1999 Anarchy Arts
Platform: PC
Also known as: Shogo: Mobile Armor Division Expansion Pack – Legacy of the Fallen
Legacy of the Fallen was an ambitious add-on pack developed by Anarchy Arts as an expansion for the 1998 first-person shooter Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. The project began in late 1998 after Monolith Productions, the creators of Shogo, approached Anarchy Arts with an offer to develop the add-on. For the relatively young and unknown studio, this was an exciting opportunity to make a name and earn revenue, so they accepted.
Anarchy Arts operated initially as a virtual company with team members scattered worldwide, but the scale of the project led them to consolidate in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, the core team of about ten people, including programmers, level designers, and artists lived and worked intensely for seven months in a cramped three bedroom apartment, putting in long hours to bring Legacy of the Fallen to life. The development was powered by Monolith’s LithTech engine, which the team praised for its flexibility despite some early challenges.
However, the project faced several significant hurdles. The team’s enthusiasm led them to overdesign the add-on, aiming for multiple endings and a complex storyline across nearly 20 levels. This was far beyond what their small budget and experience could cope with. Compounding this was the lack of a finalized design document at the project’s start, forcing last-minute design changes and reworks. Tooling difficulties also arose, notably with model export plugins, since Monolith’s in-house tools used Softimage, while Anarchy Arts’ modelers preferred 3DS Max, causing export problems that slowed down progress.
The decision to operate without a dedicated office space, opting instead to live and work in the same apartment, created distractions and blurred work-life boundaries. Additionally, the team’s distributed origins meant they didn’t hire enough local talent in Salt Lake City, which might have helped streamline development.
Financially, the project was precarious grounds. Although a small upfront budget was secured and split into milestones, the team experienced payment delays that severely hurt morale and production – where staff at times went unpaid for two months. Meanwhile, fan backlash on online forums criticizing the unfinished material also added stress to the team’s already challenging environment.
Ultimately, Legacy of the Fallen was cancelled in March 1999 after Shogo itself underperformed commercially. This led to layoffs for the entire team. Despite its cancellation, Anarchy Arts released a selection of maps, textures, and models from the project to the public for free, with the caveat that these materials were unfinished and unsupported. No full build has ever yet surfaced.
In a post-mortem shared by the team, they reflected candidly on their mistakes and lessons learned. While the project ended prematurely, Legacy of the Fallen remains a notable example of an early ambitious effort in game expansion development, with remnants still appreciated by Shogo fans and modders today. We hope that some day we might be able to recover something more that is closer to a final build. Watch this space!
With thanks to Screaming Ape for information and details to create this piece, and Archive.org for the originally hosted archive that we have replicated here.
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