Gearbox Readying WWII Shooter For UbiSoft?

Thanks to IGN PC for its news story discussing rumors that Halo PC and Half-Life add-on developer Gearbox Software is creating a World War II team-based shooter for publishers UbiSoft. The piece points to the WarStory.net webpage, which is trailing a Gearbox product with screenshots and quotes, and IGN PC claims that: "According to several sources in the know, it's temporarily called Baker's Dozen", although "the name isn't finalized just yet" - an official announcement is expected in the next few weeks.

Comments

ANOTHER ONE?

[Lord Graga]

Am I the only one who believes that the PC game market already have WAY too many WWII games?

Re:ANOTHER ONE?

[Danse]

Even UT2004. wtf is that? a bunch of laser's and hovercrafts, as gamers get older, they get tired of fake ass plasma rifles and elecro-shock guns. Not to mention graphics. WWII games will always look better, make more people's jaw drop, because they have something to compare the in-game images to, (as in; life) you don't know what a shock core looks like in real life. (and wtf is with the shock core, and all the other fake weapons that suck? if your going to make a up an imaginary weapon, don't make it suck, I hate ut2003/4's weapon set.) Call of duty has a real dirty, blown up feel to it. I loved it.

Ok, counterpoint. People get tired of reality and realistic games. UT is great because it doesn't have to try to be realistic. It lets you drive fun vehicles, do weird acrobatic things like wall-jumping, use all sorts of powerups, and run around in levels limited only by the imagination of the designers. There are tons of weapons available. Many of the weapons are great, including the shockrifle (which happens to be one of my favorite weapons). Nobody is expected to like all the weapons, but with such a large number of them, everyone should be able to find a few that they like. I thought Call of Duty was a lot of fun, but I like UT2K4 as well. They are different games that try to do very different things. Both succeed in my opinion.

Yet another WWII game?

[Vexware]

In recent times, we have been what one could call "plagued" by first-person shooters based on events of the second World War, with the Medal of Honor series, Call of Duty, Battlefield 1942 and others of which I have forgotten the name or the existence. Now, game developers are milking a new money cow with the sudden arrival of several FPS games based on the Vietnam War. It would be most pleasant if these two preponderant themes could now leave game developers' minds as fast as they have entered them, because after a few theme-based games, the originality is just inexistent -- yet the theme-based games continue to appear (and there will always be punters to get the said games). There are several wars which could be poked at yet without making a political statement, such as the apparently "forgotten" first World War, the wars of the Cold War other than in Vietnam, post-Cold War wars and contemporary wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan (I think only the average Conflict Desert Storm truely touches the latter subject).

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that this upcoming game from Gearbox will be average -- in fact far from that, the team over there are an experienced bunch of developers --, I am just saying that when it comes out, though it may be a good game, and why not great, I may have already "played" the game before. With all the respect I have for Gearbox and their apparent research into the subject, I still believe this game will have an overly strong feeling of "deja-vu", with its basis already having been over-exploited beforehand.

Re:Yet another WWII game?

[*weasel]

The key draw of the second world war is:

. timelessly, irrefutably 'bad' guys. (Perhaps the Japanese could have a partial beef with that, but after the Rape of Nan-King, I doubt many would agree.)

. Widely accepted to be a war entered for a just cause by the West.

. Near enough to present time to have involved fairly familiar technology. (no-one was marching in rows as in WWI and before, or picking targets with a GPS device as in Kuwait and after)

. far enough away from present time so that the entire experience wasn't dominated by air power (air combat is less personal, less dramatic).

. high number of drafted soldiers and fairly tense and desperate combat situations gives plenty of opportunities for solid dramatic stories.

. plenty of action in a variety of settings (land/sea/air - forest/pasture/desert - etc.)

. Very few political cockups at the outcome that could inflame sensibilities.
(Much of the tension in the middle east is due to League of Nations' Mandates granted to, and screwed-up by France and Britain following World-War I. Iraq and Israel/Palestine were notable 'creations' from that era that were later abandoned to much chaos.)

and the biggest one:

. Tons of old-media sources to plunder for ideas.

Given the working title 'Baker's Dozen' - One's forced to assume this will be a stab at 1967's Dirty Dozen.

That story revolved around a US officer given 12 convicted murders to train (during WWII of course), for a mission to assassinate a host of German Officers.
Sounds like a solid video game premise to me.

Where's the story here?

[mwheeler01]

Is it me or is this not really worth posting about. A few paragraphs about a game that might be in development by a halfway decent studio that doesn't even have a title yet? Wake me up when there's a real story please.

Official announcement?

[Torgo's Pizza]

No need to wait a few weeks. Gearbox is having their 5th Year Anniversary Party in Dallas this Saturday. They'll make the announcement then. Just got my invitation in my inbox the other day.