Codemasters’ SVP of Production Jamie Macdonald and VP of Studios Gavin Chesire recently sat down with Develop to discuss the company’s plans for the near and slightly-more-distant future, revealing that the publisher is working on sequels to a number of its franchises, as well as introducing new IPs.
“We’ve got a major launch with F1 coming up in September and developed at our Birmingham studio, and we hope to draw new IP from there. Our Guildford studio is working hard on Bodycount, and we will be looking to to take that franchise further and further with the addition of more IP,” said Macdonald, discussing current projects at its studios. “In Southam it’s full steam ahead with the next iteration in our Flashpoint series, as well as the next Dirt and Grid.” If you’re keeping count, yes, that is three as-yet-unknown sequels just casually tossed into conversation. [Update: As I post this, The official UK PlayStation mag has tweeted a picture of next month’s issue’s cover, which appears to show “Op Flashpoint” as a reveal, so I guess we should be hearing about that sooner rather than later.]
Cheshire also mentioned that the company is working hard on the next evolution of the technology behind many of its recent successes: “The next F1 will show where EGO has got to at this stage. I think people will agree that it has probably got the best weather of any game ever seen…We are focused on EGO 2.0 at the moment, which will be coming in with a massive title that we can’t talk about just yet. That will really keep us cutting-edge.” Yes, that’s another upcoming reveal too.
Also discussed in the interview was the recent purchase by India-based Reliance Big Entertainment of a fifty percent stake in the company. Calming fears that Codemasters would be shipping off abroad, Cheshire confurmed that UK development is still very much the focus of the company: “I can safely say that this is absolutely not the case. There are obviously some ‘strategic’ moves for both partners, but in terms of development at the level we’re at, it’s very much about Reliance investing in our skills and abilities over here in the UK.” In fact, the company is looking to significantly expand its operations, says Macdonald: “We are currently in the middle of a major recruitment drive across all three of those sites [Birmingham, Southam and Guildford]. There will be major expansion in that sense over the coming year.”
Certainly seems like it’s a busy time at the publisher – it’s good to hear that companies are sticking with the UK scene.
Source: Develop
