Holy Freaking Cow
Before I tell you about this, understand that this is an inferred scoop. No one has confirmed this information to me. No one has even hinted at it publicly, to the best of my knowledge. Let me walk you through the pieces, though, and I think you'll come to the same conclusion that I have.
This sequence began when I received an e-mail from Greg on Sunday. Here's an excerpt from that e-mail: Some folks were/are planning an ambitious mod using the Doom 3 engine to re-tell System Shock 2. Apparently the Morons That Be decided they wouldn't stand for the copyright infringement and ordered them to not use the SS name.
He also included a link (http://rebooted.purkaia.net/dead_letter/) where the leader of the mod project had excerpted part of the letter that they received from Electronic Arts. What's critical to note here is that Electronic Arts contacted these guys ten days after they officially announced the project.
That's when my radar went off. There are about a jillion Ultima remake knockoffs in progress right now. Electronic Arts has generally ignored them, even though to the best of my knowledge they own those copyrights as well. Some of these projects have been underway for years and EA has barely even noticed. They have shut down a mod here and there, but it's always been after the project actually got to a point where it demonstrated credibility and feasibility, not soon after one started.
Blowing up a mod project is enormously unpopular and is guaranteed to generate a significant amount of negative publicity for a publisher. EA knows that. So why would they so stridently defend copyrights for a series that is dormant?
Well, they wouldn't. The only way Electronic Arts would put the hammer down on that mod project is if they're working on another System Shock game.
No other explanation makes sense. And there are additional circumstances that lend credence to this theory. First, Doom 3 is going to be huge beyond belief. Half-Life 2 is going to be huge beyond belief. They are, without doubt, the two biggest games of the fall (and maybe of all-time), and Electronic Arts has absolutely nothing to do with either of them. Oops. So do they have a franchise that could return some of the spotlight to Electronic Arts? A franchise that they could use to capitalize on the wave of publicity these games are going to generate for the first-person shooter genre? Yes, they do. They have one, and it's the System Shock series. It has a far better framework and storyline for a thriller/horror game than the Doom series. It has a legendary status among the gaming community, the franchise has never been diluted, and it would generate an unbelievable buzz.
So think about that and then think about EA shutting down a mod project within days of it being announced. I think that inferring the active existence of System Shock 3 is the only reasonable conclusion.
Now if I'm correct, when would this game be officially announced? This is much further down the speculative path, but I think the announcement will come around the same time that it's announced that Doom 3 has broken every sales record on the planet. That would probably point to a September announcement, with screenshots later this fall and a showing at E3 next year.
My bare ass is now hanging well over the ledge. Let's see what happens.
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