An leading executive working on the new Electronic Arts project Darkspore has said that the new direction for the series, that of an action role playing game, was a direct result of the technology that the Maxis studio developed for the original Spore.

Talking to Gamasutra as part of a larger interview Michael Perry, who is the executive producer at Maxis working on Darkspore, said, “When we built Spore, we built a lot of great things. It's groundbreaking in many different ways.”

The first Spore was initially talked about as a grand simulation that allowed a player to take a single cell organism and guide it through stages of development as it went from creature to tribe to civilization and to explorer of the stars.

The actual game experience had some flaws, mainly the fact that some stages were a little lacking in content, but the developers at Maxis saw the potential to create more focused experiences using the same tech.

He added, “We looked at what players were saying out on the forums, and what they're looking for in gameplay, and we thought, 'Wouldn't it be incredible if we could take this technology and use it to make creatures and characters that would fight together?'"

Darkspore will task gamers with guiding one creature across the Galaxy, visiting a variety of worlds as they battle the uncontrollable genetic foe that is Darkspore.

One aspect of the original Spore which will be returning and will be enhanced is the creature customization section, which will allow players to collect a variety of different body parts and then assemble them according to the wishes of the player.

Maxis and Electronic Arts are saying that Darkspore will be released during February of next year but the limited amount of details available at the moment suggests that the game might be pushed back for later in 2011.