It has certainly been a long time since gamers saw a Theme Park game, even longer since the last Wing Commander title. It would appear that EA might be doing more than simply retaining the rights to those franchises, as EA Labels boss Frank Gibeau has hinted at some possible revivals for several IPs.
"We do have a couple of old franchises that we're looking at right now… reimagining them and bringing them back," Gibeau said to CVG. "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."
The big hurdle is coming up with something meaningful. EA has to find a reason to bring those titles back, and while those games were popular in a bygone era, new technology is forcing the publisher to really find a way to make titles like Populous seem fresh.
"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," he explained. "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," he observed. "We can't just put them on new tech with the same gameplay from 10 years ago, we've got to have something new. That's the typical challenge that we have."
Perhaps to help vindicate the idea is earlier confirmation by EA that Syndicate is more than likely getting a revival through Starbreeze Studios, who was responsible for The Darkness. Both companies filed trademarks on the franchise after announcing their partnership.
