Insomniac Games has filed a copyright application that might be hinting at their next unannounced project.
On October 12, 2022, the company filed a copyright application for Fuse, in relation to visual material. Notably, this copyright application indicates that Insomniac Games has retained or is currently the sole owner of the intellectual property. It may be that Fuse’s original publisher, Electronic Arts, relinquished ownership to Insomniac Games as per an agreement, or it was always Insomniac’s
Fuse is a 2011 science fiction themed co-op shooter, based on the premise of alien technology called Fuse. Fuse was stolen from the aliens by the evil Raven Corporation, and it’s the job of a group of mercenaries, who happen to get some alien powers themselves, to stop Raven. The game itself received mixed reviews and was the subject of a lot of drama, revolving around the change in development.
In its inital reveal in 2011, the game still had the name Overstrike, and a more serious presentation. A year later, it had acquired a publisher in Electronic Arts, and was reworked to the more frivolous Fuse. A lot of fans were unhappy with the change in tone. Unfortunately, that paled in comparison to the reception to the final product.
Game reviews upon its release for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 revealed that the game ended up with a shallow storyline, and shallow gameplay. Reviewers noted the game was particularly enjoyable in multiplayer, but Insomniac had failed to bring the elements together for an equally satisfying single player experience. You can actually read our review of the game here.
Insomniac cites Fuse as a learning experience, and to be fair, you can see what they mean. Some of the ideas they had that went into Fuse carried over to later games. In particular, Sunset Overdrive seemed to take that frivolous tone and turn it all the way up to 21. Insomniac also seemed to have figured out how to make funny, likable characters by the time they got around to making Marvel’s Spider-Man.
OK, but would there be good reason to come back to Fuse? In terms of genre, that could be a yes. Co-op shooters fade in and out in popularity, but they currently are on an upswing, thanks to games like Destiny 2, Back 4 Blood, and World War Z. Not only is there an audience for this kind of game, Insomniac has earned a lot more experience in the near decade since making the first Fuse. It’s easy to imagine them being more capable of polishing the issues with the game design, to more cohesively bring everything together, to build a more satisfying single player experience with better AI teammates, and maybe to even tell a better crafted, more satisfying story.
In regards to Insomniac’s availability to make the game: the company have already announced Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Marvel’s Wolverine as upcoming games for the PlayStation 5, which follow their most recent release, Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles Morales. If there’s any truth to this rumor, we may be looking at a project that is four to five years away, and probably going for the next generation of video game consoles.
Would you be up for a reboot of Fuse? Id software certainly proved that reexploring an older, less successful IP can pay dividends when they made Rage 2, and Insomniac could probably pull the same trick too.
Source: PlayStation Lifestyle, Reddit
