You guys have already a game on Facebook with Outernauts, do you plan revisiting the social platform any time soon?
Well, Outernauts is also on Kongregate, and has actually gotten over a million plays, so it has been more successful on Kongregate than on Facebook, and we have really appreciated Kongregate’s support of Outernauts, it has been great to see. But, we are also bringing Outernauts to mobile, and that’s coming soon. We are retooling the game’s mechanics to fit a mobile platform.
Have you announced which mobile platform Outernauts will be releasing on?
We are coming out on iOS, beyond that remains to be seen.
EA recently laid off hundreds of people, and there have been talks of EA Partners being closed down, has this affected Insomniac Games and has this become a concern as you move forward with EA as a publisher?
It hasn’t affected us, Fuse is about to hit shelves, and we’ve gotten great support from EA in terms of being able to reach out to you and your cohorts to get the game out there for people to check out.
Why do you think Resistance 3 didn’t manage to garner the same retail response as other previous Resistance titles?
That is a good question, and I don’t know the answer to that. I mean, we’ve gotten a lot of anecdotal feedback from reviews and from fans that validated the changes we wanted to make to the story, to the characterization of the main characters, to the the core gameplay and I hope that like all of our games, Resistance 3 occupies a good place in the hearts of gamers.
I was heavily involved with Resistance, and we all went through a lot to bring it to the PS3. We learned a lot about developing sequels in particular, because we changed things drastically from Resistance 1 to Resistance 2 and then applied the lessons we learned on to Resistance 3. I think we really hit our stride on Resistance 3, and to say it again, I do hope Resistance occupies a fond place in people’s hearts. We certainly hear that frequently and I am proud of what we were able to do.
Do you think that you will ever revisit the Resistance franchise again?
I have publicly said ‘no’ before. However, I have also learned to say never say never. Because I mean it really was as I said, a learning experience for me, and a journey for us – at the same time it was fun, because building sci-fi universes is something we just love to do, like Fuse, which is a sci-fi universe as well, having a lot of creative latitude in terms of what we could do with the Chimera and the weapons is what we live for when it comes to creating games.
It’s nice to be a company that has, at least unofficially, embraced the non-real world side of games. That is what we do. We don’t do military sims. We don’t do racing games. We don’t do sim games. We don’t do sports games. We do sci-fi and fantasy, and for us it’s a blast. That is why I got into games in the first place, because I’m a sci-fi nut, [laughs] and I think a lot of other folks at Insomniac are too.
That does show through on a lot of your games, as they do tend to be more fantasy based. That is something I have always thought to be interesting, especially as even the darker or more drably toned games still had a number of unique or sci-fi aspects to them.
Yeah, that’s right, Resistance is a good example that was fairly desaturated, very gritty and dark in terms of its tone. But, we really had fun with the Chimera and coming up with who they were, and even though I will admit, we didn’t say a whole lot about their origins in the games, it was fun to develop them as a parasitic race. It was even more fun to develop all of the weapons that the humans came up with, and the weapons that the Chimera came up with – I mean it’s just like a playground for us, where we can just say anything goes, let’s just have a good time building these worlds.
What are your thoughts on the Ratchet & Clank movie? And do you think it would perform better around a core Ratchet & Clank game release?
We are all stoked about the Ratchet & Clank movie, and we all had a lot of involvement in the movie and continue to do so. T.J. Fixman, who wrote the last several Ratchet games was the script writer on the movie, but we have creative input on how the movie is being made, on the animation, etc. The companies that are making the movies have some pretty amazing technology to take our assets and use them to create a super high end CG experience. That is something that wasn’t in existence several years ago, and I think that is why you haven’t seen a whole lot of CG movies based on games.
I don’t think [the movie] has to be released around a major Ratchet game release, because the franchise has built a loyal following of over 26 million Ratchet games sold. I think since the first Ratchet came into existence, a lot of folks who grew up with him, he is a reminder of their childhood or perhaps a reminder of the joy they had playing with their kids. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Ratchet is not a particularly new IP, it is something that has been around for a while and I think a lot of our fans have been waiting for a movie. Therefore, I don’t think it has to be attached to a specific game.
PSLS would like to thank Ted Price for taking part in the interview ahead of Fuse‘s launch.
Have you tried the demo for Fuse? What PS4 feature are you looking forward to the most? Does the Resistance franchise hold a special place in your heart? Are you psyched about the upcoming Ratchet & Clank movie? Let us know in the comments below, or email me at [email protected] if I missed a question for Ted. You can also find me on Twitter @Foolsjoker for updates on interviews, events and other gaming related nonsense.
