City Interactive confirms Stuart Black's departure, new vision for Enemy Front

News by Stephany Nunneley-Jackson Former News Editor

Published on Oct. 11, 2012

City Interactive has confirmed that Stuart Black is no longer with the firm, after rumors of his departure starting surfacing in August.

According to Polish website Miastogier, citing an interview conducted with City Interactive CEO Marek Tyminski, Black and the firm parted ways after his vision for Enemy Front was found to be "different from" the firm's expectations.

As a result, the vision for Enemy Front, announced in November 2011 as a World War II first-person action-shooter, has changed direction.

"Following the first game shows, press releases, we decided to take into account the media attention and now we have made a number of quite significant changes in the game storyline and assumptions, including the main character," Tyminski said.

"We're currently working on these elements, among others, a very experienced person in the industry in the United States, Mark Bristol. Recently [we] also decided to create an extensive multiplayer mode, in which our team in Romania is responsible for."

A representative from City Interactive confirmed the changes made to Enemy Front with VG247, as well as Mark Bristol's appointment and Black's departure - which occurred in August.

"We can confirm that Stuart Black is no longer working with City Interactive on the Enemy Front project," Marshall Zwicker, the firms North American VP of sales and marketing told VG247.

"Based on on early builds of the game and various internal and external feedback that we received, we decided to take a different approach to the, gameplay, and the story and characters in the game than originally envisioned. We are now working with Mark Bristol, a very experienced cinematic director from the US and together with him we have been implementing what we feel are some really compelling changes.

"We are very happy with the progress of the game and look forward to showing it off in the months to come."

Black became the lead designer on Enemy Front when he joined City Interactive in December 2010 after departing Codemasters.

Before joining Codemasters in 2007, the Bodycount and BLACK developer previously worked with The Creative Assembly, Criterion Games, Bullfrog Ltd. and Argonaut Software.

Black has listed himself as working for his new indie development firm, Self, on his LinkedIn profile.

City Interactive's Enemy Front is being developed with CryEngine 3 for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.