Syndicate release date announced
Out February 2012. New gameplay details.
Syndicate launches in Europe on 24th February 2012 in Europe and 21st February 2012 in the US, EA has announced.
Syndicate, from The Darkness developer Starbreeze, is a reboot of the cult classic 1993 strategy game.
It's an action first-person shooter "for today's gamers as well as fans of the original", according to EA.
EA's Syndicate website has just updated with a summary of the game's setting:
"2069 - no longer governed by politicians, the developed world is divided up into regions controlled by mega-corporations known as syndicates. These syndicates have revolutionized how the consumer interacts with the digital world. No longer does the consumer require a device to access the world's data and control their technology, they can do this at the blink of an eye via neural chip implant.
"Civilians flocked to be 'chip'd' and enjoy all that their selected syndicate has to offer; housing, medical, banking, insurance, education, entertainment and jobs. One complete package. One complete lifestyle. In return, the syndicates gained unprecedented insights, and control, over the individual and their behaviour. With little governmental oversight, business has become war. The syndicates will stop at nothing for ultimate market dominance.
"At the front line of this war are the agents, the syndicate's bio-engineered and chip-augmented enforcers. They can breach anything in the wired dataverse including their enemies, their weapons and the environment that surrounds them, making them the most efficient and deadly technological weapons in the world. Take on the role of miles kilo, eurocorp's latest prototype agent, and embark on a brutal action adventure of corruption and revenge."
Also revealed are new gameplay details. You play Miles Kilo, Eurocorp's latest prototype agent. Using chip enhanced gameplay, you can slow down time, see through walls, and breach your enemy and everything digital in the world with Dart vision - a neural DART6 chip implant that allows you to interface directly with the Dataverse.
There's also four-player online co-op, and nine missions re-imagined from the original Syndicate.
The reboot was met with a mixed reception by fans following the announcement of the shift to first-person.
"It was always going to be an FPS," game director Neil McEwan said earlier this month.
"The original nub of the idea was to take that viewpoint from the original game and zoom into the Agent's head, and play that part. A closer experience - to become one of those Agents.
"[Our] game speaks for itself. We've been very lucky to work with a great, original world, and create another facet of it really. I would love [fans of the original] to like it. You're never going to please everyone.
"I don't want people to stop playing the old games," he added, "but time has moved on."
McEwan and team are "big fans" of the original, isometric, tactical 1993 Syndicate game - and are "definitely paying as much homage to it as we can". That homage will manifest through the "essence of the world" and your role as an Agent within it.
"That sounds wanky but it's true," remarked McEwan.
