''Project: Knoxville'' is a cancelled video game developed by Press Play and published by

Microsoft Studios Xbox Game Studios (previously known as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games) is an American video game publisher and part of the Microsoft Gaming division based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, ...

exclusively for the

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

. The game puts emphasis on

survival Survival, or the act of surviving, is the propensity of something to continue existing, particularly when this is done despite conditions that might kill or destroy it. The concept can be applied to humans and other living things (or, hypotheti ...

and lets players co-operate with each other to achieve success. The game adapts an open development and allows the community to give input regarding the game's development. As Press Play was closed in March 2016, the game was no longer in development.

Gameplay

''Project: Knoxville'' is a third-person

multiplayer A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system ( couch co-op), on different computing systems via a local area network, or ...

survival game Survival games are a sub-genre of action video games, which are usually set in hostile, intense, open-world environments. Players generally start with minimal equipment and are required to survive as long as possible by crafting tools, weapons ...

. Throughout the game, players can jump, sprint, and interact with the environments. The game's major objective is to survive and escape from an arena which is filled with different hostile enemies. These arenas are round-based, each one lasting for approximately ten to twenty minutes, and the game does not feature a persistent world. Players can interact with characters that are controlled by other players, and can choose whether to trust them or to distrust them. The game supports

co-operative gameplay A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

. As a result, players have the option to demand attention from other players, as well as requesting weapons, healing and currency from them. Some missions require multiple players to work and ally together, or else they will be unable to complete them. Competitive multiplayer elements are also present in the game, in which players can choose to eliminate or backfire at each other. In the arena, the player will be accompanied by seven different players at the beginning of each match. They can pick up weapons that are sparsely scattered across the world to defend themselves and attack enemies They are also tasked to collect coins, which can be used to escape a level and upgrade the character the player is using. The number of coins in a level is limited, and some players may not be able to collect the coin needed to escape the level, and will get left behind in the arena. Players who die in the game can also enter an Afterlife mode. They can spawn objects that will influence a round, such as enemies or medkit next to surviving characters.

Development

The game was developed by Press Play, who had previously worked on '' Max: The Curse of Brotherhood'' and ''

Kalimba Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...

''. On August 18, 2015, Press Play revealed three different projects they may work on, and asked the public to vote and choose the one that they wanted the most. The three projects were ''Project: Dwarka'', ''Project: Karoo'' and ''Project: Knoxville''. ''Dwarka'' is a

dungeon crawler A dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinth environment (a "Dungeon#In fiction, dungeon"), battling various monsters, avoiding traps, solving puzzles, and looting any treasure they may ...

set in a

first-person perspective A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller ...

. It tasks players to play as a dwarf and investigate dungeons, which are procedurally generated. '' Karoo'' is a

simulation game Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such ...

, which tasks players to build and customize their own vehicles, and explore a wasteland to gather different resources. The third project is ''Knoxville'', which was ultimately chosen by the community. All of them feature multiplayer components. According to Press Play, the game was inspired by films like '' The Running Man'' and ''

The Hunger Games ''The Hunger Games'' is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 6 ...

''. Similar to the films, they put emphasis on survival and the relationships between players. The game's development was aimed to be transparent, as they would share new information of the game every other week through

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle co ...

. Supporters would also get to join meetings of the development team through

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

. On 7 March 2016 Microsoft announced that Press Play has closed down, and that the development of ''Project: Knoxville'' had ended. The decision was made as Microsoft wished to "focus its investment and development on the games and franchises that fans find most exciting and want to play".

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

Knoxville at Microsoft
Action video games Cooperative video games Microsoft games Survival video games Multiplayer video games Video games developed in Denmark Video games with cel-shaded animation Cancelled Xbox One games Press Play (company) games