14 DAY TRIAL // Vince Zampella and Jason West, the co-founders of Infinity Ward, the studio responsible for the massively successful Call of Duty series, are working on a brand new shooter set in a science fiction scenario, alongside their new team at Respawn Entertainment and in partnership with Electronic Arts.
As many gamers know, Zampella and West departed from Infinity Ward with a huge scandal, saying that Activision imposed constraints on their team and wouldn't give them the proper credit for delivering one of the most successful video game series of all time.
The two men established Respawn Entertainment shortly after that, and, in collaboration with Electronic Arts, Activision's fierce rival, are working on a new game that is a closely guarded secret.
The first details about this project may have been outed, as according to a few statements made by EA Games label president Frank Gibeau, the team at Respawn is working on a new "sci-fi oriented shooter."
Gibeau talked, via CVG, about EA's special strategy concerning shooters, and how it's alternating between installments in the Battlefield series and in the Medal of Honor one.
"In general we're going to continue to follow our rotation strategy of giving studios a full two-year cycle to get a game built and polished to maximum quality, but we're going to do it in a way that allows us to maximize technology investments like Frostbite 2, the online service models that we're doing... we're going to be able to trade team knowledge and increase the quality of the products year in, year out," he said.
"The idea is to have that rotation happen with Battlefield and Medal of Honor and keep it fresh so you don't burn the teams down or over-annualize the product lines."
But while the aforementioned series are focusing on realistic, military shooters, Gibeau hints that other types of such games, possibly with action elements are also being made.
"Titles like Respawn - and I think the Insomniac title is a little bit more of an action game than a pure shooter - we'll sprinkle those in where we see opportunistic gaps, either in a release schedule or in a genre standpoint. Those typically are more sci-fi oriented shooters, where as the Medal of Honor and Battlefield brands are obviously more modern military oriented."
As you can see, Respawn is, in fact, working on a more sci-fi oriented shooter, similar to the one being developed by Insomniac Games, called Overstrike, and also set to be published by EA.
Gibeau completes his statement by saying that, with the right release timing, these new sci-fi shooters can allow EA to take on franchises like Gears of War or Halo, that are also set in futuristic universes.