Ubi to pub Free Radical action game on next-gen, PC
Next year sometime.
Ubisoft has signed an agreement with TimeSplitters developer Free Radical Design to release a next-generation and PC action game based on a new intellectual property during Ubi's 2006-2007 fiscal year - basically some time between next April and the end of March 2007.
The game title has yet to be announced, but Ubisoft says it will target mature gamers, and demand difficult strategic choices and pose moral dilemmas ("Daddy or chips?" for example), as we all as "tapping into both [the player's] rational and emotional instincts".
"Ubisoft is looking forward to working closely with Free Radical, renowned for creating beautiful and engaging gameplay in epics such as the TimeSplitters series," said Virginie Gretz, director of third-party development for EMEA at Ubisoft. "With this game, we plan to take players to a new level of intensity and create an environment at once terrifying, enthralling and impossible to resist."
As well as TimeSplitters, Free Radical's previous efforts have included console (and latterly PC) third-person psy-fi action game Second Sight, and one of the developer's other claims to fame is that a number of the key folks worked on N64 classic GoldenEye while serving at Rare.