'This directly meant that we knew very little about what we were trying to do. 'Yes, we tried something that we never tried before,' he agrees. The gamble around the new business model didn't pay off, but there's no shame in trying something new and it not quite coming off. But it was clearly a mis-step our side.' MercurySteam boss Enric AlvarezĪlvarez is candid about MercurySteam's mistakes with Raiders of the Broken Planet, to the point where we almost wanted to defend his efforts. 'The people who played the game mostly loved it. And if you are not backed by a huge marketing campaign, or if you don't have a very known IP, or an incredible track record doing exactly the same thing, people don't tend to pay attention. 'But for some reason, people today tend to be very cautious when spending money.

'It was like in the old days, when you have a demo and if you like it you buy the full thing,' Alvarez tells. The first expansion was available at a budget price, with four campaigns planned from the outset.

Players could try it for free and if they liked it, buy a full campaign. The four vs one online shooter attempted a new business model - part free-to-play and part episodic.

Metroid may have taken all the headlines, but Raiders was the more interesting of the two projects. It also went it alone with its own game called Raiders of the Broken Planet. Last September, it made Metroid: Samus Returns for 3DS - a critically successful remake (or reimagining) of a 1991 Nintendo game. We last spoke with him at Gamescom 2017 as the studio was preparing for the most important month in its history. Enric Alvarez, owner of MercurySteam, is in self-critical mood.

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