I get something of a twinge in my leg when a company somewhere either says or does something that provokes a potential customer to say “well they just saved me the cash I would have wasted checking this out,” so naturally I carry a House-like limp at all times. So when my femur fractured in three locations last week, I had a good feeling that something was up and after four or five days of investigation I came across an interview between Eurogamer and K2 Networks (also known as GamersFirst), the new owners of All Points Bulletin, to be relaunched as APB: Reloaded next year.
Currently a team of 24 people are installing a free to play, microtransaction model into All Points Bulletin, where players will be able to lease weapons in order to get into the game quicker. The game that was once promised to players by defunct studio Realtime Worlds? That is going to take a lot longer to release, in fact you’ll likely be finished with Left 4 Dead 5 by the time the fully realized APB is out. According to owner Bjorn Book-Larsson;
“Oh no [six months isn’t long enough] – we think it’ll take four or five years,”
Four or five years, so by 2015 the full incarnation of All Points Bulletin should be out. Larsson then goes on to explain that K2 Networks plans on launching APB as close to the notorious unreleased patch as possible, with the addition of leased weaponry, and a few other updates. In other words, APB is going to relaunch small to test the market, and go from there.
“After that, presuming there’s an interest in the game, we expect this to be a multi-year development process where we continue updating the game.”
Key phrase being “presuming there’s an interest.” There is still no guarantee that K2 Networks won’t shut down APB again, gut the code like a fish, and make use of its extensive customization engine. K2 has committed two years to the game, hopefully enough time to bring back old players and flesh in some new players.
It’s a good thing APB: Reloaded is launching as a free to play title. I’d hate to think my subscription money was going towards a five year long beta.
MMO Fallout 