BREAKING NEWS: The Commander is Back! (August 12, 2011)

No inside information here, just common sense!

Of course, that's also what I'd say if I had inside information that I couldn't share, I guess. So there's really no way of knowing!
 
Oh, hey, look what I found...

EA bringing back 'a couple' of old franchises, exec teases

Speaking to CVG in Cologne, the former EA Games boss stressed that the pubishing giant - which wowed showgoers with Battlefield 3, Mass Effect 3 and more today - needs more reasons than just updated tech to revive one of its many vault classics.

"We do have a couple of old franchises that we're looking at right now... reimagining them and bringing them back," he said.

"We've got 25 years of good IPs and I've worked on a few of them in my career like Road Rash and the Strike series. So I have a strong affinity for a lot of the things we've done in the past.

"We kind of have a rule which is you've got to have a really good reason to bring something back - What can you do to it that makes it fresh and brings something new to the equation of the franchise?"

He added: "Like basically what we did with Medal of Honor when we brought it back; we looked at going after more modern themes... the war that's happening now as opposed to a historical war. That was the reason we brought Medal of Honor back.

"But when we look at Road Rash, the Strike series or some of these other franchises we really challenge ourselves. We can't just put them on new tech with the same gameplay from ten years ago, we've got to have something new. That's the typical challenge that we have."

EA is hotly rumoured to be working away on a remake of Bullfrog RTS Syndicate, while a revival of Road Rash was reportedly canned some years ago.

What say you, readers? Which EA classics would you like to see revived in HD?
 
Arena was an existing engine, as were Privateer 2 (BRender, a commercially licensed engine) and Wing Commander Armada/3/4 (RealSpace, developed for Strike Commander).
I knew about the origins of RealSpace, I suppose I meant Origin-made rather than WC-specific. But I forgot about BRender for Privateer 2. Well, for WC1-4+P/SO, at least, there was that tradition of an in-house engine pushing the limits of the current day's hardware, and that's what I was thinking about initially.
 
Well, for WC1-4+P/SO, at least, there was that tradition of an in-house engine pushing the limits of the current day's hardware, and that's what I was thinking about initially.

That may be true for WC 1-4, but I remember playing prophecy on a relatively basic win95 system at the time. The game could be run well, at normal speed (minus the special effects) without a 3d accelerator card.

On an unrelated note, IMO prophecy had the best dogfights and gameplay after WC1.
 
Yes, Prophecy could be run with the software rendered - I had to make do with this when I first got it back in Easter 1997 - but to get the most out of the game you had to invest specifically in a 3dfx card. Still, when I eventually managed to play the game with Direct3D, wow, that was a huge difference. As big a difference as what the OpenGL experience adds on top of that, if not more.
 
If a new game is made, i wonder where they will pick up the story. Would be logical to continue the Prophecy saga, because that still (to me) feels unfinished.

Otherwise, it would be nice to have a new story and integrate elements of all the games: cinematics from WC3/4 and the ability to converse with crew members (like in Mass Effect), dogfights from WCP/SO, ranks and medals from WC1/2.
 
If they're bringing back Roberts I'm hoping for a reboot... as I understand it, he was never entirely happy with some of the things WC ended up being, and I'd love to see his vision fulfilled in the original media!

Also, happy belated birthday, CIC! :D
 
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