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Sigil’s Vanguard to be published by Sony, Microsoft punted…

A few years back, several of the key players in the development of EverQuest left. Brad McQuaid, Jeff Butler, and numerous others set out on their own to form up a new game company (Sigil) to develop a new game (Vanguard) [1]. Microsoft funded Sigil, and there were great expectations amongst some gamers regarding how much better Vanguard would be than anything Sony could make.

Jump forward to the present day, and we find that Sigil is terminating their publishing agreement with Microsoft and signing up with Sony Online Entertainment [2]. Yep, that’s right: Vanguard will be published (hosted, mostly) by Sony, right along side EverQuest and EverQuest 2.

That’s gotta smart for the Sigil folks- right back where they started. Presumably they left Sony Online for a reason: they must have assumed they couldn’t create the kind of game they wanted within that company. I’m sure there are all sorts of agreements to ensure Sigil retains their “creative freedom” and so forth, but…well, I find it a little tough to believe that Sony won’t be right in there, offering their “suggestions”.

And I have to wonder what exactly Microsoft was trying to do to the game that drove Sigil away. Maybe they were trying to force them to release it on an XBox? Curious minds want to know…