Brendan McNamara gained notice as being the head over at Team Bondi, responsible for summer blokcbuster LA Noire. However the man almost gained quite a bit of inamy as being a boss from hell, and it’s said that it was his particular hard-line approach to game development that ended up dooming Team Bondi, forcing it into go into liquidation in early October, after publisher Rockstar said that it would not consider any future working arrangements with the studio.
However, McNamara has seemingly bounced back and has begun working on a game about “one of the great untold stories of the 20th century.” The name of this game? Whore of the Orient.
After Team Bondi’s demise many of the staff, including McNamara went to join Kennedy Miller Mitchell Interactive, responsible for the Happy Feet film, the Happy Feet game and the upcoming Mad Max game. No details have been revelaed about the nature of the game. At this point I’m afraid it’s just the name.
While I have reservations about McNamara’s incredibly questionable work ethic, it can’t be denied that LA Noire was a successful game in terms of reviews and sales, despite allegations that McNamara’s handling of his employees was a big reason for the games huge development time and lack in certain areas. Even given this I’m very intrigued to see what Whore of the Orient turns out like, as the title would suggest a rather mature game in terms of storytelling.