The creators of Black have unveiled their new FPS Bodycount, a title designed to “put the fun back in shooting” and partially inspired by pop singer Lady Gaga and Star Trek reboot director J.J. Abrams.
Last month, the senior designer on 2006’s Black, Stuart Black (seriously), had some choice words to say about the current crop of FPSes – specifically, he called them “f*cking boring.” OXM revealed that Black would be heading up a new FPS for Codemasters – and that game is Bodycount.
Bodycount is a 21st-century love letter to what made old-school shooters so fun, Black told Gamasutra. “We had this itch about this type of shooter we wanted to play, that we just couldn’t buy. Our big headline is that we want to put the fun back into shooting – we want this game to be outrageous fun with a gun.”
“From the jaw-dropping devastation caused by firing into enemies or shredding the world around you in a hail of bullets, Bodycount will crystallize that moment of pulling the trigger into an exhilarating sensory overload of action,” said the game’s executive producer Tom Gillo.
To be fair, given what we saw with Black, there’s no question that Black et al know how to push hardware to its limits. But even so, it’ll be hard work to stand out amidst the current crop of FPS games.
The interesting part, though, is that Black told Gamasutra that his inspirations for Bodycount included Lady Gaga’s “revelatory” performance at the Glastonbury music festival as well as J.J. Abrams’ recent reboot of Star Trek. I’m going to hope that he’s speaking thematically, as in “How do you A.) how do you shake things up in an established medium, and B.) reboot a stagnant franchise/genre,” personally. Because otherwise, I’m imagining a FPS where Spock and Kirk sing “Poker Face,” and that’s absolutely terrifying.
