Im Los Angeles Convention Center, dem Veranstaltungsort der heurigen E3, sind Werbeplakate für ein PopCap Spiel Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare zu sehen. In Kombination mit Berichten einer verlässlichen Quelle, die vermeldet, dass der PvZ Shooter — ja, Shooter —, um den schon seit langem Gerüchte kreisen, sehr bald enthüllt werden soll, deutet nun alles darauf hin, dass wir endlich den Namen des Spiels kennen.
Sie wissen schon... der Titel klingt wie „Modern Warfare". Verstehen Sie?
Das Photo, das das Garden Warfare Plakat zeigt, tauchte heute auf der Gaming Website Gamekyo auf. Doch diese Ausschilderung erklärt nicht, um was für eine Art Spiel es sich handelt. Nicht ganz so kundige Besucher und Beobachter könnten annehmen, dass dies Plakate und Aufhänger etwas mit dem vor kurzem angekündigten Plants Vs. Zombies 2 zu tun haben. PvZ 2 ist ein Tower Defense Spiel ganz im Stil des ersten PvZ. Garden Warfare wird dies aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach nicht sein.
Da ist dieser Titel.
Und dann sind da all diese Gerüchte. Superannuation, ein absoluter Gaming-Insider, der immer wieder interessante Informationen zu Tage fördert, die sich auch fast immer als wahr herausstellen, wusste im letzten August folgendes zu vermelden:
In recent months, Electronic Arts has been hiring for a new PopCap team at the EA Canada Burnaby campus that does not sound very much like anything that has come from PopCap before.
Among the handful of openings was one from April for a 3D animator—something that seems pretty peculiar given PopCap's history as primarily developing 2D games. However, that is nowhere near as baffling as the description of the job in the listing, which mentions that the animator is involved in the synthesis of "gameplay, storytelling and character movement" by making "emotionally believable characters that allow game players to interact with the game, whether photorealistic or stylized, in a realistic and believable fashion."
In addition, the listing states that "The Animator will be involved from idea and prototype creation and the directing of actors and stuntmen during motion capture sessions, to the final stage when animating and implementing the results into the game." Quite curiously they are also desiring candidates with experience developing console games—which is somewhat unusual since PopCap games do not typically start off on consoles.
For most companies, it would not be weird to have any of that among the copy in a job listing, but this is PopCap—the company that created the likes of Peggle, Plants Vs. Zombies,Bejeweled and Zuma, none of which probably utilized any sort of motion capture or relied on emotionally-plausible characters. So whatever PopCap Burnaby is creating probably falls outside those franchises, though some plant motion capture or further characterization of Bjorn the Unicorn would be quite interesting to see.
Perhaps slightly weirder is this listing from around the same time for a multiplayer designer. The designer is tasked with creating multiplayer levels—specifically, "creating extremely fun & polished multiplayer maps." One of the requirements for the job was "Previous experience as a Multiplayer Level Designer on a shipped shooter or action title," and the studio was looking for a candidate with "Experience designing levels where the player has a lot of freedom to manipulate the gameplay space (destruction, construction, modification)." Finally, among the requirements in the world modeler listing is the line "Experience working with a cartoon style and tone."
A cartoony, mechanically-novel and possibly multiplayer-oriented 3D action game for consoles from PopCap does sound potentially interesting.
Und eine andere Quelle berichtete später am selben Tag folgendes:
This afternoon's great PopCap mystery may now be a little less mysterious: a Canadian industry source with ties to Electronic Arts has told Kotaku that a small team at EA's Burnaby campus is working on a new entry in the Plants vs Zombies franchise.
The thing is, it's not another tower defence game. Apparently it's a multiplayer-oriented first-person shooter. For consoles. Seriously.
...
Which certainly fits with what Kotaku has since been told: that the small team, comprised mostly of former members of EA's Black Box studio (Skate, Need for Speed), is working on a Plants vs Zombies console title that's "in the vein of Team Fortress 2".
Es ist auch wert, berichtet zu werden, dass PopCap auf seiner Facebook Seite einige Parodiebilder mit Shooter-Bezug veröffentlichte:
Bei PopCap möchte man zu den Gerüchten rund um einen PvZ Shooter derzeit noch nicht Stellung nehmen. Schlimmstenfalls werden wir morgen erfahren, was es mit Garden Warfare auf sich hat, wenn EA auf der E3 seine große Pressekonferenz abhält.
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