I think surprise location just means a studio they aren't revealing now because it's as brand new announcement. The Xbox Wire article makes a point of noting where each of the 3 announced studios are located, Richardson Texas, Montpelier France, and Montreal Canada. The goal is to show how diverse Xbox is, offering games from a variety of locations and cultures. By surprise location they could mean the location itself will be surprising (somewhere in Asia of course being the most surprising thing possible for Xbox), but it could also just mean the game/studio/where the studio is located is a surprise because it is being saved for the actual direct.
I mean obviously I hope they have some 2nd party Asian game to announce, but I'm very skeptical of it, Phil dangled that carrot on a stick in front of my face for far too long with no payoff. Double Fine feels far more likely to me with them going back to multiple smaller projects and having 3 and a half years almost to develop a game since Psychonauts 2, in the past Double Fine could churn out smaller games in less than 2 years per team, so taking into account development being slower now, almost 3.5 years of development seem plenty for their smaller projects.
Last edited by shikamaru317 - 9 hours ago
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