McNamara: L.A. Noire is "probably too big"

Team Bondi founder Brendan McNamara said L.A. Noire's ambitious scale and proprietary tech blew development out to seven years.

"It’s a huge game – probably too big. The map’s massive, and so that’s probably my fault," McNamara told OPM when asked why the game spent so long in the works.

"We had to build a new process to do that. We were a brand-new studio – we had brand-new tools, new technology. We have tools that allow you to build cities now, but we had to build that kind of stuff and make it work.

"Everything from the road network, where all the trolley cars go, all the cables connecting automatically to all of the buildings. The tech was pretty extensive, including MotionScan."

As well as sheer scope, L.A. Noire's pace was hindered by the team's devotion to getting the feel -if not all the details - of 1940's Los Angeles just right.

“I’d say the first year and a half – [maybe] even longer – was just research," McNamara commented.

"Newspaper research, guys going over to LA and doing research on the buildings, taking photos, getting all the resources together… We were quite a small studio – 16 people or something – and we had to have all this material so we could start building stuff.”

Team Bondi dissolved in the wake of its debut title, L.A. Noire, amid scandal pertaining to employee complaints.