14 DAY TRIAL // Three videogaming veterans have banded together to create a new development studio, called Antic Entertainment, and have already announced that their first videogame will be a real time action strategy title experienced in a free-to-play model, called Junk: Battles.
The three founders of Antic are Fredrik Lijegren, who set the basis of the DICE studio, now part of Electronic Arts, Mark Mikulec and Jeff Evans, who worked for Digital Extremes. Their combined development experience includes videogames such as the Battlefield series, Dark Sector and BioShock.
Fredrik Lijiegren stated that “I am thrilled to officially announce not only our new development studio but also our first title Junk: Battles” before saying that “Antic Entertainment’s focus is to bring that AAA quality to our free-to-play titles giving us tremendous opportunity for growth. This sector of the industry is just now coming into the limelight as the consumer is adapting and seeking more flexible and efficient ways to play games. We're confident that our creative approach and well established development processes will address this market in new and exciting ways.”
Junk: Battles is set to allow players to create ships, equip them with weapons and other devices and then use them to fight online against other players. Depending on the results, they are able to pick up new pieces, upgrade various parts and deploy new tactics. It is all free to play at the moment and it works completely in a web browser, with no need to install any components on the computer it is played on.
If Junk: Battles does well as a free-to-play web offering, then a commercial version, upgraded with more options, interactivity elements and more complex gameplay mechanics might also pop up as a downloadable title on the Xbox Live Arcade, the PlayStation Network and maybe even the WiiWare service from Nintendo.