Why Wasn’t Resistance Sony’s Halo? Insomniac Has “Theories”

Well this is something I didn’t expect to be reading right now. Insomniac CEO Ted Price has spoken about the Resistance series, and has revealed that he has his theories as to why the big PS3 exclusive shooter didn’t become to Sony what Halo is for Microsoft.

Price, recently speaking with Kotaku, said that one of Insomniac’s theories is regarding the dramatic changes that happened in Resistance 2.

“We have theories internally about why Resistance wasn’t a Halo,” he said. “One is that we changed the game a lot in Resistance 2, and we surprised players in a way that perhaps wasn’t what was expected. And that may have not been a good thing. By changing up some of the core mechanics and— we got a lot of strong feedback when we did that.

“On Resistance 3, we went back to some of our more traditional core mechanics that players did love, and then built a story that was more personal. That in our opinion was the way to move the franchise forward in a way that was unique for first-person shooters.

“We’re really proud of Resistance 3. The team felt very personally connected to Resistance 3.”

Price also revealed that the reason Insomniac didn’t develop the Vita version of Resistance was because the studio didn’t have “the bandwidth to move onto the Vita.” As a result, Sony gave the opportunity to develop Resistance: Burning Skies to Nihilistic.

“We were really happy that Nihilistic went ahead and created their own vision of Resistance, and we feel very close to the franchise cause we created it, but it’s always interesting to see what other people do with it,” said Price.

“I thought that what they did with the game made a lot of sense, in terms of the decisions that they came to with their core mechanics. So I felt like it stayed true to the universe… [but] frankly, I was spending a lot more time playing our own games.”

I’m raising eyebrows here, because I’m pretty sure that there are many other reasons why Halo is so big for Microsoft. Maybe, Insomniac, just maybe it’s because Microsoft are like the kings of marketing? They could sell you a dead rat. Proof is in Kinect. Look how well they sold that thing. Jokes aside, there’s also the fact that Microsoft has far less exclusive titles competing for gamers’ attention. There’s Gears of War, and there’s Halo, for your action shooter and multiplayer experiences. That’s it.

Personally, I always felt at odds with the majority of gamers about the Resistance series. I loved Resistance: Fall of Man, loved the hell out of Resistance 2, applauding Insomniac’s decision to dramatically change the game up, make it feel completely fresh and focus on story, but then I seriously disliked Resistance 3, and felt it was so uninspired and average that I struggled to finish it. It had some cool guns and good shooting, but especially with the story it felt so empty, and the story was a complete letdown after what Resistance 2 built up and left us with at its awesome ending.

What do you think, people of Earth?

Name: Azhar Lorgat
Location: Cape Town
Position: Potato

Azhar has published 3571 posts. Read all of Azhar's posts.

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