Square picks up Portal co-creator's latest

By Fred Dutton Published 22 August, 2011

Swift's first for Dark Void studio incoming.

Square Enix will release the latest game from former Valve designer and Portal co-creator Kim Swift, with an official unveiling due this weekend.

The game, which Square's tease dubs "incredibly fascinating and quirky", is being developed at Dark Void developer Airtight Games, where Swift is now a project lead. We'll find out more about the title this Saturday at the PAX Prime show in Seattle.

Swift joined Valve straight out of Washington tech college DigiPen in 2005, where she co-developed Narbacular Drop - the direct inspiration for Portal's basic mechanics. As well as Portal, she also worked on Left 4 Dead 2 before leaving for Airtight back in December 2009.

Airtight's last effort, Capcom-published jet-pack actioner Dark Void, missed the mark when it launched back in January 2010, picking up a scrappy 5/10 from Eurogamer's Dan Pearson.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (6) Latest comment 9 months ago

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  • Haloboy #1 9 months ago

    Don't care what anyone says I enjoyed the hell out of Dark Void. Airtight are alright by my standards.

  • rockavitch #2 9 months ago

    @Haloboy I only paid 5 pound for it and it was worth every penny, even if I spent 10 pound I wouldn't have complained either.

  • joeymoto108 #3 9 months ago

    4th here then, great game. This and Bionic Commando are pretty damn underrated bargain bin games.

  • frunk #4 9 months ago

    Should be a interesting launch.

    I do like the way that Square (and it seems most Japanese publishers) don't just drop a developer that makes a bad game - it gives them another even better chance.

    Here in the West we have a bit too much of the "you are only as your last game" mentality which sees development studios opening and closing like a whore's drawers. And we have companies like Microsoft and Activision that promote the model.

  • joeymoto108 #5 9 months ago

    Dark Void wasn't a bad game though. I think there's something about it that the critics didn't 'get'.

  • Chibi-Kibou #6 9 months ago

    Have to admit, 5/10 isn't really deserved if you ask me. I just wish it had been bigger. I even appreciated the slow start, with hindsight, and certainly would consider that game to be a reason to buy whatever its studio should turn out, not dismiss it.

    Either the critics failed to understand.. or they failed to play past the first hour or two and judged it on that alone. Ah well.