Team Bondi – L.A. Noire
Team Bondi first teased L.A. Noire in 2003. It ultimately announced it in 2006 and the game finally released in 2011. Ponder that for a moment. The overall tiff between publisher Rockstar Games and the developer itself is an ugly one. The management of Team Bondi was cited as a problem as were the long working hours that staff had to face. 12 hour per day crunch times aside, Rockstar itself became fed up with how Bondi handled things as it brought its own programmers, artists and producers to help out. However, even when L.A. Noire released, more than 130 credits for employees that had been fired or left the studio were missing or incorrect. The project as a whole was ambitious and thankfully garnered some critical acclaim despite Bondi ultimately closing. Every developer enters a project with the best intentions but if this feature proves anything, it’s that very few are ever the same afterwards.
