In June, many details were revealed about the game Clutch – the first project from Maverick Games, a studio led by former Playground Games employees who worked on the Forza Horizon series. Many journalists and gamers are constantly drawing comparisons between the games, but the Maverick Games team themselves claim that their goal is not to “kill Forza Horizon.”
Donated by studio founders Mike Brown and Harinder Sangha interviewthey stated that the goal of the Clutch game is to provide an alternative for fans of racing events. They compared Forza Horizon to Call of Duty, noting that fans of Activision shooters also play other projects in the same genre.
We’re not stupid enough to say we’re going to beat Forza Horizon. Any developer that sets itself the goal of displacing the dominant player in the market faces very high risks. If we switched genres and said, “We’re going to take over Call of Duty,” no one would give us the money to do it because that would be stupid. You can’t beat Call of Duty. Behind it are five independent studios employing some of the world’s best developers, a multi-million budget and a massive audience.
But Call of Duty fans can buy the second game. Therefore, you need to understand which of their fantasies are not fulfilled by the games they are playing now. Clutch has always been intended to be a complement to Forza.
Representatives from Maverick Games said they know where Forza Horizon is weak and Clutch is focusing on those areas.
I certainly know the Forza audience very well. I know what they like and I know what they miss in this game.
[…] Of course, there are similarities in the gameplay of our games: you still drive beautiful cars in great environments, but Forza has never been about the characters and story. This is where the series has historically been very weak. But that’s what people love. Adding it to the genre in a way that hasn’t been widely used to date – certainly not recently and certainly not successfully – I think is going to have very broad appeal [для фанатов Forza Horizon].
Let us remind you that in Clutch the developers plan to combine official motorsport with a professional atmosphere and Midnight Collective street racing. The game will offer both single-player and cooperative modes.
Maverick Games recently announced that Clutch will be published by Focus Entertainment.
