Get Airborne Kingdom ➜ https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/product/airborne-kingdom/home
In this interview with MinnMax’s Ben Hanson, The Wandering Band’s Zach Mumbach and Ben Wander talk about the formation of their new studio and the flying city-builder Airborne Kingdom. We also go back in time and talk about their experience working at Visceral Games under EA on the Dead Space series, Amy Hennig’s Star Wars project, Army of Two: Devil’s Cartel, and Battlefield Hardline. To unlock the podcast version of this discussion and help support more interviews in the future, check out the benefits for supporting us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/minnmax
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To unlock the podcast version of this interview and The Deepest Dive, help support more interviews in the future, and a whole lot more, please consider supporting MinnMax on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/minnmax
Ben, always amazing interviews. God bless you for not being Greg Miller. Stay safe!
Am I crazy or does Zach looks like Ben Hanson
Awesome as always – I have had by eye on Airborne Kingdom, but I went out and bought it during this interview. Ben & Zach were just so awesome and candid and excited about what they are doing. I'm crazy excited for this game
What a good interview. Hearing Ben talk about the Nav Mesh issues at 40:00 was hilarious, and seeing Zachs face right at 41:45 as if he knows exactly whats coming is great. That whole Frostbite section was really interesting, and I love hearing developers talk about the little victories, and struggles when trying to create these games. Two fantastic guests, and an overall wonderful interview.
Also, that section about the fall of the Star Wars game was brutal to hear. The fact Soderlund was so hyper focused on games like PUBG potentially deprived us of an amazing Star Wars game by some of the best designers in the business. How frustrating.
Hardline launched with 9 maps not 12.
Not that we needed more validation that EA is evil, but hearing that story about Zach's pitch was like a gut punch! I'm glad they were so open and candid about it all.
I usually don’t watch interviews, but when I do it’s Dos Equis. No seriously I usually am not a fan of many interviews unless I’m really passionate about a game they have worked on etc. And didn’t have any sort of tie to either of these two. But needed something to listen to while cooking dinner and I have to say that was fantastic. The special looks into the Star Wars game and just how the industry works was so insightful. The questions were thought out yet adapted to how the flow of conversation was going. The chemistry between guests and host was amazing. All around great job Ben and the MinnMax team as a whole in everything you all do.
Great interview Ben! We need more of these
bens good at choosing interviews where people will actually talk candidly and not be a boring publicity trained industry shill type
theres some juicy epic store deets in here…
These interviews are so awesome, it really helps give a voice to the people who make these games and studios we all love. Keep doing them!
Hanson is a pro interviewer. Ben have you ever considered doing a follow up to your MGS retrospective but focus on 2? The first one was so well done and MGS2 is such an important game for a variety of reasons. It would be amazing and I think actually possible to get a lot of people involved with the game on board to speak with you. Just a thought.
One day I want to be as good at conducting interviews as Ben Hanson.
Commenting because great content like this deserves any help it can get with the youtube algorithm.
Nice interview! Those guys were really open about alot of insider stuff.
More people need to hear the dev side of the Epic Game Store deals.
These deals sound too good to be true
Awesome interview Ben. It's great to hear voices in the industry I've never heard before.
Fantastic content as always!
Great interview! I haven't heard of Airborne Kingdom, didn't know anything about Visceral, don't really care about Star Wars and still thoroughly enjoyed it
Wow! This has been possibly my favorite MinnMax interview yet.
Zach and Ben are both very candid and honest and offer interesting perspective into a world we often wonder about as mere consumers of games.
I especially like the part where they talk about the cancelled Amy Hennig game. This is the most detailed description of what was happening at that studio than I can recall having read or heard. Great get, MinnMax!
I cannot get out of my head how much Ben Wander looks like Ana. They're twins!
This has been my favorite MinnMax interview so far. Keep it up, Ben!
Great interview Ben! Think these interviews are shaping into some of the best content on MinnMax.
1:08:13 imagine saying that and still releasing Battlefield V. It's confirmed at this point that there is either corporate espionage or extreme favoritism in EA. It could possibly be just pure ineptitude from these corporate fools. Since Patrick was all in for it, and from what I can tell, he seems relatively competent, but then you have people influencing him in a bad way.
EA just needs to be wiped clean and built up again like Lucasfilm.