Chris Roberts’ Secret Project To Be Announced At GDC Next Month?
The Wing Commander CIC has posted another article concerning Roberts Space Industries, news of which broke yesterday. And in it, there’s a fairly major piece of news:
…Chris Roberts’ new project, having been in the works for around a year, is set to be revealed this October 10th! As many commentators have pointed out, this happens to coincide with the Game Developer Conference in Austin.
Click on through to see some additional concept art for…whatever it is that Roberts is working on. See this article as well for some speculation surrounding a very cool space carrier concept picture and a…potentially very interesting signature on the piece.
And: speculate freely, wildly, and openly.
I hope it will be Mass Effect-like game. Third or first person shooter space RPG. May be with some space sim elements like Precursors or Parkan.
wat
I think it’s safe bet to say his this is either gonna be a new Wing Commander game or a spiritual successor.
Leaning towards spiritual successor. EA won’t give him or Garriott access to their old IP.
Speaking of Garriott, both Portalarium and Roberts’ new company are using David Swofford’s firm for PR/community relations. That’s really interesting. As WtF_Dragon mentioned, Swofford has a history with both of them and Origin.
I wouldn’t bet against a proper Wing Commander actually.
First, Chris Roberts is nothing if not persistent and has a long history of convincing to bet and put money into improbable projets. And he’s been trying to get back to Wing Commander for a long time.
Second, just one year ago the CIC managed to find details that suggest Roberts was looking for funding for a new bit 30+ millions Wing Commander game. And it did said Wing Commander, not just some space game. This also fits the timing of Robert’s message who mentionned his project started about a year ago.
Finally, I think the situation if very different between Ultima and Wing Commander. Sure EA wasn’t interested when Garriott reached out to have a new Ultima made at Portalarium… but EA still has UO running, they had Ultima Forever in the works (albeit unannounced) and as great as it would have been there is no way it would have made sense to make such a deal with Garriott. Wing Commander though ? WC is pretty much a dead IP, Arena was five year ago and its failure burried the IP for good… so I could see EA agreeing to some licensing agreement with Roberts for a new WC. There has been some precedants before (ie. Dungeon Keeper Online or that NetDragon UO thing even if it never went anywhere), so it doesn’t strike me as being impossible based on all of the above ?
Will it be a proper WC games ? Maybe not… but I wouldn’t count the possibility out just yet.
Guess we’ll find out soon enough.
And if this is an MMORPG, well it will be my next MMORPG after UO.
Between this and Starlight Inception, someobdy will be able to capture the Wing Commander/Privateer feel.
God, I just hope this is not some MMO thing.
This would go from “most exciting new ever” to “biggest dissapointed of the year” as far as I’m concerned.
I’ll play it either way. I think there is a lot of room for a WC/Privateer MMO – EVE Online is spreadsheets in space, and SWTOR had that ridiculous space combat on rails. There are many people out there that want a space exploration and combat MMO.
Regardless of all of that, I just hope that he has a lot of freedom. EA could really make a mess of it.
I’ll check it out, even if it’s an MMO. Though for some reason, I don’t imagine it will be.
Well It’d still heck it out even if it’s a MMO but that’d be dissapointing.
This is a Chris Roberts game, so I’m expecting a full blown space shooter of some kind with big overblown cinematic storytelling. Not FMVs of course, but I’d assume in-engine cutscenes like Freelancer did.
And if that’s a MMO yeah well… this wouldn’t be as developped either. Unless I guess he plan something similar to what his original iteration of Freelancer aimed at, a fullblown singler player game upon which a MMO was to be grafted on after ward.
We’ll see.
And please please please please… Flightstick support!
Just took a closer look at the images.
“Merchants United”. “Mercenaries Guild”.
It’s a Privateer! O_O Wing Commander was great. Privateer was legendary.
Too busy posting to see the other parts… “Exchange”. “Hanger”. “Bar”. “Repair”. Definitely Privateer.
I’d argue otherwise.
I love Privateer mind you – but it was basically Elite meet Privateer and trully, Wing Commander had much more mission variety than Privateer even had, nevermind about plot. And as far as freeform space trading/exploration action/sim goes, it didn’t hold a candle to Elite/Frontier.
That being said Freelancer did offer a grea balance between Privateer-ish and WIng Commander-ish cinematic storyline so perhaps this is what he’ll do here.
I agree the wya he describes it and the concept arts feels more like Privateer than wIng Commander
I’m noticing that some of the color palette cues are not dissimilar to his brother’s game, Privateer II: strong orange and teal tones. Not to draw a direct comparison to that game but what could be a modern Privateer design aesthetic.
Is the number on the Roberts website binary or a date? If it’s binary, it’s 42 (or 15 for the other “endian”).
A game with the same input and play control, caliber of story, brief anime-style intermissions and haunting music of Wing Commander II would be welcome, though I doubt those are the driving factors behind Roberts’ new project. Also nice reference to endianness, Bedwry.
As I’ve suggested for other hypothetical single player to MMO adaptations, the solo mission should ensue but when you inevitably encounter Kilrathi on a mission the cats are humans on another line (with their own mission briefing and rendezvous point). No different than single player except the “AI” is hopefully unpredictable if not better.
The only thing that’s bad about an MMO (other than lack of privacy) is if it “bothers” you by interfering with what you’re trying to do or distract you with “notifications” you don’t care about. Single player games generally avoid this by design, and so should MMOs.