Confirmed today at GDC by Bungie‘s lead network designer, David Adridge. Their next game will be a “massively multiplayer” game. More after the jump!
As the rumors have been coming out of Bungie in the past few months, the evidence for an MMO on consoles have been growing. Now, what has been speculated is that their next game will be an MMO FPS. The only developer that has come close to achieving this is Zipper Interactive with MAG, and it only makes sense that another developer will eventually attempt to perfect this new genre of games, and Bungie seems like the perfect fit.
If you would have to list a developer that has gone through the most changes in the last few years, Bungie should be a top pick in your head. After they released the highly acclaimed, Halo 3, Bungie broke away from their big parent, Microsoft, in a friendly fashion to become independent.
After going independent and before releasing their “last” Halo game, Halo: Reach, Bungie teamed up with Activision for their next series. Which only means, Activision will publish it, and no, Bungie will not become the next Infinity Ward. Infinity Ward is owned by Activision, Bungie is not, hence going independent. Unlike Infinity Ward, Bungie can make what they want, when they want, and how they want it, Activision is simply just publishing it. Now, what else does going independent mean? Yep, that’s right, most likely, Bungie will now make games for the Playstation 3 and PC.
Okay, so now we got a company coming out of developing Microsoft’s messiah franchise, going independent, grabbing a successful publisher, and developing a “massively multiplayer” game, I don’t know about you, but I’m excited! And I would easily expect an announcement for E3.
Being that this is Bungie, I think that this MMO FPS can actually be pulled off. I guess, as you said, we will have to wait for E3 but let’s hope (for their sake) they have some sort of beta testing for this game. Something as big as an MMO can not be perfected by QA guys alone. They need their fans for this one.
Agreed. With the not-so-much positive reception of MAG, Bungie is going to need to prove that a MMO FPS can be made, because many people think other wise…
Yeah, especially since APB was a total fail, investors are especially cautious about making MMOs, let alone anything that doesn’t resemble WoW in any sort of way.
Very true. And Realtime Worlds just proved that if you don’t use common sense, you’re going to fail as a company.
Rule #1 of gaming: If you make a successful game, make a sequel.