STUDIO PROFILE

How Italy’s long-running studio moved from arcade racer to sim specialist and back again

BY PHIL IWANIUK

Michele Caletti, executive producer at Milestone, has been at the Milanese studio “forever”. At least, that’s according to the estimations of game design manager Andrea Basilio and lead game designer Federico Spada. In actuality, Caletti joined in 2003, seven years into the studio’s life. Over the course of our conversations, though, it becomes clear that in some fundamental way, Caletti is Milestone. Asked about the studio’s formation, he speaks for 30 unbroken minutes. Every word of that monologue radiates passion, but Caletti might have found himself with less to talk about had Milestone not so dramatically transformed itself in the years immediately after he joined.

2003 was a pivotal year for the studio, which began in 1994 as Graffiti and under founder Antonio Farina’s leadership made a name for itself with PC driving game Screamer. Two years later, the studio rebranded as Milestone and took the momentum Screamer had generated to set up publishing deals with both Virgin and Electronic Arts, the former publishing Screamer 2 and Screamer Rally, the latter facilitating three licensed Superbike World Championship titles. Those games, released between 1996 and 2000, earned Milestone both visibility and credibility in the wider industry. At the heart of its games were meaty, well-constructed physics models, along with – particularly in Superbike 2000 and 2001 – visual approaches that made significant strides towards photorealism.

By contrast, Milestone’s next move seemed to have everything going against it. “It was conceived with Atari,” Caletti begins. “Usually, we would make the games and then try to sell them to a publisher; instead, this was the other way around. And it looked like a good opportunity, but in fact it was really a turning point, and not a good one for Milestone, because it was a moment where Atari was in a complex situation.”