14 DAY TRIAL // Activision seems to have lost its grip on Infinity Ward, with quite a bit of the studio now out and suing their former masters for money owed, but, in a truly surprising move, Bungie chose to enter a deal for ten years, which will see the French company publish all the games the studio creates in a new universe and for a multitude of platforms. And it seems the deal is not limiting Bungie's options related to older intellectual property.
Brian Jarrard, who is the community manager at Bungie and the man doing most of the commenting on the new Activision deal, has told 1UP that the company he represents has the option to actually work with other publishers, as long as the subject is not the new game universe they are creating.
According to him, this in unlikely, as the entire team will be needed for the new project as “the types of things that we have in store and the ambition and scope of this project is going to take the full might of our entire studio to bring this thing to life and to do it well. Bungie's at its best I think when we have our full team and all of our best and brightest focused on a single goal. So for all intents and purposes, this is what we're going to be doing, and it's going to take everything we have to pull this off at the magnitude that we have envisioned for it.”
He confirmed that when the team worked on their Halo titles, they had other ideas that they prototyped and that could be revived and turned into launch-ready videogames.
Mr. Jarrard also says that the games Activision will put out are based on something entirely new, with the full public details set to arrive at some point in 2011. Meanwhile, the team is still polishing up Halo: Reach and waiting to see how fans respond to the beta stage kicking off on Monday.