A job listing on Hasbro’s website provides new details on the upcoming GI JOE game starring Snake Eyes being developed by North Carolina-based studio Atomic Arcade.
G.I. JOE: Snake Eyes #2 (2011), IDW Publishing
Batman: Arkham producer Ames Kirshen leads the studio and he revealed back in March 2022 that he had joined Hasbro to develop a game focused on GI Joe back in March 2022.
He informed Games Industry, “I always had this great desire to tackle G.I. Joe and take a crack at making an amazing game with the IP because I think there’s a lot of potential there. So long story short, we decided to build a studio to support that franchise, to support that game.”
He also informed the outlet that the game would be focused on Snake Eyes and described it as “a much more edgy, contemporary, mature take on G.I. Joe to really suit what we felt we needed to have this IP and game resonate with a modern consumer.”
Snake Eyes: Deadgame (2021), IDW PublishingREAD
While Kirshen’s comments about providing a contemporary take might give some readers pause, and it gives me pause, Kirshen elaborated while discussing how he had to convince Hasbro executives to greenlight the game.
He shared, “It was a process of getting them comfortable with the direction we wanted to go with, that this is the type of content the market is looking for.”
“That people grew up with this IP and those who grew up with this IP back in the days of Real American Hero at its peak in the ’80s and ’90s are now fathers and uncles, and these are the mass consumers of these AAA consoles and PC platforms. And they want content that grows with them,” he explained.
G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero #309 (2024), Image Comics
Kershen also seemed to imply that he will be telling an original Snake Eyes story with the game, “If you look at what the evolution has been in the late PS3 era moving into PS4, it’s been to take these ideas and craft unique experiences taking some of the best elements of the underlying IP from the source material, but creating a version specifically for the video game market and video game consumer.”
“As opposed to taking someone else’s version of the characters and trying to adapt that to the medium when that wasn’t organically created for that medium from the get-go.”
A screenshot from Batman: Arkham City – Game of the Year Edition (2012), Rocksteady Studios
READ: “GI Joe, Where Did You Go?” – Industry Insiders Explain the State of Action Figures (Part 1)
To make his point he compared his work on the Arkham series to Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, “At the height of the Christopher Nolan trilogy, rather than doing a game based on that Batman, working with Rocksteady we crafted our own version of Batman that was specifically built from the ground-up to be an amazing, cutting-edge, high-quality Batman game that was very much inspired by other media and the core canon of Batman, but was its own unique, fresh take made for gamers from the ground up,”
“Based on the huge success of that, that became the model for us across all of our portfolio at DC,” he added.
A screenshot from Batman: Arkham Asylum Game of the Year Edition (2010), Rocksteady Studios
Furthermore, Kershen made it a point that while he will seemingly be crafting an original story he still wants to respect GI JOE.
He explained, “There are things every creator needs to do for the medium they’re creating that sometimes will need to push the boundaries of some of the rules and guidelines of the IP, as long as you’re still being very respectful to the underlying IP and respecting the essence of it — on a micro character level as well as a macro world-building level.”
G.I. Joe: Snake Eyes #5 (2011), IDW Publishing
READ: “GI Joe, Where Did You Go?” – Industry Insiders Explain the State of Action Figures (Part 2)
Now, a new job listing for a Senior World/Level Designer shares some new details about the game. It notes the game will be a “multi-platform AAA game – a bold and contemporary new take on the GI JOE Universe starring the legendary character Snake Eyes!”
Specifically, the job listing implies that the game will have a mix of open world as well as closed level mechanics likely similar to Batman: Arkham City. It states that the candidate will bring “passion for both open world and linear level design”
It also wants the candidate to bring a “minimum of 4-6 years game development experience and significant contribution to a multiple shipped AAA titles as a Level Designer / World Builder.”
In a section labeled “Extra Credit” it also notes that the ideal candidate will have “experience working on Open-World and/or Sandbox projects.”
A job listing for a Senior World/Level Designer for Atomic Arcade’s upcoming GI JOE Snake Eyes game
What do you make of these new details about the upcoming Snake Eyes game?
