Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

A man left a room and a lot of eyes gathered on him. He looked straight at the people glancing at him and smiled. He was holding a box in his hand, containing all the valuable items that didn’t have any meaning in the office anymore. 

The man’s eyes had dark circles under them but they were bright. A sight that not many people have seen in the past few years but it looked like the soul in his eyes had returned. 

Giving another glance, the man started walking, heading straight towards the elevator. 

A few people started talking after seeing this. 

“So, the rumours were all true after all.”

“Yeah, I heard he was tasked with making the next <Call of Honour> games and even the next <Assassin King> game but he got sick of the head of the studio constantly butting in during the game pre production and accused him of making the games very formulaic and not much fun. There was a big fight about it.”

“Wasn’t that a long time ago?”

“Yeah but people don’t forget. Especially those at the top. He was sidelined to make small games but after those came to be successful, he thought the studio would trust him more but they still have a lot of friction.”

“In the end, he…”

‘Decided to leave. Yes, I did. Got too suffocating for me.’

The voices became a small whisper before eventually disappearing. The man smiled thinking he won’t have to deal with them now. 

Waiting for the elevator to come, the man glanced at the walls and looked at the game posters that were displayed there. 

All those were successful and most popular games from the studio. The first few <Call of Honour> games alongside the first trilogy of <Assassin King> games. His eyes stayed on them for a while. 

In all those posters, a name was written. 

‘Directed by Cory Daniels. Well, it was a great past for sure. Never thought it would turn out like this but I need to look ahead now.’

Cory thought as the elevator came up. 

He got onto it, ignoring the faces of people already on it. It was a new start for one of the most famous game directors and developers in the gaming industry and he hoped to face it with a smile. 

After getting out of the elevator, Cory walked out of the company and headed straight to the parking lot. 

Sitting in his car, he called a number. 

“Aiden, are you free to meet? I want to start work.”

***

“I don’t remember the last game I played. Probably something at the arcade.”

Wade said as he felt like he was walking on to an unfamiliar territory. Something he wasn’t familiar with at all. 

“Just be there. It’s like making a movie in a way. You can just operate as the main character.”

“I don’t think it’s like a movie.”

“There are cinematic games too.”

Aiden said and shook his head. He told Wade to stay silent as he rang the bell. Currently, they were here to meet Cory at his house. 

Since their first meeting, Cory had taken a liking to Aiden and his ideas. And they were constantly talking about video game ideas and other things. In the end, they have decided to work on an idea together. 

Cory had already decided to make his own company, so when Aiden heard his ideas. He decided to invest in it and came on board as the story developer for the first game. 

“You are early.”

Cory said, opening the door to face Aiden and Wade. His eyes landed on Wade as he introduced himself to him. 

“Where’s your beard?”

Aiden commented, looking at his clean shaved face. His hair was shorter too. 

“Trying to look a bit younger now that we are making a fresh start.”

He laughed as they walked inside. Cory’s house was like any other house in New York but there was a serene atmosphere to it. He lived alone but the place didn’t look messy at all. 

“Let’s go to the living room.”

They walked to the living room and Aiden noticed a lot of games lying around. Some famous ones and some titles that he had no idea of. They looked very indie and some even looked like they were from the 90s. 

There was a whiteboard in the middle of the room and sofa where they sat down before the discussion started. 

Wade was the first to open his mouth. 

“Now can you explain to me about this game? You keep saying it’s going to be a very cinematic experience.”

Aiden hadn’t explained much about the game to Wade, so he was still very confused. 

“Well, it’s about mythologies and the end of the world in one sentence. Both me and Cory wanted to do something with this.”

Aiden said but Wade still seemed confused. Cory smiled seeing this and started talking about the plot that they have discussed till now. 

“The story starts…”

When they first started developing the story, Cory had let Aiden figure out the game’s story with him taking care of the gameplay mechanics. 

Aiden had a lot of themes in his mind but one theme that he absolutely wanted to do was mythology. But he didn’t want it to be a game about exploring a certain mythology. 

That was a very cool idea but a certain god game about a bald guy with a fetish of ashes was already doing it. He wanted to do something different. 

That’s when a certain idea had struck him. 

The idea was simply about gods from different mythologies coming on earth one day and bringing it what could be described as the end of the world. It sounded messy but there were already different parts of the world where pantheons were situated. 

The main character was going to be someone who’s trying to reverse this phenomenon and send the gods back from earth and return to normalcy. At the same time, there was going to be a very interesting power system in place. 

“For the gameplay mechanics, Aiden gave an extremely good idea.” 

Cory said and Wade blinked his eyes. Till now, whatever he had heard sounded pretty nice as an epic fantasy novel but he didn’t know how it would happen in a game. 

Obviously Wade was someone who had no idea of the strength of modern day video games and how they could present stories that movies aren’t capable of. 

“To get better skills and abilities, I decided to not have stuff like skill trees and instead of the usual way, players could hunt for prophecies. Obviously, there would be a usual system in place with some skills that players could perform from the start. But Prophecies would be the way forward for most of the game and would be used to make players explore.”

“How will that work?” Wade raised an eyebrow. 

“Well, in mythologies, there were a lot of prophecies. But in games, we would have our prophecies with players getting major power ups for actively hunting for these prophecies and fulfilling them. Obviously, gods would play a big part of it with some of them giving hints about certain prophecies that players could claim for themselves. There would be some that would give the title of a god killer like players searching for a mistletoe to kill someone like Baldur from Norse mythology or looking for Rama’s bow to kill Ravana according to Hindu mythology.”

Aiden explained and from time to time, he would write up some important points on the white board.

As he was handling most of the plot and world building, he was very excited to mix different mythologies with each other and create a world that’s unlike any other in video game history. 

After all, it was the first time he was investing his own money in a project. It needed to be good. 

***

Franco Li frowned. For the past few days, it was a constant for him as in the decades that his career had snapped, no actor had ever rejected him. 

No, a few had in the beginning of his career but even then, he had never given someone such an offer. An offer that he himself knew was the most enticing thing to an actor. 

Franco still remembered what Aiden had told him. 

‘Honestly, the offer is extremely attractive but I don’t think I want something like this. It looks good but I want to reach that position with my own strength. I feel like I would lose a lot if I accepted that.’

‘You need to sacrifice things to reach the top.’

Franco had said in an attempt to make him reconsider. 

‘I feel like I will stop liking acting if I accept it.’

The conversation had ended there but Franco was still infuriated about it. It wasn’t like he had no other actor to go with his plan. 

But Aiden was his first choice. 

Now that he was thoroughly rejected, he could only give up. Still, it wasn’t in his nature to just forget this and not do anything about it. 

‘I will surely get back to you one day.’

He thought in his mind.