''LMNO'' was the

working title A working title, which may be abbreviated and styled in trade publications after a putative title as (wt), also called a production title or a tentative title, is the temporary title of a product or project used during its development, usually ...

for a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device to gener ...

in development by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted th ...

, notable for

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spi ...

's involvement in the project. The partnership with Spielberg, first announced in 2005, was to produce an action game with an aim to evoke emotion, described as "a mix of first-person

parkour Parkour () is an athletic training discipline or sport in which practitioners (called ''traceurs'') attempt to get from point A to point B in the fastest and most efficient way possible, without assisting equipment and often while performing ...

movement with

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extr ...

and

role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing as ...

elements and escape-focused gameplay, all involving the player's relationship with an

alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrate ...

-looking character named Eve". According to Sebastien Mitten, the art director at Arkane Studios, the story had the player-character rescue Eve from a government laboratory on the east coast of the United States and help her escape on a

road trip A road trip, sometimes spelled roadtrip, is a long-distance journey on the road. Typically, road trips are long distances travelled by automobile. History First road trips by automobile The world's first recorded long-distance road trip by ...

to the west coast trying to keep her alien nature hidden from encounters with other humans, which he described as a very typical Spielberg story. As a requirement of Spielberg, the game would have lacked gunplay, instead allowing the player to avoid combat by solving puzzles or if necessary resorting to hand-to-hand fighting. The game also had focused on characterization and expressions with player decisions having impacts on how the game progressed. The

EA Los Angeles Danger Close Games (formerly DreamWorks Interactive LLC and EA Los Angeles) was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in March 1995 as joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft (later moved to Mi ...

studio, which Spielberg had collaborated with before, brought established talent from other studios to help on the project, including

Doug Church Doug Church (born November 16, 1968, in Evanston, Illinois), is an American video game designer and producer. He attended MIT in the late 1980s, but left and went to work with Looking Glass Studios, when they were making primarily MS-DOS-based ...

, Randy Smith, and

Habib Zargarpour Habib Zargarpour (born 9 March 1964) is an Iranian visual effects supervisor, computer graphics supervisor, art director and creative director. Zargarpour worked on the films ''Twister'' (1996) and '' The Perfect Storm'' (2000), for which he w ...

. They also brought in

Arkane Studios Arkane Studios SASU is a French video game developer based in Lyon. It was founded in 1999, and released its first game, ''Arx Fatalis'', in 2002. Besides the Lyon studio, Arkane Lyon, Arkane Studios operates Arkane Studios LLC ( trading as Ar ...

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

, France, to help with at least one level, that of a western

truck stop A truck stop, known as a service station in the United Kingdom, and a travel center by major chains in the United States, is a commercial facility which provides refueling, rest (parking), and often ready-made food and other services to motori ...

. The project was officially announced as cancelled in late 2010, although sources place the actual date that work ceased on the project as being around a year earlier. Details about ''LMNO'', including preliminary gameplay footage, were revealed as part of a larger documentary on Arkane Studios released by

Noclip Noclip is a crowdfunded media company dedicated to creating video game documentaries. It was founded by Danny O'Dwyer, an Irish video game journalist and documentary producer, in 2016, and is solely funded via Patreon donations. History Prio ...

in May 2020.

References

Cancelled Windows games Electronic Arts games Steven Spielberg Arkane Studios games Vaporware video games {{Zenimax-stub

See also

References