MotorStorm Apocalypse Confirmed for 2011 by Sony

Sony Computer Entertainment of America has announced that the new MotorStorm will be arriving during next year, again exclusively for the PlayStation 3 home gaming console. The game will be known as Apocalypse and the developers are trying something fresh with this release, mirroring some of the things Split/Second tried when it came out earlier in 2010.

The development duties for MotorStorm: Apocalypse will be handled by Evolution Studios and the racing action will take place in an unnamed city on the Pacific Coast of the United States, which has been pretty much destroyed by a huge earthquake. The links to real life San Francisco are clear and players will be able to race on courses set among ruble and crumbling buildings, aftershocks and other natural events shifting the architecture of the areas and forcing players to adapt on the fly.

The game will have a structured single player story mode featuring three characters, each of them representing a difficulty level. Overall, the game will be offering more than 40 distinct races and five classes for the vehicles the player will be able to use. Each of them will have clear customization options that will allow gamers to redesign them to suit their style. The developers are also promising the title will deliver four-player split screen competitive multiplayer.

Matt Southern, who is the game director for the new MotorStorm, stated, “Yeah, we were working on Apocalypse before Pacific Rift finished.” The announcement of the new iteration in the series comes just as the old MotorStorm game is one of the experiences that players who have a special television and a PS3 will be able to experience in full 3D, meaning Apocalypse also has a good chance of using the fresh technology. The developers have not talked about whether the racing title will be using the new Move motion tracking system in any way.