EA’s CEO gave investors, and gamers, a little tease earlier today regarding a “very exciting” new first person shooter that will be released sometime by the end of this year.
The yet-unannounced FPS game is something EA is hoping will topple Activision’s lead on the genre. Check out more after the jump!
The announcement came during the company’s event regarding its end-of-the-quarter earnings. An investor at the event asked EA’s CEO John Riccitiello about the future of the Medal of Honor series.
Riccitiello’s response:
“We’ve made strong progress in calendar ’10 over calendar ’09. This year, with the tail-end of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 still doing well and Medal of Honor still doing well… with Crysis and Bulletstorm we’re clearly going to make more progress towards our goal and that’s before we get to what I think is going to be a very exciting entry later in the year that we’re not yet announcing.”
It is clear that EA has been doing very well for itself. Medal of Honor and BF: BC 2 were, and still are, great sellers and received excellent reviews. Crysis 2 and Bulletstorm are its next big releases for the FPS genre, with release dates of February 22 for Bulletstorm and March 22 for Crysis 2.
It seems like this off-handed announcement might be purposeful. Reclaiming the FPS has been a focus of EA since Activision’s behemoth Call of Duty has stacked the gaming world. Riccitiello states, “I don’t want to give away the thunder from our call but for quite a long time now I’ve been saying it’s our long term goal to take back the first person shooter category leadership.” With EA’s recent partnership with Respawn Entertainment, the developers behind COD, that goal might be closer than ever before.
Of course, not all of EA’s intentions with competing against Activision have allegedly been good-natured. Within the past couple of months Activision has filed a lawsuit against EA, alleging that the company purposefully “hijacked” Jason West and Vince Zampella, former CEOs of Infinity Ward (the company that developed COD for Activision) and owners of Respawn Entertainment. The lawsuit also states that EA “set out to destabilize, disrupt and to attempt to destroy Infinity Ward.” West and Zampella have also been named in the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, their lawsuit against Activision will be heard in May of this year. Kotaku has been following the legal battles between EA and Activision religiously and you can find a handy hashtag for all the information here.
Despite the drama that has arisen from EA’s partnership with Respawn Entertainment, the gaming community appears to be excited for this unnamed FPS that will be released. Numerous rumors are already circulating for what the new game will be. Some are thinking it might be Battlefield 3, however that title was already announced last year. Others are focusing on unnamed but announced developments such as Insomniac Game’s multi-platform game. Other mentioned hopefuls are Mirror’s Edge 2 or the Half-Life 2 sequel. Perhaps the new game will be something completely original.
Only time will tell for what the game will be. In the meantime gamers will be watching the fireworks as two great FPS developing giants compete for top spot in the genre this year. Either way, the gaming community wins.
[via G4]
[via GameSpot]
[via GamingUnion]
[via EuroGamer]
[via Kotaku]
Image courtesy of Electronic Arts