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The developer of a controversial new game that centres around detention camp Guantanamo Bay has told MCV that it will release the title over Xbox Live in October if it can’t find a publishing partner.
Edinburgh-based T-Enterprise said that it didn’t want to be known as an ‘extreme’ studio due to the creation of Rendition: Guantanamo on Xbox 360, adding that it wasn’t concerned by any reluctance in the publishing community following Konami’s decision to drop Six Days In Fallujah.
T-Enterprise has recruited former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg to assist with the creation of the game – which has already garnered coverage in The Daily Star, The Telegraph, The Sun and more.
T-Enterprise director Zarrar Chishti told MCV: This is our first 3D Xbox game, and we’re using an engine we’ve been working on for two years.
We are a profitable company and we don’t want to be known as the ‘extreme’ firm best known for making this game. We’re taking it very seriously, which is why we’ve consulted the police and security forces. Moazzam has given us the insight and credibility we really needed.”
He added: We’re looking at publishing deals we can get, but Moazzam wanted to have complete creative control, and we understood that. This is the first part of a trilogy, so even if this one isn’t picked up by a publihser, one of the next ones might be.”
The game, which costs 250,000 to make, challenges the player to break out of a corrupt Guantanamo, in which the shady Freedom Corp are conducting biological tests on inmates. T-Enterprise said it was a quarter of the way through development.
Added Chisti: Six Days In Fallujah involved insurgents, but in Moazzam, this game has been put together with the advice of a completely innocent man. That’s a big difference.”
However, Chisti has admitted that the title may be more popular in the Middle East than the US – where he expects it to stir up controversy.
Human rights activist Begg was thrown into the camp on Cuba in 2003 after the CIA held him in Pakistan. He claims he was tortured before being freed without charge in 2005.
