travel time, too many repetitive quests and the gameplay was getting pretty stale even when I switched up playstyles. I'd totally buy it again though if it got some sort of remaster.

Dude Id kill for a Kingdoms Of Amalur 2 and THQ NOrdic are doing a really great job and they just announced a Destroy All Humans remake so maybe they can do something with KOA. Fingers crossed.

I still play this game from time to time, it's actually amazing how diverse they made each weapon and playstyle feel.

I really liked the game. A good combat system and an interesting Story. I hope THQ Nordic uses the licence they bought to make a new game set in Amalur.

so i live in RI, and the newscaster at 11:58 is a regular at my starbucks. it’s kinda funny seeing him in this video, completely unrelated to both my job and him.

God this video make me sad. Amalur definitely deserves a sequel, maybe one day.

You forgot to mention Ken Rolston, he directed Morrowind and Oblivion and was a big part of the "Dream Team".

Ok but literally 30 minutes after I watched this, "Re-Reckoning" got announced

Regrettably, in order for Kingdoms of Amalur to be born, the company that made it had to die.

Wait, I own this one and I'm pretty sure it's not bad. What is this video going to be? Ah, a development post-mortem. That makes sense.

I'm amazed it failed. It plays just like Skyrim but has a better usage of colour. Between LOTR/DS/ES, it almost feels like medeival stuff generally is guaranteed to excel.

I totally forgot about this. I lived in Rhode Island my entire life, and I always remembered hearing something about 38 Studios every day on the news. I never really got why they were always being talked about until somewhat recently about how they fucked over our taxes or something like that. This video honestly helped me actually understand what was going on so thank you for this, man.

This episode should've been called "38Studios: Wha Happun?"

This game had probably the best combat out of any arpg and whatnot. Combos for each weapon type etc, it felt really good without being inaccessible and overly complex.

You did a Fantastic job on this vid man! I'm so happy to see you bring light to this story after all these years. Growing up in RI and wanting to go into Game Development around the time made 38 Studios an interesting promise of a place I could go to work after High School and College. But thanks to all the bumbling brought forth from the whole deal with the State and Curt's miss-management of resources dashed a lot of that hope before I even left High School. Hell, even as of last January through March there was a Lawsuit between The Securities and Exchange Commission, Wells Fargo Bank and the RI's Economic Agency for lying to investors over how the money was managed and given to 38 Studios. HOW IS THIS FIRE STILL BURNING? It also soured a lot of General Public type Peoples opinion on Video Games as a whole throughout the state; making already small gatherings for Fighting Game tournaments, Retro Game Conventions and the like even harder to find venues for or more people to join. The only two events that I can think of for Video Games specifically in state are an annual Smash tournament that's hosted in a Backstreet Chinese Restaurants Basement and just a homogenized Tournament at our take on Comic-Con (which has slowly been dwindling as far as participation and selection for such tourney's in favor of expanding the guest list). So most of the time my friends and I would have to go out of state for almost any kind of gathering to meet others who share our interests. I know it's very rambly of me to go on like this, but even without playing the game it's had a massive impact on my life simply due to living in close proximity to it's Failure Explosion. I'm still really happy that the near 9 years of this story looming over this little, some times forgotten, Video Game Wasteland of a State will get more eyes and ears peering over to see exactly "Wha Happun". Thanks a lot Matt, this video really means a bunch to me!

Great gameplay, UI, powers and graphics, Please kill me story, characters & dialogue.

One of the most underrated games I played, a shame that all the development problems killed what could have been a fantastic franchise today.

A baseball player decides to make a video game and hires a comic book artist. Seems legit.

My favorite "what happun" vids are when i dont even recognize the title of the game LOL

"cool artist or writer..." Rob Liefeld and GoT fail guy, lol

I wouldn't be so down on it featuring Todd McFarlane's contributions. The guy still had name recognition, even then, and even now. There's even a new Spawn movie slated for release in 2019, so he's still a thing. The guy may not have the power he had in the 90s, but he's one of the few guys who managed to make a story about a gritty anti-hero last to 2011, when most of them kinda fizzled out at the end of the "Dark Age" of comic books.

Played the game on PS3. It is actually quite good. Way too easy, even on hard difficulty. My mage steamrolled every enemy in it's way. Also the level cap sucks... and that guy running around in Emaire, spraying everyone with arterial blood from a troat wound... unlimited blood supply.

Great game, still love it, but yeeeeeeaaaah, development and Studio 38 ad unum was a mess; also Curt Shilling. Plus, when you got Skyrim and Mass Effect 3 vying for attention amongst those mentioned in the vid, one should've expected their original releases to die. Live and learn, amirite EA?!

Matt talking about one of my favorite games. This is a glorious day.

HOT DAMN! I just picked up Amalur again a couple days ago, I had taken a break from the game for several months. Lo and behold, just a couple days later my favorite RU-vidr talks about it! THIS IS THE GREATEST HIGH!

What a shame, I love the game, just finished another playthrough.

I loved this game! Sometimes I reinstall it and try to find something new that I missed. So excited to see WHA HAPPUN behind the scenes, because I know there was so much more planned that they didn't get to do!

the best part was when the state in order to regain some of that misspent taxpayer money went after them for four years, while costing the taxpayers MORE money, only to in the end say, "oh, i guess it was just a bad deal."

My current playthrough (2nd overall) is actually the only reason I've kept my PS3 plugged in to an HDMI slot. I love this game so much, the combat is just a joy and the flexibility for character customization (being able to reallocate your build on the fly, for example) is very much appreciated. Plus, Winnie the Pooh plays the evil tyrannical antagonist. It's hilarious (and, if recent allegations are true, quite fitting).

Game is fantastic, I still play it! Keep up the great content bro!

I still play Kingdom of Amalur on xbox 360, its a great hack and slash

I'm a simple man. I see 'Amalur', I click.

I really hope Kingdoms of Amalur will come back. The game wasn't perfect, but I really liked the setting & lore etc. And since it was actually pretty good, I think a KoA2 could've been quite good.

Knowing that Re-reckoning is right around the corner, I'm so happy this game will finally have a chance.

This game is my childhood I love it

Oh hell yeah glad I could finally see this happen. Thank you so much Matt I love that you take requests on the channel :)

I have restarted KOA:R about 5 or 6 times. According to my Steam account, I actually have 20 hours in it. It has all the bits and pieces of a game I should love, but I just get so bored. It just feels so goddamn generic, some weird mixture of WOW and Fable. I actually knew some folks who worked at the RI office. My recollection is at some point the company just straight up ran out of money and employees were no longer getting paid. Forgot how that ended up getting resolved. Oh yea, being a Massachusetts resident, Schilling was a household name at the time. When he stopped playing baseball, his reputation as being a humble dude just evaporated to that of a bored asshole. It was easy to tell he had no idea what he was doing, but the hope was he was hiring people who did. As often happens, this just screams mismanagement.

Been waiting a long time for this video. Really glad you choose to tackle this one Matt.

Curt Schilling's financial decisions are just as horrendous and ill-advised as his political views.

Everytime I play this game. I get sleepy (maybe from the music?). But not in a bored way. This happen to anyone else?

This game was epic. I really enjoyd playing this game. They should do a 2nd sequel of it on ps4 or ps5.

Don't let Ellen Rose watch this vid XD

I don't know. I rather have my tax money being spend making a cool game than going to the swiss bank account of corrupt politicians.

One of my absolute favourite games but then I walked in to a HUGE bug mid game and with the knowledge of no patches I just stopped playing. This was both sad and nostalgic

GO GET KINGDOMS OF AMALUR: RE-RECKONING IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!!! BETTER GRAPHICS AND ALL DLC INCLUDED!!

amalur is a fantastic game, i fire it up once a year and binge-play (???) it.

One of the best games released with the worst timings. This game failed financially only because it was released few months after Skyrim. Amalur is fantastic and has stood up the test of time even without graphic mods. Do yourself a favor and buy it at once!

what a shame. that game was good. not great but good enough to improve apon

ooh if good games with studios issues are a thing for what happened, I'd love to see and ep on Okami. Since it is considered one of the greatest ps2 games(to those that heard about it), and yet Clover studio went under after releasing it.

Wow I can't believe such a great game had a bad background shit show

I'm watching this again after seeing that THQ Nordic has revealed that a remaster is coming this year and an expansion next year.

THQ Nordic have 48 games in development so maybe there will be a secound or remaster

The only criminal act here was the government calling the first game a failure, and likely torpedoing a paid-for sequel that could have helped recovered the situation

Love the golden axe music in the background!

I have feeling we will have a video like this talking about StarCitizen in the near future

Golden Axe! Love that music! Great vid too.

Green Monster Studios changed their name because The Green Monster is the name of the left field wall of Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox and where Schilling ended his playing career. Even though he's insisted it wasn't originally named after it, he probably changed the name of the studio to avoid legal issues with the Red Sox.

Can we actually talk real quick about how the DLC armor packs did NOT work on PS3? It was never rectified

Usually a bad game hurts the company Except in this case, it was a bad company hurting such a great game. Kingdoms of amalur is undoubtedly an A-tier RPG it's really unfortunate how things ended up.

As a Rhode Islander, I don't know whether to feel proud that my home state was featured on "Wha Happun?", or embarrased that it was at the center of such a titanic gaming failure.

Kingdoms of Amalur is a very OK game, it had a lot going for it. But it has a feeling of a game that started out as one thing and became something else. Parts of it feels like playing an MMO on an empty server.

Enter the Matrix - What Happened? Shiny was the coolest, weirdest developer in the 90's, so to go from making games like MDK and Sacrifice to buggy movie tie-in garbage like that... it hurts my soul.

1 year later and re-reckoning is coming out in early September this year. Thank goodness THQ Nordic revived this game.

Such an underrated game, wish they can get things straight and come up with a sequel.

So, this one's really interesting in light of the fact that THQ Nordic has just started spitting out ads for an upscaled PS4/XB1/PC port of Amalur known as Kingdoms of Amalur:Re-Reckoning, with a site.

The only good way to remaster it is to add in co-op multiplayer

Just noticed the subtle joke of talking about a baseball player wearing the number 38 on his "hockey jersey" while showing a picture of a football player. Surprised there aren't more sports ball fans yelling about your OBVIOUS MISTAKE.

Anyone here after seeing the trailer for Re-Reckoning?

If only this game could have a second chance. A re-reckoning if you will. I know it won't happen though. It's a shame because I bet it'd be awesome.

One of my favorite games, one of the biggest disastappointments.

The combat and character progression was so good. Can someone make a Ingdoms of Kamular? That's legally distinct right?

I kinda remember I didn’t play this game for very long. While it wasn’t bad, it felt more like a MMO than a single player RPG, I think, which wasn’t what I like.

This game brought to you by -38studios- Rhode Island.

Seriously this game is amazing. Ive loved it for years and wish EA would release the rights so THQ could remaster it on switch. Itd sell very well i believe.