Square-Enix hasn’t had enough of investing in open world games. In addition to publishing this year’s Sleeping Dogs, the Final Fantasy publisher has reportedly signed Avalanche to develop a “ground breaking” new open world game.
Let it never be said that Square-Enix doesn’t wholeheartedly support people that enjoy using grappling hooks and easy-to-deploy parachutes. It supported the release of both Just Cause and Just Cause 2, open world games by Sweden’s Avalanche studio. Avalanche specializes in gritty tales of violence that are memorable first and foremost for their zany midair antics. Main character Rico Rodriguez, the hardboiled employee of the Agency, is a complete tool, but it sure is fun to make him grapple onto the back of a passing airplane and then parachute into a passing sports car.
Eurogamer reported on Monday that an email promoting a recruitment event included information that Avalanche is hiring for multiple positions to work on the open world game that is, unsurprisingly, described as an “action” game too.
The email did not say whether or not this new game will be a continuation of the Just Cause franchise, but the series’ moderate success has entrenched the brand enough to make it worth revisiting for Square-Enix. Avalanche head Christofer Sundberg told Eurogamer in April that he thinks the series is well-suited for Microsoft and Sony’s next generation of consoles. “In this day and age when everyone is struggling to make money, my opinion is that the [Just Cause] IP is perfect for everything the next-gen has to offer.”
With the PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 expected either in late 2013 or 2014, Avalanche’s schedule seems to line up for a launch title on those systems. Poster Movura said in Eidos’ official forums back in 2010 just after Just Cause 2’s release that Sundberg claimed his studio was booked on projects through 2014.
One of those projects though was “based on one of the coolest licenses on the planet.” Sundberg also teased that Avalanche is working on two licensed games, one based on a comic book and another based on an upcoming movie. Both will be open world games. The movie game is suspected to be an adaptation of Mad Max 4: The Fury Road, a project that God of War II director Cory Balrog was associated with back in 2007.
“As we’ve said before they are two pretty damn cool and big licenses which we have chosen to work on just because they allow us to create two new open world/sandbox experiences in worlds where we’ve seen a lack of features that Avalanche Studios has to offer,” said Sundberg.
One of these projects is expected to debut at E3.
