Back in the early 2000s, there was the gold rush of Tony Hawk Pro Skater cash-ins that gave us titles like Kelly Slater Pro Surfer, Sunny Garcia Surfing and Transworld Surf. However, recent releases have been few and far between. There’s the indie effort Virtual Surfing, which has received mixed reviews on Steam, and the WSL-sponsored mobile title True Surf, but not a whole lot else. This November, indie video game studio Bungarra Software will throw its hat in the ring with the official release of Barton Lynch Pro Surfing.
The game promises a lot: an expansive world tour, 12 legendary surfing beaches, unique controls, a range of weather conditions, and comprehensive customization tools. It also bears the likenesses of some well-known names in the surfing world: Yago Dora, Clay Marzo, Nathan Florence, Soli Bailey, Mahina Maeda, Vahine Fierro, Felicity Palmateer, and Barton Lynch himself.
BLPS is certainly ambitious, especially for an independent studio such as Bungarra. In an interview with IGN, Bungarra Software CEO Andrew West revealed that the entire team is comprised of eight people. As such, the development process for a game like BLPS is dance of managing the budgetary and manpower limits of an independent studio with the desire to provide a positive experience for a market that has not been represented in video games for a long while.
“At the same time the game has still got to be good, and you can’t hide behind the indie excuse either,” said West. “So our aim is to create an offer that is solid visually, offers something new, has depth, and is largely bug-free at launch. The goal is to focus on the core experience – get the basics right, and then when the time comes downstream we can then try and build upon that and then add those nice-looking extras.”
Barton Lynch Pro Surfing will be launching on PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox on November 17. A beta version is currently available for early access in the Steam store.
