Every now and then there has been a project which was developed for years, it suddenly slips under the radar and later turns out to be a great game. Reich was going to be one of those games.
Unfortunately Ignition Entertainment shut down in late 2010 and stopped the development of Reich, a physic’s-based first person shooter. But was it really ever cancelled?
The game was in development by Ignition Entertainment Florida for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. After news of the closing, many sources assumed that the project was cancelled. Shortly after, An Ignition ex-developer made a YouTube account and uploaded lots of footage from what seemed like a game in its late stages of development.
In the videos they show the player who has some type of telekinetic powers, like Bioshock, but on a greater scale; being able to grab massive chunks of the environment and throwing them at your enemies or objects that are in your path. Manipulating even whole levels and altering them for your needs or just for the sake of destruction.
You can watch all the leaked Reich videos at noignition YouTube channel. It really looks amazing for a game that hasn’t made it through all of its development stages.
But let’s get back to the initial question, was Reich ever really cancelled?
Not long after the closure on January 12, 2011, in a press release UTV Ignition Entertainment said that “it has consolidated its West and East Coast operations to a central office in Austin, Texas with on-line micro transaction gaming studio, UTV True Games”, later adding that “The company’s highly anticipated first-person-shooter, Reich, remains in development and is now being developed in Austin, where key personnel along with additional new hires will create a new internal development team.”
With that said we can safely assume that game is still in works, possibly to be released on PC and next generation consoles.
I can’t wait to hear more about Reich. In the meantime you can go check Unseen64 article which includes more content from the game.
So what are your thoughts about the game?
Do you think we have a chance of seeing it again next year?
Let us know in the comments.
