Ubisoft, France-and-Canada based developer/publisher behind such mongo franchises as Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six, has acquired Swedish Massive Entertainment, the highly-regarded RTS maker responsible for the much-loved World in Conflict. Originally published by Sierra, Massive lost its home when the Activision/Blizzard merger resulted in Sierra’s closure. Some other big name titles also got the axe, and we’re slowly hearing of their resurrection at other publishers. Atari, for example, will be handling the much-anticipated Ghostbusters game.
The long and short of this acquisition is that WiC’s upcoming expansion, World in Conflict: Soviet Assault, is back on the burner and will be published by Ubisoft in The Future. As anyone who has played World in Conflict can attest, more of that game is very happy news.
Yes! God I loved that game.
I consider WiC up there with some of the best RTS of all time. My list is pretty short, however: Starcraft, Homeworld and the Myth series are pretty much it.
I don’t even typically like RTS gameplay, but Starcraft was the first sci-fi RTS to “nail” the genre, and Homeworld and Myth were more the RTT gameplay which I love.
Base building. Meh. Real time tactical decisions and blowing up the world? YES!