Insomniac Games' president Ted Price has told GamesIndustry he wants to give gamers "something fresh" in a "sea of sequels" with the upcoming release of Fuse.
"There's no question that it's a challenge," Price said of launching a new IP so close to the launch of next-gen platforms. "There are plenty of news items to take gamers' focus off of this generation. For us, the opportunity was to be a new IP in a sea of sequels, offer something very fresh for players to check out when they've been playing, essentially, the same games for the last 5 or 6 years.
"What we wanted to do with co-op in particular was raise the bar and offer features that no other co-op games are offering at this point. Fuse was a great opportunity for us to do that," he added.
Price added he believes Fuse will join the ranks of Resistence and Ratchet and Clank among core gamers and hinted that should the title be successful it will be carried over to new consoles.
"I'd say that what Sony is doing is a very positive note for the console industry and I think it mimics what most of us in the traditional game development business are doing, and that's thinking differently about how the future is going – how we want to exist in a future where mobilr and free-to-play and different methods of delivery are such an important part of the industry," Price commented.
"I think it's easy to overlook the story and messages that are in a lot of games that may be perceived as purely combat," the developer noted in relation Fuse's narrative. "Fuse has a story-driven game and it asks the question, 'What happens when humans get their hands on this substance they were never supposed to have? How do people use and abuse unlimited power?' And each of the characters in the game are affected in a very different way by Fuse, and you see that as the story unfolds. But often, people are distracted by the veneer of a purely combat focused game," he concluded.
Fuse is being released on PS3 and will be Insomniac's first game on Xbox 360. The title currently has a release date of May 28th.