Oh, its time! Finally, i can talk.
The ideal concept of the One and Only
Nexus: Jupiter incident were brewed and perfected during the development of Imperium Galactica in 1997 (platform: MS-DOS) then during the work on Imperium Galactica 2. Originally Imperium Galactica III. was meant to be Nexus 1. However changing publishers, chaotic legal disputes, including the developers had to break into their own then closed down offices and "steal" back their engine & their source code of the Nexus-1 prototype..
Can you imagine, if they fought this hard for their beloved brain-child, the developers surely must have been carrying the shining light of Nexus 1's ideas in their hearts! The main engine coder was a genius of his time and he spent day and night - basically obsessed - creating the beautiful 3D universe. The main designer also shared his obsession and at least one modeler who created the ships worked feverishly. They gave EVERYTHING. They did never quit. Finally, through forming Mithis Entertainment and fighting for a deal with Vivendi and HD Interactive, plus perfecting their awesome 3D Black Sun Engine, they created the best game of their life! Since then they were NOT be able to create anything that comes even close to Nexus.
The reason for this is, i think, if you give "every part of your soul" to a project like Nexus 1, your soul-parts really go over into the Great Beyond. Life has a limited span, youthful energy and human vitality slowly ebbs with age. The main programmer regrettably said to me 4 years after the completion of NEXUS 1, that his bright inventive thinking - characteristic of young energetic, intelligent coders - was then in the decline, on a downward arc. Just think about the energy they pumped into Nexus 1, if you are a developer, you will understand! For this same reason - i think - Mike Harrington said to Gabe Newell after creating the One and Only Half-Life 1 when Gabe asked him, to lets try to gather energy for creating Half-Life 2:
- Gabe, I can't do this again.
After finishing Nexus 1 in 2004 the original creators tried to pitch Nexus 2 to various publishers, to get big money for the required development. No publisher was interested. As the years passed, they GAVE UP HOPE. Can you imagine, how the really bright, intelligent & creative developers must have felt, when they had to give up hope?? :~~-(((((
HD Publishing created a studio in 2006 with these guys, they completed: Joint Task Force
http://hardwired.hu/bigdl/3/10/Joint_Task_Force_PC_muvi_launchtrailer.wmvIn 2007 and 2008 i had the fortune to work with these Nexus 1 guys of exceptional talent. I realized then, what i hadn't seen in 2004 - as a journalist then visiting their studio, where i was shown a U-Boot underwater scene, made with a modified Black Sun 3D Engine, looking awesome. That was Battlestations: Midway. These guys were the best. Still, they had unfortunately little experience for the stealth-based, cyberpunk third-person action shooter with elements of Saboteur and Splinter Cell, they tried to create and finish.
Here is a trailer from that cancelled game from 2008:
http://hardwired.hu/bigdl/3/10/muvi_black_noise_engine_movie.aviThe owner of the company lost a lot of money in the 2007-2008 world-wide economic crash and the studio was closed down, these guys were disbanded and each went to different studios, their experience of Nexus 1 dispersed, the core team shattered, never to be united __ever__ again.
Today, most of the brightest of these guys, creators of Nexus 1, gave up game development entirely, some went over to show presentation media creation and coding: where the big salary is.
Maybe now you understand, how much hope and chance the original financial backer of the company - the guys in the video of the Nexus 2 Kickstarter and of the earlier money-gathering campaigns - had to hire back the Creative Heroes of the Past.. .. .. to create again a new Nexus 2.. . .. . :~~(((