MotorStorm Apocalypse launched under extraordinary circumstances earlier in the year.

Not only did the brilliant post-apocalyptic racer have to contend with a real-world disaster, but it also launched during the worst of the PlayStation Network outage earlier in the year.

Such a run of bad luck would have finished off most other developers, and for a while Evolution Studios' boss Matt Southern suspected the worst. But following the announcement of the developer's next project — a scaled down RC racing game for PS3 and PS Vita entitled MotorStorm RC — gaffer Matt Southern has praised Sony for backing his team.

"[Sony] defended us and protected us and allowed us to experiment," he told Eurogamer. "It's been quite a tough year for us, especially early on in the year. We made a game we're really proud of and for some really heartbreaking reasons things didn't go so well. In perspective we've got nothing to complain about.

"I was worried it might be the end of Evolution. Racing has had a very tough time, even without extraordinary circumstances like the ones we went through."

But Evolution is still alive and kicking, and Southern is now looking to the future.

"We split the company up into three teams, one making RC, one supporting MotorStorm: Apocalypse post-launch with DLC and multiplayer, and another bunch of guys just brainstorming new ideas. In a climate like the one we've had this year, that is rare."

Once MotorStorm RC was given the green light, the mood in Evolution changed. Southern continued: "We all started to pick ourselves up and get excited about it. We're not out of it yet, [but] things are turning round, I think. The studio's really, really buzzing now."

If you haven't picked up MotorStorm: Apocalypse yet, you owe it to yourself to give the game a go. We described the game as the "ultimate destruction derby" in our review earlier in the year.

[source eurogamer.net]