Has critical and commercial failure spelled the end for the Kane & Lynch series? According to Eidos president Ian Livingstone, it hasn’t. He believes that the characters of Kane and Lynch are just too good to kill off, and we have not seen the last of them.
“We haven’t made any announcements about Kane & Lynch going forward, but we all know that Kane and Lynch are two amazing characters who have a lot of brand equity,” he says. “Kane & Lynch 2 clearly had a Marmite effect on people.
“You either loved it or hated it. Some people liked the juddering camera, home video style. Others absolutely hated it. Some loved the characters. Some didn’t like the characters. But it’s artistic, thrill-a-minute instant action stuff. I thought it was a great game, but I can understand people might not have liked it.”
I don’t think it’s quite so black-and-white as Livingstone paints it. For example, I love Kane and Lynch as characters, I just hate the shitty games that IO Interactive puts them into. I loved the concept of Dog Days’ juddery camera, I just hate how the game’s three-hour campaign gave me a headache because of it.
I agree that Kane and Lynch as characters have serious potential, but I don’t think that potential will be met with IO at the helm. Sorry, but Dog Days demonstrated that they just can’t hack it anymore.
Eidos: Kane & Lynch “will not disappear” [Eurogamer]
Published: Dec 2, 2010 09:00 am