14 DAY TRIAL // GamersFirst, the company which picked up the pieces of the All Points Bulletin development and aims to recreate and launch the game, has announced that David Jones, who has worked on the original version of the video game, has joined its team and is working in an advisory role.
It's not very clear what Jones will be responsible for in the development of APB: Reloaded, but GamersFirst says that it will benefit from the long-term game development experience that the veteran of the industry has.
Jones is best known for being one of the people who created the Grand Theft Auto franchise and he left the team that would become Rockstar in order to create Realtime World in 2001.
His new company created the Xbox 360 exclusive Crackdown, which emphasized the exploration of an open world, and then turned to the development of All Points Bulletin, with the aim of blending complex character creation with quick and fun gameplay mechanics.
Bjorn Book-Larsson, who is the chief operations officer at GamersZFirst, has stated, “The opportunity to have David reconnect with us during the production of the new ‘APB Reloaded’ game has been great and it lets us take advantage of both a deeper understanding of the original vision of APB, as well as leveraging the strengths of the Free2Play® model used in the new ‘APB Reloaded’ game.”
David Jones, has added, “After seeing what the team has done with the game thus far, I’m certain that APB Reloaded will become the title that truly breaks new ground for online game experiences, especially with transition to a free to play model.”
GamersFirst says that it plans to launch an open beta stage for APB: Reloaded on May 18, allowing a group of gamers to see how the game has changed since it was shut down last year.
The relaunch will be free to play and powered by microtransactions.