Bourne Videogame Rights Retaken by Ludlum Entertainment

As was widely expected, the Activision Blizzard bosses have not decided what franchises to keep from Vivendi Universal and which to spin off or cancel altogether. Lovers of Spyro, Ice Age and Crash Bandicoot can breathe a sigh of relief, as these intellectual properties are considered important and will feature prominently in the future plans of the company. Prototype is also going to be published late in 2008 or in early 2009. On the other hand, Ghostbusters has been dropped and there is no news regarding Massive Entertainment and their upcoming Soviet Assault expansion pack/port for World in Conflict.

Apparently, the Bourne franchise was also left out hanging and the former owners, Ludlum Entertainment, which manage the properties of the late author, have decided to buy back the rights to make games based on the Jason Bourne character, which was portrayed by Matt Damon in a series of three movies.

Vivendi Games had acquired the license sometime in 2005 and the first game in the series, The Bourne Conspiracy, was launched last month. The title has not received very much attention, although reviewers noted that the visceral combat of the movies and the quick pace are very well reconstructed in the videogame, where any object in the environment is a potential weapon that the main character can use.

Ludlum Entertainment is not interested in developing videogames itself, so it is actively looking for other companies to work with in order to create new and interesting assets that will be integrated in the Bourne universe.

Jeffrey Weiner, who is Ludlum Entertainment CEO and estate executor, stated that "Robert Ludlum's works are an ideal vehicle for realizing the promise of multi-platform gaming and capitalizing on the accelerated migration from personal computers and game consoles to a wide variety of mobile devices, online multiplayer games and social media applications".