Take heart, Syndicate fans – EA says there’s “scope” to remake the original game.
I don’t care what any of you say, I think the new Syndicate looks hot and I have very high hopes for it. That said, I do feel a lingering undercurrent of disappointment over the fact that I won’t be able to turn squads of heavily-armed speed freaks loose on the unsuspecting inhabitants of cities rendered in all the glory that today’s technology can serve up. So it’s good to hear that EA hasn’t completely forgotten about the late, great Bullfrog classic.
“The original was such a classic. There is scope to remake it,” EA Partners Executive Producer Jeff Gamon told Eurogamer. “But I don’t think it necessarily has to be exactly the same genre. If we did there are probably other platforms which are more suitable for it than the consoles we’re making it for, if we wanted to go in that more strategic route, that perspective.”
“It” presumably refers to the upcoming Syndicate FPS, which comes out next year for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, and which Gamon sees as more of a starting point than an addition to the series. EA wants to build franchises rather than one-shot games, he explained, but the age of the original Syndicate, which came out in 1993, means that a lot of gamers these days know nothing about it. “So we need to go out there with a game, with a brand, and establish that brand and just take it from there,” he said.
Fingers are crossed and all that, but don’t expect any squad-based tactical announcements anytime soon. “I would love to see Syndicate as a true franchise again, bringing it back and expanding it out onto whatever platforms it’s suitable for,” he said. “There’s loads of potential. We’re not limited at all. But that’s purely speculative at this point.”
