Bullfrog was one of the great companies in videogaming in the '90's, creating games like Populous and Theme Park. The problem is that Electronic Arts acquired the studio and, much as it did with Westwood, pretty much dismantled it and left the intellectual properties it had for dead, only issuing some ports and not even talking about creating new installments. But if statements from an
EA inside man are to be believed, that might change.
Harvey Elliot, who is the boss of EA Bright Light, recently said that “For me, I love the old Bullfrog IP, it got me really passionately into games, and I'm really proud that Bullfrog is part of the heritage of Bright Light. I'm personally a huge fan of Populous and Theme Park, they were some of my favorite games - many years ago, obviously - and I'd love to see both of those remade.”
Of course,
Electronic Arts has not announced any intention to really get into remaking its old properties but the videogaming industry as a whole seems to have been hit by a heavy bout of nostalgia lately.
LucasArts has already released some of its old adventure games, created an updated version of Tales of Monkey Island and is even talking about bringing X-Wing and TIE Fighter to a new generation of gamers. The trick with revivals is that they need to bring something new to the table while maintaining the elements that made them great in the first place.
For example, Populous would need some updated graphics and even fresh mechanics to attract those who spent days with the old games. As such, Elliot stated that “We'd need to do it in a way that's true to the original values, but would still make a great game today.” Let's hope that they manage to create worthy successors.
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