How Insomniac’s Best Game Flopped and Made $567

When you hear the name Insomniac Games, your first thought probably drifts to the recent Spider-Man games. Or, maybe you remember other games developed by them, like Ratchet and Clank, Spyro the Dragon, and Resistance. And if someone asked you which one of Insomniac’s games is the best, you would likely say an entry in one of these franchises. But what if I told you that Insomniac’s best game was none of these titles, and that it only made $567 profit in its entire lifetime? That’s right, we’re talking about Sunset Overdrive. 

Sunset Overdrive is now 10 years old, so in this video, we’re going to chart its development from beginning to end. Along the way, we’ll find out how the most expensive game ever developed by Insomniac became the least profitable. We’ll examine how working on Sunset Overdrive paved the way for the team to make the Spider-Man games. And we’ll talk about why the series isn’t dead, and how we might actually be getting a sequel sooner rather than later.

To understand the importance of Sunset Overdrive, we first need to take a look at the history of Insomniac Games. The company was founded in 1994 by Ted Price, a man who has remained CEO up until this day. From 1994 to 1996, the company worked on their first game called Disruptor. It was a first-person shooter that drew heavily from Doom.

Disruptor was originally slated for release on the Panasonic 3DO (side note: what the hell is that thing), but after pitching the game to Mark Cerny who was, at the time, working for Universal Intereactive Studios, they decided to release the game on the original PlayStation instead. The game received lots of praise, including from Doom creator John Romero himself.

This began a long-lasting relationship between Insomniac Games and their preference for working on the Sony PlayStation platform. From 1996 to 2000, Insomniac developed and released 3 Spyro the Dragon games, which would mark the beginning of their shift from pure shooter games to incoporate platforming elements as well. In 2002, Insomniac went on to release the first game in their new series: Ratchet and Clank on the new at the time PlayStation 2 console. 

With Ratchet and Clank, it became clear how Insomniac would start to meld action and platforming together, drawing on their previous work to evolve their creations. Ratchet and Clank had personality, story, and action that was delivered in an enjoyable package that audiences loved. So, from 2002 until 2006, Price and his team went on to release a total of four games in the series. 

But, in 2006, Sony’s new PlayStation 3 console was finally hitting store shelves a year after the Xbox 360. Coming out alongside the console’s release was the must-have Insomniac developed exclusive Resistance Fall of Man. This new first-person shooter asked you to fight off an alien invasion and was Insomniac going back to their first-person shooter roots. From 2006 to 2014, Insomniac would split their development time between Resistance 2 and 3 and Ratchet and Clank, cranking out a total of 10 games in the period. In this time they also created the PS3 coop shooter Fuse and IOS game Outernauts. But Insomniac had honed their FPS and platforming skills and cemented their relationship with Sony by creating PlayStation-only exclusives – or had they? 

In a shock move that surprised everybody, Insomniac Games announced Sunset Overdrive at E3 in 2013. It was a fresh new IP that combined the studio’s previous work in creating a shooter with platforming elements but that also had a quirky story. The crazy twist, however, came when it was found out that Sunset Overdrive would be created in conjunction with Microsoft Studios. It was to be an Xbox One exclusive in the fight between the newly released Xbox One and PS4 consoles. Insomniac had only ever worked with Sony, but now they had put their eggs in the team green basket for this innovative new idea. 

Sunset Overdrive is set in 2027, in a fictional metropolis called Sunset City. The player controls an employee of FizzCo, who has to fight off the OD, short for Overcharge Drinkers: humans who have turned into mutants after drinking FizzCo’s energy drink beverage. In the dystopian Sunset City, the player character can wall-run, use zip-lines, and grind rails to swiftly navigate through it, with a large arsenal of weapons to use.

But how did this all happen? Sunset Overdrive combines punk music, the apocalypse, and innovate-at-the-time traversal and combat. So how did Insomniac come up with the concept for a game that combines all of these seemingly unrelated mechanics in a way that is both fun and engaging? 

Sunset Overdrive’s Creative Director Marcus Smith was sitting around with Drew Murray, the game director and thinking of games they could make if they had an enormous budget. Remember this point because it will become important later. This was at the height of the post-apocalyptic zombie craze around the time the Walking Dead reached peak popularity. When watching all of these shows about the apocalypse at home, which depicted how miserable it would be if society collapsed, Smith went against the grain by contemplating how cool it would actually be to not have a boss or a 9-5 to work. He recognised, in true gamer style, that all of the post-apocalyptic shows were getting it all wrong. (insert video). Smith theorised that rather than the apocalypse being caused by some kind of science fiction experiment, the world would probably end by somebody making a silly mistake. This is how Fizzcos energy drink came to be the harbinger of the apocalypse in Sunset Overdrive. In an interview with the AU Review, Smith also stated that he drew inspiration from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games, which require you to pay attention and get to know what you can and can’t use to traverse the environment. This is something that would have far-reaching consequences and that would later be further developed in the Spider-Man games to great success. Smith and his friend Murray took their idea to Insomniac CEO Ted Price and the company ended up partnering with Microsoft on the project. It was at a time when Microsoft was still reeling from the terrible Don Mattrick Xbox One announcement fiasco, and they were looking for innovative new exclusives to show gamers why they should play on their console. Sunset Overdrive was so important to Xbox that a special white Xbox One Sunset Overdrive console was even released alongside the game in October of 2014. 

And that’s how Sunset Overdrive came to be. But what made the game so special? And why are we still talking about it today? It’s time to dive into what makes Sunset Overdrive so underrated and overlooked.

Let’s start at the beginning. Sunset Overdrive is as stylish as they come. When you first start the game, you’re tasked with creating your own character using a plethora of customisation options. You can even select whether your character is male or female, and this is an important point. That’s because the male character is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. Lowenthal’s relationship with Insomniac started when he voiced numerous character’s in 2011’s Resistance 3. In a strange foreshadowing of what was to come, he came back to lend his voice to the male protagonist in Sunet Overdrive before going on to win awards for his portrayal of Peter Parker in the Spider-Man games further down the line.

Once you’ve created your character, watch a short introductory cutscene, and get into the game properly, your overarching job in Sunset Overdrive is to solve the FizzCo conspiracy and stop them covering up the fact they just turned a whole city into mutants with their energy drink. Speaking of the city, players are free to explore the whole of Sunset City at any point by free roaming across the map. The game has a fast travel system too, allowing players to reach different locations and to navigate the world quickly. As well as tackling the main campaign where you try to stop FizzCo, you can also complete lots of different sidequests for the kooky cast of characters in Sunset City.

When the game’s creative director Marcus Smith said the game’s traversal system was inspired by Tony Hawk, they meant it. Players are punished for simply running around at ground level as you’re quickly overwhelmed by the fast-moving enemies. Instead, the game rewards players for staying in the air and on the rails. To get around Sunset City, you have the option of employing many different movement techniques, including wall running, air dashing, zip lining, parkour, and acrobatics. When grinding, you can swap directions of travel at will, and the city is also full of objects that bounce you in the air. If you aim while performing these movements, you can slow down time, which allows you to aim more precisely or switch weapons. All of this is accompanied by an on-screen style meter that gives you multipliers for chaining together combat and traversal. 

Upon the game’s release in 2014, this combination of third-person combat and traversal hadn’t really been done before. It was an innovative idea that landed barely a year after the launch of the Xbox One console and usedpushed its power to the maximum. Looking back now, it’s clear to see that this is the genesis of the modern Insomniac Spider-Man games. In a twist of fate, making Sunset Overdrive for Microsoft helped them perfect Spider-Man for Sony. But hold that thought, because we’ll circle back on why this is crucial later.

Insomniac wasn’t just looking forward though. The Sunset Overdrive weapon wheel is straight out of Ratchet and Clank, albeit with some style tweaks. There are all kinds of weapons that can be modified and upgraded, and leveling up your weapons by maintaining a high style meter also increases their potency. The weapons are just as eccentric as you’d expect, with teddy bear grenade launchers and a record disc shooter that bounces between enemies. This eccentricity carries over to the wacky characters you encounter in your playthough. Floyd is an ex-Fizzco scientist that sells you gun upgrades, Walter is a father figure trying to help you escape the city, and you’ll encounter groups of entitled students, boy scout troops who have taken over a samurai museum, LARPERS, and more. Sunset Overdrive was even supported after release with 2 DLCs that expanded the story and world lore. 

All of the hallmark traits of Insomniac’s previous games are on display in Sunset Overdrive, and it’s a wild ride that everyone should take. For all intents and purposes, Sunset Overdrive stands shoulder to shoulder with all of Insomniac’s best games. Reddit threads are full of players still discovering the game today and extolling how overlooked it is. Some people, myself included, even consider the game to be Insomniac’s best. But if that’s the case, why did Sunset Overdrive fail to leave its mark on the games industry like Insomniac’s other games? And why isn’t it remembered in the same way that Spyro and Ratchet and Clank are today?

When the game launched in October 2014, Sunset Overdrive was received well by critics. Most reviewers gave the game a solid 8 out of 10.Eurogamer said it was like Crackdown meets Jet Set Radio. GameSpot praised its vibrant and explosive action. IGN even gave Sunset Overdrive a 9 out of 10 review score, calling the game amazing. That year, Sunset Overdrive was even nominated for numerous awards because of how good it was. So from this, we can ascertain that there clearly wasn’t anything wrong with the actual quality of Sunset Overdrive, and in fact, all signs pointed to it being on track to be a huge hit for Insomniac. So where did it all go wrong?

Fast forward 10 years and in December 2023, Insomniac Games was targeted in a ransomware attack by a hacker group, who published 1.6 terabytes of information concerning employee documentation, development assets and corporate roadmaps related to the developer. Among the documents leaked was the sales figures for each of Insomniac’s games, including Sunset Overdrive, and it revealed some startling information.

Remember when creative director marcus smith mentioned having an unlimited budget? He meant it. Sunset Overdrive was the single most expensive game Insomniac ever made until the release of Spider-Man on PS4. To add insult to injury, it was revealed that Sunset Overdrive was one of the worst-performing games in the developer’s library. Sunset Overdrives total lifetime sales amount to 1.8 million, which might sound a lot until you realise that the base Xbox One console sold 58 million units, meaning only 2% of Xbox owners played the game. Shockingly, this huge gulf between how much they spent on the game and how badly it sold has resulted in Insomniac only making a meagre $567 on the game in 10 years. I don’t need to tell you that by all metrics this is a monumental disaster. 

The main reason for Sunset Overdrive’s lack of success is unfortunate timing and the poor state of Xbox at the time. In 2014, Phil Spencer was only just taking the Xbox reins from Don Mattrick, who had bungled the Xbox One launch a year earlier. Mattrick had an obsession with the Kinect, which was bundled with every console making it the more expensive option versus the PS4. He also perpetrated a tirade of other anti-consumer moves he had to walk back on, like trying to make players pay money to play used games and inexplicable trying to push the Xbox One as a cable TV box. 

Due to the turbulent times at Microsoft, all but the most die-hard fans held off buying the Xbox One at launch and instead held on to their Xbox 360s or bought PS4s. This meant that when Sunset Overdrive launched, the playerbase for the game was much smaller. Those who did find the stylish action game interesting had their savings earmarked for other games that would come out in 2014 and provide stiff competition. Dragon Age Inquisition, Wolfenstein the New Order, Alien Isolation, Far Cry 4, Destiny, Assassin’s Creed Unity, Bayonetta 2, and Call of Duty Advanced Warfare all landed at the same time, drowning out any of Sunset Overdrive’s chances of punching its way to victory. The game would eventually make it into Game Pass, where it remains buried under the backlog of hundreds of games we want to play but never have time for. 

Despite it being largely a financial flop, the development of Sunset Overdrive, however, was crucial to the future of Insomniac, so the story doesn’t end there. Some might even say that Sunset Overdrive died so that Spider-Man may live, and later on, we’ll find out a significant plot twist in this story. 

Just as Sunset Overdrive built upon the games that came before it, Sunset Overdrive was used as a springboard to develop 2016’s Ratchet and Clank reboot and 2018’s Spider-Man. What’s especially evident in Spider-Man is the fluidity of the traversal system that allows Peter Parker to zip around New York City. This was first honed in the fast-paced movement implemented in Sunset Overdrive, which gave Insomniac the confidence to fully realise their potential in this area in Spider-Man. Similarities between Spider-Man and Sunset Overdrive can also also be observed in areas like weapon upgrades, open-world free roaming, fast travel, and even the style meter used being almost exactly the same. Without Sunset Overdrive, there would have been no Spider-Man as we know it, because it took Sunset Overdrive to pioneer the way and provide proof of concept that Insomniac could handle creating a large open world with dynamic combat and movement. Sunset Overdrive was something that Insomniac could take to Sony, point to, and say we can do that with your IP if you let us.

In 2019, largely thanks to Spider-Man’s success the previous year and by proxy Sunset Overdrive in 2014, Sony acquired Insomniac Games. At the time, Shawn Layden called the studio an “impact-maker” and “style setter”. Insomniac would then go on to create Spider-Man Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2 under the auspices of PlayStation. But there’s a twist to this whole story that no one saw coming. Despite Sunset Overdrive being one of the biggest financial failures in recent history, we might actually be getting a sequel. Let me explain.

In a 2018 interview with IGN’s Ryan McCaffrey, Insomniac CEO Ted Price said that the fanbase for the game is strong and that they’re constantly asking him when they’re going to make Sunset Overdrive 2. In a turn of events that no one saw coming, Price said that it’s still on the table and that he thinks that this time around, it could be a huge hit. The team ironed out all of the kinks the first time around and spent a lot of time creating the world’s lore and backstory, so they could hit the ground running in Sunset Overdrive 2. 

The 2023 Insomniac hacking leaks also revealed that a planned Sunset Overdrive sequel had purportedly been in production since 2015, but was cancelled the following year in favor of the studio prioritizing Marvel’s Spider-Man for PlayStation 4. But this is where the waters get murky, because Insomniac was acquired by Sony in 2019 but Sunset Overdrive was developed in conjunction with Microsoft Studios as an exclusive. 

Additional materials from the hack shed light on this issue and revealed that the initial publishing agreement between Insomniac Games and Microsoft gave Microsoft the rights to two sequels, any future downloadable content, derivative games such as spin-offs, and subsequent ports or re-releases. Therefor, the rights to the game remain with Microsoft but Insomniac remains owned by Sony. 

And that is the real tragedy of Sunset Overdrive. It was an amazing game that had the misfortune of launching at the wrong time and on the wrong platform. Its legacy pushed Insomniac to further develop their humorous voice and fluid game mechanics. Sunset Overdrive is so much more than a sum of its parts, and now it’s stuck in limbo between the two largest video game companies in the world.

Find out how Phil Spencer ruined Xbox here.