14 DAY TRIAL // Insomniac Games, the company best known for creating the Ratchet & Clank series and the Resistance franchise, has surprised its fans by announcing that its next project was a social game called Outernauts, which will be delivered exclusively on Facebook.
But the developers say that the move was planned for quite a long time, with a Click specialized team established in 2011.
Rowan Belden-Clifford, the lead designer working on Outernauts, told Gamasutra that, “We are launching into a new platform, and wanted a new IP that would work well for both our longtime fans at Insomniac and new players on Facebook. The style of Outernauts has taken heavy direction from Dave Guertin, Greg Baldwin, and Brian Hastings, who all helped define and create the look, feel, and sense of humor found in Ratchet & Clank.”
Despite the interest in Facebook, the older games that Insomniac has worked on will not be ported, mainly because the actual rights to the game universe lie with publisher Sony and not with the developer.
Belden-Clifford added, “Of course, we're excited to see where Facebook, mobile and tablet games go in the future and are now well-positioned with games like Outernauts to help contribute to that collective direction.”
But Insomniac is also working on titles based on consoles, with at least one of them, Overstrike, officially announced.
Outernauts will allow players to take on the role of an elite member of the United Earth Outernaut force, which travels the galaxy in order to stop both pirates and evil corporations, joining with friends in order to defeat the toughest enemies.
The game will embrace the tropes of the social game field, including a focus on grouping and microtransactions.
Overstrike is set to arrive during the summer of this year and is a four-player cooperative action title.