Wedgwood: Beth lets us get on with it

Splash Damage founder Paul Wedgwood has told Eurogamer that publisher Bethesda Softworks is patient and supportive of its work on Brink, and doesn't interfere despite making a huge investment in staff and other resources.

Wedgwood set up Splash Damage in 2001 and the studio has previously collaborated with id Software on free multiplayer title Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and the more ambitious Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, released in 2007.

But the long-term partnership it formed with Bethesda Softworks in 2008 led to a huge recruitment drive for Brink, an ambitious team-based multiplayer shooter boasting numerous innovations and bold design ideas.

"We have a really good relationship with them," Wedgwood told Eurogamer in an interview you can read today when we asked how that's all going.

"They know internally they have such a great team in Bethesda Game Studios, headed up by Todd Howard, who has just been making stonkingly good games for a really long time, and I think Bethesda Softworks take a very hands-off approach and allow people to be creative and iterate, and make your own decisions about what to cut and what stays in."

Apparently it works both ways, too, with Splash Damage leaving its doors open to Bethesda producers to visit and see how the game's progressing.

"I think as long as you have that very open relationship with a publisher then it tends to just lead to good things," Wedgwood explained.

"We don't have that sense - and I don't think anyone does who works with Bethesda Softworks does - that anyone is policing your design intentions and telling you what you must or mustn't do, or that you must achieve this rating or this target audience.

"It's just about making a game where not only does the player not want a refund but they're going to tell all their friends to go out and get it as well.

"That's a pretty easy goal to focus on."

Brink is due out for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in spring 2011.