Insomniac Games' Resistance 3 will be the developer's last game in the Sony-exclusive shooter franchise, according to a recent statement from studio head Ted Price.
"We won’t be making any more Resistances," Price told VG247 at Southern Methodist University’s Game::Business::Law Summit today.
While Price did not explain why the studio chose to move away from the franchise, the drop in sales between Resistance 2 and 3 suggests waning momentum for the six year old series.
Resistance 3 launched September 2011, and in its first month on the market, sold only 180,000 units according to The NPD Group. By comparison, the 2008 release Resistance 2 sold more than double that amount, reaching 385,000 units sold in roughly the same time period (the title has since sold more than 3 million units worldwide).
Of course, Insomniac's decision doesn't necessarily mean the end of the Resistance series altogether. In fact, other developers have already had their hands on the franchise, including Bend Game Studios (Resistance: Retribution, PSP, 2009) and Nihilistic Software (Resistance: Burning Skies, Vita, TBA).
Currently, Insomniac is focusing its efforts on Overstrike, a four-player co-op shooter for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
Not too surprising... I would have liked to play them if they were on PC or XB360. They looked like good games, but not $600 good (after console + games). Exclusives are nice from a development standpoint but it sucks to be in the sales department when you only have 1 piece of hardware to pimp it on...
Have to agree. I certainly appreciate that they were willing to leave their comfort zone, but they just didn't achieve the creative heights with Resistance as with Ratchet & Clank. Not that the Resistance games were bad games by any means, but they just felt a little average given the super-competitive nature of the FPS genre and gamers' expectations therein.
The first one was a very smooth, focused experience; and made the second a must buy for me. The second was a lot of fun but disjointed; too much too soon for the series. Made the 3rd one less a must for me, although I will pick it up at some point. Perhaps R2 and R3 happened in the wrong order. Ratchet evolved with a far more comfortable pace and scope, leaving me wanting more after each title in the series. I'm still waiting for Disruptor 2.
I never understood Resistance. Its like aliens.. but they're zombies, who shoot guns, and sort of look like dinosaurs? As a property it was always a mishmash of junk. But the first and third games were certainly well made.
wasn't it supposed to be WWII plus aliens? except i think they botched the story by getting rid of nazis and commies, so it became a generic shooter with crappy WWII weapons. it never appealled to me, but could have.
This is probably a good thing. The games certainly weren't bad, but they weren't great either. It's pretty obvious that gritty 'realistic' (yes I know) FPSes are not Insomniac's forte, and it was painful to see them waste so much time on a series that was hauled through three releases by being a PS3 exclusive.
Go back to fun cartoony stuff, guys, because you're fantastic at that.
Go back to fun cartoony stuff, guys, because you're fantastic at that.