Software:LMNO
LMNO was the working title for a video game in development by EA Los Angeles, notable for Steven Spielberg's involvement in the project.[1]
The partnership with Spielberg, first announced in 2005, was to produce an action game with an aim to evoke emotion, described as "a mix of first-person parkour movement with adventure and role-playing elements and escape-focused gameplay, all involving the player's relationship with an alien-looking character named Eve".[1] According to Sébastien Mitton, the art director at Arkane Studios, the story had the player-character rescue Eve from a government laboratory on the east coast of the United States and help her escape on a road trip to the west coast trying to keep her alien nature hidden from encounters with other humans, which he described as a very typical Spielberg story.[2] As a requirement of Spielberg, the game would have lacked gunplay, instead allowing the player to avoid combat by solving puzzles or if necessary resorting to hand-to-hand fighting. The game also had focused on characterization and expressions with player decisions having impacts on how the game progressed.[2]
EA Los Angeles, which Spielberg had collaborated with before, brought established talent from other studios to help on the project, including Doug Church, Randy Smith, Habib Zargarpour, and Jason Rohrer.[3] They also brought in Arkane Studios to help with at least one level, that of a western truck stop.[2] The project was officially announced as cancelled in late 2010,[4] although sources place the actual date that work ceased on the project as being around a year earlier.[1][5]
Details about LMNO, including preliminary gameplay footage, were revealed as part of a larger documentary on Arkane Studios released by Noclip in May 2020.[2]
See also
- Hollywood and the video game industry
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Leone, Matt (November 1, 2010). "The Story Behind Steven Spielberg's LMNO". Ziff Davis. Archived from the original on February 3, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140203184253/http://www.1up.com/features/story-steven-spielberg-lmno. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 The Untold History of Arkane: Dishonored / Prey / Ravenholm / LMNO / The Crossing. Noclip. May 26, 2020. Event occurs at 23:00. Retrieved May 26, 2020 – via YouTube.
- ↑ Dutton, Fred (November 3, 2011). "Spielberg was "hands-off" with canned EA project". https://www.eurogamer.net/spielberg-was-hands-off-with-canned-ea-project. Retrieved March 16, 2026.
- ↑ Goldman, Tom (October 12, 2010). "EA Confirms Cancelation of Steven Spielberg's LMNO". Defy Media. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/104277-EA-Confirms-Cancelation-of-Steven-Spielbergs-LMNO. Retrieved September 30, 2015.
- ↑ Kohler, Chris (August 24, 2010). "When Game Developers Go Indie, Everybody Wins". Condé Nast. https://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/08/indie-games/2/. Retrieved September 30, 2015.
