By John Walker on October 18th, 2008 at 1:32 am.
Well, if this is true, it’s a bit of a surprise. CVG are claiming that EA will soon be announcing a new Syndicate game. Yes, Syndicate. Way back in February EA signed a deal with Starbreeze to make an old game from the EA cupboards. Known as “Project RedLime”, no one knew what it was. Kieron madly guessed Archon. We naturally asked you to guess, and kudos to commenters who got it. (Apart from the ones who listed the entire EA back catalogue). If CVG are right, that is.
Syndicate stands out for two important reasons. One, it was utterly great. And two, it’s responsible for Kieron’s… well, it’s responsible for Kieron circa 1993 to 2005. His life was really just one giant Syndicate cosplay. (Okay, it stands out for proper important reasons too).
So Starbreeze. Most famous for the highly enjoyable Chronicles of Riddick, and more recently The Darkness (and probably hoping we don’t remember Knights Of The Temple), they’ve no priors for the RTS. Clearly their focus so far has been on action, whether first or third person. So might this be the direction in which the Syndicate franchise is heading? Or will they go against type and make something true to the original? Or are CVG talking out of their bottom hole? Only time or psychic powers will tell. (Thanks to Pod for the tip).
I still can’t believe it isn’t James Pond.
18/10/2008 at 01:39 ikigeg says:
Syndicate was amazing, so truly special in my memories. From that first person exploding into flames, to the mighty mighty power of the gauss rifle, and the pseudatron (sp?) allowing you to create a huge body shield – to keep all your junkie agents warm in that bitterly cold landscape!
I hope they succeed in bringing it back to its full glory :)
18/10/2008 at 01:42 Tony says:
Holy shit.
I loved Syndicate. And I might have to play it again if I ever find the disks.
18/10/2008 at 01:47 Heliocentric says:
I realise only now how much of a programming masterpiece this game was. I’d have a 150 swarm of civies cops and agents i bum rushed with my mind control thingy and all of them violent.
18/10/2008 at 01:56 Bhazor says:
Probably Molyneux’s best game. I’d hate to be the lead designer on this, hella big shoes to fill and a whole lot of fans just waiting for an excuse to rip you a new one.
A steam release of the original, patched to work with technology from space year 2008, might be on the cards now as a way of drumming up some hype.
18/10/2008 at 01:57 Pags says:
I actually started playing Syndicate again recently, courtesty of DOSBox. Not sure how comfortable I feel with Starbreeze handling it, if the rumours are true. The Darkness was pretty weak.
18/10/2008 at 01:58 Reid says:
Well, Syndicate was pretty action-y for an RTS.
God, It was like a revelation when I learned you could blow up the banks to steal the cash in them.
Coolest weapons ever — the satellite was appalling frightful and the nuclear hand grenades were a wonder. Psychogas was always a lot of fun if you had a lot of guns lying around.
Ohh, the Atlantic Accelerator . . .
18/10/2008 at 02:02 ZenArcade says:
“EA will soon be announcing a new Syndicate game.”
What’s wrong with this statement?
I’m sceptical, no offence.
18/10/2008 at 02:08 eyemessiah says:
JUST DO IT.
Atlantic Accelerator was easy! All my guys had tons of lasers, I finished it on my first try! (I think, my memory is a little hazy. I often had to reset my computer mid level though because my mum kept coming in to make sure I was doing my homework. FUCK YOU MOTHER!)
SWARS was nice also, I keep trying to revisit it because I never finished it, but its hella hard. Stylish though. And it has animated GITS on the billboards. And nuclear handgrenades. And razorwire. And really crazy sandbox multiplayer.
Great stuff.
18/10/2008 at 02:50 Martin Kingsley says:
I think I was the only one who…didn’t…quite…get…Syndicate. Granted, I was, like, six years old when I got to playing the bastard thing, but for some reason it just never grabbed me. The game never seemed to want to tell me what it was I was supposed to be doing, or how any of the guns worked, or…anything, really, and so I ended up confused and sad, like a brain-damaged kitten stuck up a drainpipe. Maybe now, all these years later, I will appreciate Syndicate for the piece of genius programming that it evidently was. I wanted to like it, honest!
18/10/2008 at 02:53 du bios says:
If EA do a new Syndicate (as opposed to, say, a vaguely cyberpunk FPS called Syndicate) surely it’d be on DS?
eyemessiah “FUCK YOU MOTHER!”
But can you afford her?
(Is it possible to be addicted to “your mom” jokes?)
(I’m already addicted to your mom so that’s half-way there…)
18/10/2008 at 02:54 Nick says:
I don’t recall Syndicate agents having long hair…
18/10/2008 at 05:08 Norman the carpet says:
Don’t try replaying the old version, your memories will be utterly decimated. God, we were naive.
Can’t fault the attitude though.
18/10/2008 at 06:02 malkav11 says:
Starbreeze also did Enclave (Knights of the Temple never came out in America and I didn’t realize they’d done it. I guess to their benefit.). Which was a very pretty, kinda broken, forgettable sort of hack-and-slasher for Xbox, and a very pretty, stylish, less broken, forgettable sort of hack-and-slasher for PC. I’ve played it partway through. You can see bits and pieces of what made Riddick work, they just weren’t there yet.
I think they could do great things with Syndicate.
18/10/2008 at 06:43 NoNamePls says:
So Syndicate was like Commandos but with World in Conflict gameplay?
18/10/2008 at 07:10 Pijama says:
…I, I… I don’t know. Say what you want about our good fella Molyneux, but a sequel to a game of his without him doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. : |
18/10/2008 at 08:05 RichPowers says:
EA: we ruin good games.
18/10/2008 at 08:45 Optimaximal says:
So, nothing concrete then? It could quite easily by System Shock 3, Bioforge 2 or one of the many other licenses from companies like Bullfrog that EA will happily sit on like some bloated corporate cyber-squatter.
18/10/2008 at 09:23 Him says:
There are perhaps two companies I would trust with a project of such Amiga-nostalgia. Elemental Games (developers of the mighty Space Rangers series) or Katauri Interactive (King’s Bounty, obv.).
Put one of those two in charge, and you’d get a modern retelling faithful to the original, not simply ‘inspired’ by the original.
18/10/2008 at 10:43 Thiefsie says:
Dungeon Keeper 3. Woooo
18/10/2008 at 11:25 Candid_Man says:
Could be worse. Could be developed by Bethesda.
“Cyberpunk, for us, is a hobo with cyber-arms running around and killing things.”
-Todd Howard
18/10/2008 at 11:48 hydra9 says:
Chronicles Of Riddick was fantastic (and kudos to RPS for making me buy it!). After playing that, I have every faith in Starbreeze.
And Syndicate….! Wow! I honestly never thought we’d see a sequel to that classic! I’m excited… uh, as long as it’s true.
18/10/2008 at 12:03 kafka7 says:
O M F G
Syndicate was my first time in 1997. (Imagine a game that good being your first purchased PC game?). I played it straight through until completion at 5am. My flatmate complained that the noise had kept her awake – the volume control required batteries (which I didn’t have), but I had wrapped my cheapo speakers in old t-shirts in a vain attempt to muffle the noise of destruction. Ah, memories!
18/10/2008 at 12:33 dean says:
OMG
Syndicate is, i think my favorite game of all time. i played it on my amiga 500 over and over again. I cannot wait. Seriously cannot wait :D
18/10/2008 at 12:46 sinister agent says:
OMG IT WILL BE FIFA 2009 WITH GUNS FFS EA
18/10/2008 at 13:33 derblaue says:
w00t! great news!
As much as I loved syndicate, I also equally didn’t understand the ‘finer’ points of it (blowing up banks, recruiting new agents… it always eluded me). Then again, I was only 13.
I think a new syndicate game could be quite awesome, though it will never ever recapture that feeling the first one gave me *giggle*
18/10/2008 at 13:33 sbs says:
Ahahaha, Archon.
I just personally hope it won’t be a real-time strategy… I love me some cyberpunk, but hate playing RTS. I’d be perfectly fine with turn based tactical, though.
And damn, Riddick. Another game I do not even dare to start playing, just because It would wind up unfinished as soon as I return to one of the other dozen unfinished games I have installed…
18/10/2008 at 13:42 pkt-zer0 says:
Bethesda or not, with a publisher like EA, I don’t see the game being anything other than a console FP/TP shooter. Still, Riddick was awesome, so this might turn out pretty well.
18/10/2008 at 13:46 Robin says:
“Don’t try replaying the old version, your memories will be utterly decimated. God, we were naive.”
Crazy lies. It’s aged quite well. A damn sight better than Syndicate Wars has at any rate.
18/10/2008 at 13:51 Tei says:
I loved the demo of Sindicate, but not much the game itself for some reason. I think I hacked half the demo to add weapons, vehicles and stuff. It whas crazy as a sandbox.
It was interesting to move in trains or cars, imagine GTA with cyberpunk style, controlling 4 characters, with a weapon (the persuadertron) that let you build your army of minshased drones…
Now that I think about it, any game could get better with a GTA sandbox style. Imagine gigantic tetrics blocks falling from the sky!.. WHOOOAAA.
18/10/2008 at 13:54 phuzz says:
Syndicate as an FPS? Wouldn’t that be Deus Ex?
18/10/2008 at 14:29 bitkari says:
:P~~~~~
18/10/2008 at 14:50 Nero says:
I played quite a lot of Syndicate Wars back in the day. I really liked the voice that said the weapon you selected. Bring that voice back!
I have a feeling that this might be a third person shooter or something, maybe something like Full Spectrum Warrior. We’ll see.
18/10/2008 at 15:08 sinister agent says:
What’s the betting that there’ll be ten times as many adverts, and they’ll all be for real things? What’s the betting that this guaranteed money and advertising is, in fact, the only reason they’re bothering?
18/10/2008 at 15:16 unique_identifier says:
“James Pond.”
bahaha i remember some classroom machine that ran that wonderful game back when i was a wee young thing.
18/10/2008 at 17:22 Ian says:
Let’s hope this doesn’t put the mockers on FreeSynd (http://freesynd.sourceforge.net/index.php).
If EA were clever, they’d put cash and time in to make sure this remake got done as free publicity for their remake.
18/10/2008 at 17:41 hydra9 says:
@Ian:
EA are so ‘clever,’ they’ll probably shut the remake down…
18/10/2008 at 17:46 Funky Badger says:
Syndicate are great. Obv.
Also, while we’re on the subject: Hostile Waters 2!
MAKE IT HAPPEN!
18/10/2008 at 21:44 hydra9 says:
@Funky Badger:
*BING* It did!
19/10/2008 at 00:49 Slimjim says:
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Syndicate was the first game I ever bought. I remember pestering my Dad to get the extra memory needed to play it on our 386. All these years later and it’s still in my top 5. Played it recently through Dosbox and it’s lost none of the brutal magic. Miniguns, trench coats, oh hell yes.
19/10/2008 at 10:26 CUS says:
Friday?
A messianic figure on some underground forum, knew about this on wednesday.
http://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=117038#p117038
But sadly didn’t get to complete scooping it there – so, kudos to you. Next time Gadget… next time!
19/10/2008 at 14:49 Cooper42 says:
And when Molyneaux was expressing a desire to go back to syndicate a few months ago…
Now, not wanting to jump the gun here, but I predict that the resulting game from EA and starbreeze will not appeal to any fans of the original games…
That being said, though, if EA are prepared to go back to syndicate – then maybe cyberpunk games are not dead…
20/10/2008 at 03:12 th15 says:
Whoa, we need James Pond. How can we not have James Pond.
20/10/2008 at 09:27 phil says:
The last time we had a Syndicate thread a programmer from the Amiga version and subsequently Syndicate Wars turned up, which gave us a chance to variously praise his initial masterpiece and enquire whether the squeal was dumbed down for the console crowd.
Will lightening strike twice?
No, no it probably won’t.
Still a 3D direct control Syndicate, perhaps with ‘Goblin Commander’ unit management system, would be ace.
20/10/2008 at 09:53 Cataclysm says:
I remember Syndicate well. I remember having a mob of civilians swarming the city courtesy of the persuadatron and fitting 200 people into a small 2 seat hover car was always funny.
20/10/2008 at 10:10 Heliocentric says:
good god, i’d forgotten about the clown cars, set one on fire and then watch hundreds of flaming boddies pour out of it.
I still think the next syndicate should be a squad based tacical game, but by tactical, i am still remembering these guys are cyborgs not weak fleshy humans, still i’m hoping for multiplayer focus, simply because. single player games wont have missions where the enemies use civilians are cannon fodder. 4 cyborgs in fps with co-op optionally, and counter op (like left 4 dead) but, hundreds of simple AI’s.
20/10/2008 at 11:34 harvb says:
I predict it will be awful. I have absolutely nothing informed whatsoever to base this on, so I am bound to be right. Huzzah!
20/10/2008 at 11:35 El_MUERkO says:
my friend had a pc long before me, i used to go round his house and play syndicate wars and drool at the new 486 DX2s in shop windows
20/10/2008 at 14:27 megaman says:
I played it then, I played it again a couple of months ago. And I never found out about the banks. How could I miss out on this?
(Although money really never was a problem in syndicate, no?)
20/10/2008 at 19:14 ChrisF says:
EA don’t own the rights to James Pond, Millennium did, and they went to Creature Labs when Millennium was sold to Sony.
23/10/2008 at 15:14 anonymous says:
it is in fact true – working closely with starbreeze in the last months i can confirm they are developing a new syndicate game
03/12/2008 at 22:55 lol anon says:
the above source is VALID i PLOMISE