EA discusses Road Rash, Populous reboots
Gibeau wary of rose-tinted glasses.
Anyone up for a Road Rash revival? Or how about a new Powermonger? Well, according to a top EA exec, the publisher hasn't forgotten about its vintage brands but worries they might not be quite as good as you remember them.
When asked by CVG whether it had permanently consigned such aging IPs to the the scrapheap, Gibeau replied, "absolutely not."
"I worked on Desert Strike and Road Rash back in the day on Sega Genesis so trust me I'm familiar with the IP history."
He went on to explain that EA was keenly aware of its heritage and frequently weighed up the potential of reviving forgotten series.
"When looking at a new bet, a new investment to make we always look at whether we should create a new IP, bring one back or have something in active growth right now that we can double down on.
"So we constantly look at ways to grow the recent category of titles like Burnout, Need for Speed, Road Rash are constantly things we think about. It's the same thing with the old Bullfrog IPs like Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Powermonger, Magic Carpet, I can go on. So we do look at that stuff and are very cognisant of our past.
However, Gibeau then struck a hesitant note, explaining that many vintage titles hadn't aged as well as many of us might like.
"The key thing for us is, if we do bring [any of those] back, the game has got to be good. I don't know about you but when I look back at GoldenEye, I think of it as this amazing game and then you go and play it and are like, 'Oh. Really?'."
"From our perspective we have to manage that element which makes things look nicer in the rear view mirror compared to what you have to do now in the modern day.
"Production values and game mechanics are very different than what you see on some of those IPs but trust me, it's a part of the asset of our company to have 25 years of IP and you'll see them come back in different ways at different times."
Back in 2009, footage of a scrapped Road Rash game found its way onto the web, followed last month by a set of concept art dating back to 2006.