Rumours Circulate That L.A. NOIRE Creators Team Bondi Could Disappear

By Matt Mann / August 5, 2011

Rumors are circulating that Team Bondi head Brendan McNamara is trying to get Team Bondi absorbed into another company with a new name, as a result of the public damage to his companies name in the aftermath of L.A. Noire's production trouble. With Rockstar now reluctant to publish anymore of Team Bondi's games, McNamara is in talks supposedly with George Miller's KMM studio, creators of Mad Max and Happy Feet video games, for a kind of merger/absorption deal. Kotaku reports;

"One verified source working at Dr D, George Miller's Animation Studio, claimed that multiple members of Team Bondi, including Brendan McNamara himself, were seen getting a tour of the Dr D offices."

Apparently George Miller was very impressed with "Team Bondi's efforts and McNamara's insistence to stick to his artistic vision in the face of deadlines." Ironically isn't that the very reason that Brendan McNamara and Team Bondi are in so much trouble to begin with? Not to mention the fact that according to Kotaku, many of the people who left Team Bondi are now working at George Miller's KMM studio.

"The word is going round that Team Bondi is being folded into KMM studios, Team Bondi is pretty much doomed after the scandal and can't find any new supporters, so by doing this they can hide their name."

Kotaku went on to say that they couldn't confirm the rumor, but their source said they would be surprised if it wasn't true. What all this means to the future of the LA Noire series and future games is unknown. In addition, how this affects the further use of the facial animation technology used in LA Noire is also unknown. As much as I enjoyed LA Noire and hope for a follow-up, it would be a bigger loss to the industry if the MotionScan facial technology was lost in all this turmoil; I hope we are able to see future games using this great technology.