New video shows Project Milo in action

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 1 March, 2011

What might have been.

Ambitious Kinect game Project Milo was, according to Microsoft, never intended as a product that would release, but a new video has emerged that reveals just what gamers have missed out on.

"Emotion Capture" - Directing Milo, from drama director John Dower, goes in depth on Lionhead Studios' eye-catching project, and features never before seen footage.

In the film we see a young male actor performing motion capture while Dower, who worked on the project for three years, directs his actions.

The process of turning the data gathered into a videogame is explained, and we see Milo scared by a deer, getting angry at the player and gasping in wonder at a forest.

Milo was to be a young boy who would react in a realistic fashion to the player actions, detected using the Kinect sensor.

We last heard of Project Milo in November 2010, when Alex Kipman, Microsoft's director of incubation and creator of Kinect, said it "was never a product" and "was never announced as a game".

In September Eurogamer brought you the news that the controversial Kinect relationship simulator, revealed at E3 2009, had been cancelled.

We were told the Milo team were to use the Milo tech for a Fable-themed Kinect game.

The news followed months of public to-ing and fro-ing between Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux and Microsoft over Project Milo's status as a game that would eventually be released.

"Of course!" Molyneux said in August when asked whether we'll be able to buy it in the shops at some point in the future. "I wouldn't be working on it if I didn't hope that to be true, yes."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Xboxfanuk #1 1 year ago

    Because everyone said this was a pedo simulator a truely artistic and moving game was killed. Because the video game industry could not cope with drama and kids. This reminds me of films like The Polar Express or Neverending Story. Perhaps the industry is still just about violence or sex and not much else.
    Edited by Xboxfanuk at 01/03/11 @ 09:06

  • The-Bodybuilder #2 1 year ago

    Still Creepy.

  • The-Bodybuilder #3 1 year ago

    Besides, don't you need an emotion engine for emotion capture?

  • MasterNameless #4 1 year ago

    Yeah, and the cell chip is only currently good for prison games. :/

  • RodHull #5 1 year ago

    The fact that adult gamers would have to have a police check before interacting with the young "boy" probably led to its cancellation.

  • ZizouFC #6 1 year ago

    Fuck me. Milo is hot.

  • HolyJebus #7 1 year ago

    His chin beard thingy looks off centre. He must shave using kinect as a mirror.

  • Weezer #8 1 year ago

    Isn't it just an enormous Kinect tamagochi? I'd suggest that the novelty would wear off after a weekend. Unless you could either a) torment and emotionally scar him for fun, or b) send him off on grisly stealth killing missions.

  • arcam #9 1 year ago

    No one has been "denied an artistic and moving game".

    Clearly PM has been trying to do interesting things with Kinect, not trying to make a great game.

  • LetsGo #10 1 year ago

    He does know it was all scripted.... right.....?

  • evild_edd #11 1 year ago

    very interesting vid

    Indicated that a lot of money and time was invested in the project (and that the poject was at a more advanced state than previously thought?)... makes you wonder why this was cancelled. surely not just because of lack of understanding from a narrow-minded minority....?

  • metalangel #12 1 year ago

    It's probably too late to change it to Project Maddie.

  • gamingdave #13 1 year ago

    Saw Molyneux "demo" Milo at a Bafta talk he was giving. It was interesting in parts, but so clearly scripted, and didnt like deviating from the very steady path it was expecting at all. Even supposedly simple things like the drawing recognition through the camera for a game of naughts and crosses didnt work properly.

    An ambitious project, but an aweful lot of smoke and mirrors.

  • Sausagechaos #14 1 year ago

    ''The news followed months of pubic to-ing and fro-ing between Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux and Microsoft over Project Milo's status as a game that would eventually be released. ''

    I would love to see what pubic to-ing and fro-ing entails.
    dirty boys.

  • frunk #15 1 year ago

    "What might have been"

    Er... by the looks of it an on-rails scripted interactive fiction...

    Like a less interesting "Heavy Rain" . I get the impression Heavy Rain kinda wrecked the party for Milo & Kate... it hits a lot of the same ideas.

    And lets face it Heavy Rain could have done with some improvment too, but it got out there first and maybe undermined some of the "Milo uniqueness". With LA Noire also on track to do the "reading peoples faces" and determining a line of questioning that also undermines some of what Milo was trying to achive.

    Actually Kinect used in the LA Noire questioning sequences would have been good - reading your body posture to gauge mood, threatening actions, etc

    I for one would rather face down criminals whilst investigating a case than help a 10 year old with their homework. Videogames are a good way of exploring things you CAN'T normally do in real life.

  • Peew971 #16 1 year ago

    3 years of work down the drain, that's a big waste isn't it? Don't know why but I have a feeling it would have been successful.

  • smelly #17 1 year ago

    WOAAAH!

    Two molyneux-related updates on the front page.. Is lionhead about to announce a new game or something?

  • smelly #18 1 year ago

    quote : "Ambitious Kinect game Project Milo was, according to Microsoft, never intended as a product that would release"


    Thats becuase it never worked the way they claimed it did, and was only there as smoke and mirrors in order to fool the public into thinking kinect was somehow some super intelligent AI machine, when in reality all it was, was a modernised eye toy.

    It worked too.. Still loads of people out there who think that kinect can do all these really clever things and wont be relegated to wii-style mini-game shitfests.

  • smelly #19 1 year ago

    >3 years of work down the drain, that's a big waste isn't it?

    No, it did what it intended to do.. It created a buzz around the eyet.. sorry i mean kinect.. It got people believing that the machine could do everything unscripted (and didnt need a guy in the corner of the room on a computer telling milo what to do).

    It got peter awards, and the ability to do bullshit bafta presentations. It gets websites like this talking about the vapourware as if it was actually possible, etc etc.

    It was great marketing, nothing more or less.. Which is what it was intended to be.

    And like or hate peter, marketing is what he's good at. It's no accident that games sites like this one start doing near daily updates on him up until the release of his next mediocre title.. and it's no accident that said mediocre game will go on and sell millions...

  • busboy33 #20 1 year ago

    Sure, lots of interesting technology going on here, but would it have made a fun and/or compelling game?

    If not, then despite my wanting to sample the tech they were smart to (most likely) cancel it. Arthouse movies might be interesting, especially to a small group of viewers, but generally they aren't commercial wins. MS is in the buisness of making a saleable product, not creating art. If they can do both, great. But if its a choice between one or the other . . .

    Even assuming Milo & Kate is done, this isn't a total loss. The lessons learned for this project are certainly applicable to future projects.

  • zedzee #21 1 year ago

    Did PM invent an AI entity? No.

    Could it have been developed into something interesting? Perhaps.

    But why make it have adult themes? Why couldn't children interact with Milo instead - make it a children's game? That way, even scripted (on-rails) interaction would be 'acceptable' and perhaps include some really good teaching points in it, eg. crossing the road safely, not talking to strangers, dangers of smoking etc.

    I don't think it would've worked as an adult game - you only need to read some of the posts here and from past articles, to understand why - people just don't trust themselves anymore and morality (in fact pretty much everything) has been perverted these days, which is a shame, and the very freedom that we cherish has come full circle and bit us in the backside - preventing us from even trusting ourselves with a digital character.
    Edited by zedzee at 01/03/11 @ 22:54