Some details on the long-rumored Syndicate reboot were put up on EA's Origin store in the form of a product description, and naturally NeoGAF has snatched it up before it was taken down again. It's a shooter, but we already knew that and given Starbreeze's history (The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, The Darkness) it's hardly surprising.
Before you go all "XCOM is not X-COM!!" stay with me for a minute while we go through the details.
Product description:
Syndicate is the re-imagination of a cult classic franchise from 1993 - a unique action shooter set in a not too distant future, where Business is War.
2069 – No longer governed by politicians, the developed world is divided up into regions controlled by megacorporations known as Syndicates. These Syndicates have revolutionized how the consumer interacts with the digital world. No longer does the consumer require a device to access the world's data and control their technology, they can do this at the blink of an eye via neural chip implant. Civilians flocked to be "chip'd" and enjoy all that their selected Syndicate has to offer; housing, medical, banking, insurance, education, entertainment and jobs. One complete package. One complete lifestyle. In return, the Syndicates gained unprecedented insights, and control, over the individual and their behaviour. With little governmental oversight, business has become war. The Syndicates will stop at nothing for ultimate market dominance. At the front line of this war are the Agents, the Syndicate's bio-engineered and chip-augmented enforcers. They can breach anything in the wired world including their enemies, their weapons and the environment that surrounds them, making them the most efficient and deadly technological weapons in the world.
Take on the role of Miles Kilo, Eurocorp's latest prototype agent, and embark on a brutal action adventure of corruption and revenge.
• Chip Enhanced Gameplay: Slow down time, see through walls, and breach your enemy and everything digital in the world with Dart vision – A neural DART6 chip implant that allows you to interface directly with the Dataverse.
• 4-Player Online Co-op: Assemble your Syndicate for global domination. A 4-player, online co-op experience like no other, with chip enhanced gameplay and 9 missions re-imagined from the original Syndicate.
• Visceral FPS Experience: Utilize an upgradable arsenal of futuristic weapons, armor and gear to annihilate your enemies and harvest their chip technology for personal advancement and sinister corporate greed.
• Sci-Fi Fiction: Immerse yourself in the world of Syndicate 2069, with a world-class sci-fi story experience, written by bestselling author Richard Morgan.
Disregarding how if you replace everything with augmentations, Sarif Industries, and Adam Jensen, it sounds vaguely familiar, it's still a bit like the original Syndicate games isn't it?
Everyone in the Syndicate universe had neural implants that allowed you to manipulate them using a gadget called the Persuadertron. Being able to access and interface with all tech when everyone has chips inside of them in the new Syndicate opens the game up to some cool possibilities. While I'm sure there are more interesting ways to use this than adding bullet time or X-ray vision, "breach your enemy" could still be read as a hint that some Persuadertron type of mechanic might make a return.
Ignoring the marketing talk about the "Visceral FPS Experience" and how you are supposed to "Immerse yourself in the world of 2027 Syndicate 2069," it seems that harvesting "chip technology" would be an XP system and you can upgrade weapons and gear. The latter in particular is not something you see in an FPS that often, so perhaps some light RPG elements or a persistently manageable squad will mirror the original's R&D progression system. One can hope.
While I can't say I've ever read anything Richard Morgan -- the writer for Crysis 2 -- has written, apparently he has a thing for cyberpunk and dystopian themes. A property like Syndicate feels like a better match for someone like Morgan than Crysis 2, a game which I doubt people will remember for its story ten years from now. Either way, he could go wild something like Syndicate, and hopefully he'll have the freedom to explore his favorite themes and give us something as dark as the originals.
Truth be told, my first reaction to all of this was a "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in the voice of a dozen movie characters. But after sleeping on it and going through it piece by piece, it actually sounds like it could be a neat game. Sure, you don't click your squad around anymore, but everything else still has the potential for a revamped approach that takes the old game to the current era.
Starbreeze doesn't mess around with PG-13 violence to appease the masses either -- Riddick and The Darkness were unapologetically violent and dark games. Whether or not we'll be able to Persuadertron 30 innocent civilians to pick up an arsenal of weapons, use them to shoot down police officers who are just trying to feed their families, tell them to stand outside a church or bank, and then blow up the building with suitcare nukes as glass and debris flies everywhere, we'll have to see.
Sadly such a scenario would not be very politically correct in this day and age, even though it was fine 18 years ago. We have to think of the children who are not allowed to buy M-rated games, after all. If Starbreeze can pull off translating the dark behavior that the original games' mechanics elicited, while trading the top-down perspective for a first-person one with 4-player online co-op, I'm willing to give it a try -- even if it's not exactly the same as the games I grew up with.
Just as long as Eurocorp's Miles Kilo doesn't have an evil twin brother called Sonic Pound who works at Americorp...
Maurice Tan Maurice Tan does his Associate Editing from The Netherlands in a reality-shattering time zone. After working as a university lecturer in Psychology and Communications teaching game studies and the merits of Keyboard Cat, he now spends most of his time posting news, previews, reviews, and features about industry stuff or all things PC and strategy. He is also a connoisseur of licensed games, as long as they have achievements. Likes Deus Ex, Colonization, Mass Effect, TIE Fighter, and his iPod Touch.
Meet the rest of the team
"Whether or not we'll be able to Persuadertron 30 innocent civilians to pick up an arsenal of weapons, use them to shoot down police officers who are just trying to feed their families, tell them to stand outside a church or bank, and then blow up the building with suitcare nukes as glass and debris flies everywhere, we'll have to see."
I haven't played any Syndicate game, and the revival of old franchises in the form of FPSes in a market overcrowded with FPSes is both worrying and aggravating, but if they allow pulling off stuff like this and the story holds up and we don't have to spend the majority of gameplay staring at a wall before ducking out to plink at small brown targets on the other end of the room, it honestly might be quite good.
Though there has to be a degree of faithfulness to the originals, even if I haven't played them. To show that they care and they aren't just slapping the name on like the XCOM guys so blatantly are.
Despite the pretty dubious story in Crysis 2, Richard Morgan is an excellent author i'd chalk that down to it being his 1st game plot. His debut book Altered Carbon was a great 1st foray into the cyberpunk genre I can't reccomend it enough.
I dunno, it sort of sounds like an attempt to make an FPS off the back of the Syndicate franchise's reputation but at the same time I'm hopeful it is something good. Aslong as it's not the typical action hero story it might be interesting. But I would have prefered if it'd been a strategy game that focused on all the aspects of strategy and micro-management that the original Syndicate did.
My fondest memory of the original Syndicate was using the Persuadatron in the same way, amassing as many pedestrians as possible, and then self-destructing my four agents, all with top-level upgrades. The resulting explosion was so ridiculous, it used to almost make my Amiga crash. That definitely wouldn't be pc these days, I suppose. Also, the Gauss Guns, they were awesome.
All in all, I'm looking forward to this. I've enjoyed pretty much all of Starbreeze's previous games, and I think they will nail the right atmosphere.
Fallout - Turn based Pen and Paper style RPG - Rebooted as an FPS/RPG
X-Com - Turn base strategy/rpg game - rebooted as an FPS with minor strategy/rpg elements
Syndicate - Top down strategy game - rebooted as an FPS with minor rpg elements.
------
I don't want to hate on console gamers (as I personally enjoy many games exclusive to consoles.) but this kind of shit has come around because consoles don't adhere themselves well to games with multiple menus(due to the controller system making navigating lots of menus a chore) and the most recent generation of gamers have shown a severe lack of patience for things like turn based systems. And a lack of interest in complex rule sets that ultimately lead to a greater replayability (but require you to put in a little more time READING THE RULES to actually understand the game.)
Obviously this isn't a hard set RULE it isn't "every new gamer" or "all people who prefer consoles over the PC" but it sure seems to be the majority rather than the minority of people who have basically caused this... well... stupidity to occur. It is the same people who have caused the DLC market to grow to the point it has (with selling on disk content) and the same people who have convinced Activision it is a viable and profitable business strategy to release highly polished versions of the same franchises with small changes every year rather than spending time creating new franchises or trying to make something different each time.
Looking forward to it! I never played Syndicate, but I love cyberpunk, so the more games taking place in that kinda setting, the better.
I read Morgan's book, Altered Carbon, a while ago. Thought his style of writing was pretty static and slow paced (I'll take Gibson over him any day). But I won't deny the man's skill for world building and weaving a complicated plot. Hopefully he'll do a decent job with the game.
Oh for the love of God, why does everything have to be a first person shooter these days? It's a pity they weren't braver with this. I'd love to see them make the game more like Space Hulk, where you control four squad members at once with a first-person view for each.
Anyway, if you want an updated version of Syndicate, try Frozen Synapse.
I know it seems weird but that's just what this generation is. I played all those games as a child (Syndicate, Fallout, X-Com) and I have to admit I would much rather play them as FPS then real-time strat (like Syndicate) because those games were unforgiving at best.
I would say a remake of Masters of Magic is in order... but we already have Oblivion.
Hmmm, never played the old Syndicate but i trust in Satrbreeze and something in the likes of Human Revolution would be nice. Let's just hope they don't rely too much on Eidos Montréal FPS/RPG.
@Eternal: I think you're a bit off. The problem isn't console gamers Vs. PC gamers. It's gamers' tastes in general today. Or do I need to point out that if it weren't for PC games like Doom, Quake, and of course the original Deus Ex, there might not have ever been a Halo? Call of Duty was PC-exclusive initially, and Crysis was the big spec-pushing PC game intended to make consoles look inferior before Crysis 2 became multi-platform.
The problem here is two-fold. For one, there's the popularity of shooters IN GENERAL, along with the dwindling popularity of strategy games. After all, these companies want to ensure respectable financial gains on their products. I know many gamers look at that as evil corporations being evil, and I can definitely sympathize, being a gamer myself, but the fact is that game companies gain nothing if that strategy RPG that they worked on for years doesn't sell enough to pull in a profit. In fact, that's how developers usually lose their jobs.
The second reasoning is that simply put, developers can do a lot more with games than they used to. Once upon a time first-person shooters featured pixelly 2D graphics and awkwardly strafing around while pulling the trigger until either your enemies or yourself are dead. Today, they have multiple game series with RPG-lite and straight RPG elements, cover systems, and more ways to fight and kill the enemy than just pulling a trigger and praying.
I feel confident that a talented group like Starbreeze can simultaneously change the genre of the Syndicate series and still remain faithful to the source material, just like Human Revolution modernized the classic series without hindering what made it great in the first place. Also from the sounds of things, it seems the multilayer mode for the game will be very faithful to Syndicate indeed.
I'm going to reboot tetris. I think that if I make it an fps it will be a fresh and original take on this classic ip. The story will follow russian agent on millitary mission. What do you think?
"it's still a bit like the original Syndicate games isn't it?"
Come on, Maurice.
How long until we see Dungeon Keeper remade as an FPS with RPG elements? Ooh, hey, they could throw in upgradeable weapons and bullet time since those things are big right now, too!
I never played the Syndicate games, so I'm probably talking out of my ass, but I love Starbreeze as a developer. They make solid, complete games with incredibly realized world and violence that comes across as uncompromising without being childish or needlessly brutal.
Color me hyped right the fuck up for some cyberpunk Starbreeze.
Used to rock this on my 386 (you kids with your xbox's lmao). Only got halfway through. Made the mistake of buying syndicate wars on the PSX. The control scheme was extremely complicated as I remember.
I still play the original on my Amiga 600! Gutted they are turning this classic into a fps because most modern 'gamers' are too shallow to enjoy anything different.
Perhaps they should have done a game with mechanics similar to Brothers in Arms. You know a tactical FPS. You could take control of different people in your team and give them orders in real time or by using a tactical map. Maybe they could have even let you customize the skills of your 4 man squad. That would feel a lot like the original Syndicate but could still be played in First Person.
The way I feel about this reboot compared to X-Com is that it's a different matter. The best X-Com games were the first two (imo), which shared a lot of similarities. Or well.... TFFD was basically UFO underwater.
Syndicate and Syndicate Wars are different enough in their own regard, while keeping the soul of what is Syndicate intact. Since market forces kind of demand (sadly, I agree) that such a reboot under the EA banner would become an FPS, I think we should accept that and look at what an FPS version of Syndicate would be like.
Don't get me wrong though, I'd still prefer a top-down game like Syndicate Wars with better graphics and an actual story. But I see you guys mention some good ideas like the BiA approach and whatnot that could make a first-person Syndicate game keep intact what mattered most, while still being able to take it to the current age (of dumbed down multiplatform games that actually make money).
With XCOM, I've gotten over it that it's not X-Com. Not happy about it, but if you ignore that the game is called XCOM, that still looks like a game I'd like to play. This one, we'll have to see but it's too early to just shoot it down just because it's an FPS. Besides, we knew in our bones it was going to be an FPS since there were hints of a reboot, didn't we? :)
For me the essence of Syndicate was always running around with a squad of dudes that persuaded mindless civilians, tactically mowed down the opposition, and blew up buildings (in Wars at least). If the reboot succeeds and lets you do that, I'm sure some PC-only game will pop up that doesn't bear the name Syndicate but still plays like the old game. If that's true, everyone will win!
"Guess Im lucky I never played the original games"
@jimmyx - of course not, you weren't born when they came out.
I can see Syndicate maybe working as a 3rd person game, but FPS? I love me some shooters, but I don't see it working.
Still, a long time til it's released so maybe they can do it. We all thought Arkham Asylum would blow before it came out too.
Maybe there's a dwindling popularity in strategy games because....there are none?
Publishers saw Halo and Call of Duty and decided "We want in too!" so now all we have is the same desaturated shooters over and over and over again and it's gotten the point of being flat out retarded. But of course the CEOs come out and say "X genre doesn't sell anymore" when A. You can't sell something that doesn't exist and B. "Not selling like Call of Duty" doesn't mean "not selling".
Companies like Atlus and CD Projekt prove over and over that other genres still pull good numbers, but the stateside publishers dismiss anything outside of the "Call of Halo" genre because "if it doesn't sell as much as CoD it's not worth making".
This doesn't bother me, because Syndicate in itself makes a bit of sense this way. I mean it was a game where you took a very small squad and just went around and killed shit. Kind of complex, but not really at the same time.
Being a Starbreeze game I have hope. I'd like to play Crysis2 and see what Richard Morgan has to offer, but if the Swedish team has the same keen sensibilities they did in Riddick and The Darkness then this is a buy. I wish it was M rated though. Fuck, I wish it was AO.
but i do like the co-op aspect. and i was thinking the amount of weapons and tech in syndicate do lend themselves to an FPS type game. i cant wait to gauss gun some sucker pedestrian meat shields. also this game better have self destruct upgrades!!
and its confirmed, jimmx never reads articles before posting.
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Contest:
7:00 AM on 09.11.2011 | 
I haven't played any Syndicate game, and the revival of old franchises in the form of FPSes in a market overcrowded with FPSes is both worrying and aggravating, but if they allow pulling off stuff like this and the story holds up and we don't have to spend the majority of gameplay staring at a wall before ducking out to plink at small brown targets on the other end of the room, it honestly might be quite good.
Though there has to be a degree of faithfulness to the originals, even if I haven't played them. To show that they care and they aren't just slapping the name on like the XCOM guys so blatantly are.
......it does?
God, you're 12.
All in all, I'm looking forward to this. I've enjoyed pretty much all of Starbreeze's previous games, and I think they will nail the right atmosphere.
Fallout - Turn based Pen and Paper style RPG - Rebooted as an FPS/RPG
X-Com - Turn base strategy/rpg game - rebooted as an FPS with minor strategy/rpg elements
Syndicate - Top down strategy game - rebooted as an FPS with minor rpg elements.
------
I don't want to hate on console gamers (as I personally enjoy many games exclusive to consoles.) but this kind of shit has come around because consoles don't adhere themselves well to games with multiple menus(due to the controller system making navigating lots of menus a chore) and the most recent generation of gamers have shown a severe lack of patience for things like turn based systems. And a lack of interest in complex rule sets that ultimately lead to a greater replayability (but require you to put in a little more time READING THE RULES to actually understand the game.)
Obviously this isn't a hard set RULE it isn't "every new gamer" or "all people who prefer consoles over the PC" but it sure seems to be the majority rather than the minority of people who have basically caused this... well... stupidity to occur. It is the same people who have caused the DLC market to grow to the point it has (with selling on disk content) and the same people who have convinced Activision it is a viable and profitable business strategy to release highly polished versions of the same franchises with small changes every year rather than spending time creating new franchises or trying to make something different each time.
I read Morgan's book, Altered Carbon, a while ago. Thought his style of writing was pretty static and slow paced (I'll take Gibson over him any day). But I won't deny the man's skill for world building and weaving a complicated plot. Hopefully he'll do a decent job with the game.
Anyway, if you want an updated version of Syndicate, try Frozen Synapse.
also jimmyx must be 12 , he cant read.
I know it seems weird but that's just what this generation is. I played all those games as a child (Syndicate, Fallout, X-Com) and I have to admit I would much rather play them as FPS then real-time strat (like Syndicate) because those games were unforgiving at best.
I would say a remake of Masters of Magic is in order... but we already have Oblivion.
"well unlike u I like replayability in my games and I also have friends. IMHO best games are those u can enjoy in company of friends"
Huh. Maybe there is help for you after al--wait a minute?
"FPS games just offer best mmersive cinematic experiance and immersive cinematic experiance and who wouldnt want that lol"
...You're 12.
I DO HOPE THERE'S A 2 WEAPON LIMIT AND HEALTH REGENERATION!!! IT'S ABOUT TIME ALL GAMES WERE THE SAME!!!
MOWING DOWN PEDS = :(
HEALING PEDS = :)
What if you mow down a ped and then heal them?
@Epic-Kx
YEA U LUSER
Lol... that's dark man.
The problem here is two-fold. For one, there's the popularity of shooters IN GENERAL, along with the dwindling popularity of strategy games. After all, these companies want to ensure respectable financial gains on their products. I know many gamers look at that as evil corporations being evil, and I can definitely sympathize, being a gamer myself, but the fact is that game companies gain nothing if that strategy RPG that they worked on for years doesn't sell enough to pull in a profit. In fact, that's how developers usually lose their jobs.
The second reasoning is that simply put, developers can do a lot more with games than they used to. Once upon a time first-person shooters featured pixelly 2D graphics and awkwardly strafing around while pulling the trigger until either your enemies or yourself are dead. Today, they have multiple game series with RPG-lite and straight RPG elements, cover systems, and more ways to fight and kill the enemy than just pulling a trigger and praying.
I feel confident that a talented group like Starbreeze can simultaneously change the genre of the Syndicate series and still remain faithful to the source material, just like Human Revolution modernized the classic series without hindering what made it great in the first place. Also from the sounds of things, it seems the multilayer mode for the game will be very faithful to Syndicate indeed.
Sounds great. Will you be using classic tetris as a hacking tool or as an environment puzzle to open up hidden paths in your level design?
Come on, Maurice.
How long until we see Dungeon Keeper remade as an FPS with RPG elements? Ooh, hey, they could throw in upgradeable weapons and bullet time since those things are big right now, too!
Color me hyped right the fuck up for some cyberpunk Starbreeze.
I feel you man. Someone ought to come out with real PC games that are exclusive and take advantage of what the PC can do.
Syndicate and Syndicate Wars are different enough in their own regard, while keeping the soul of what is Syndicate intact. Since market forces kind of demand (sadly, I agree) that such a reboot under the EA banner would become an FPS, I think we should accept that and look at what an FPS version of Syndicate would be like.
Don't get me wrong though, I'd still prefer a top-down game like Syndicate Wars with better graphics and an actual story. But I see you guys mention some good ideas like the BiA approach and whatnot that could make a first-person Syndicate game keep intact what mattered most, while still being able to take it to the current age (of dumbed down multiplatform games that actually make money).
With XCOM, I've gotten over it that it's not X-Com. Not happy about it, but if you ignore that the game is called XCOM, that still looks like a game I'd like to play. This one, we'll have to see but it's too early to just shoot it down just because it's an FPS. Besides, we knew in our bones it was going to be an FPS since there were hints of a reboot, didn't we? :)
For me the essence of Syndicate was always running around with a squad of dudes that persuaded mindless civilians, tactically mowed down the opposition, and blew up buildings (in Wars at least). If the reboot succeeds and lets you do that, I'm sure some PC-only game will pop up that doesn't bear the name Syndicate but still plays like the old game. If that's true, everyone will win!
@jimmyx - of course not, you weren't born when they came out.
I can see Syndicate maybe working as a 3rd person game, but FPS? I love me some shooters, but I don't see it working.
Still, a long time til it's released so maybe they can do it. We all thought Arkham Asylum would blow before it came out too.
Maybe there's a dwindling popularity in strategy games because....there are none?
Publishers saw Halo and Call of Duty and decided "We want in too!" so now all we have is the same desaturated shooters over and over and over again and it's gotten the point of being flat out retarded. But of course the CEOs come out and say "X genre doesn't sell anymore" when A. You can't sell something that doesn't exist and B. "Not selling like Call of Duty" doesn't mean "not selling".
Companies like Atlus and CD Projekt prove over and over that other genres still pull good numbers, but the stateside publishers dismiss anything outside of the "Call of Halo" genre because "if it doesn't sell as much as CoD it's not worth making".
This doesn't bother me, because Syndicate in itself makes a bit of sense this way. I mean it was a game where you took a very small squad and just went around and killed shit. Kind of complex, but not really at the same time.
but i do like the co-op aspect. and i was thinking the amount of weapons and tech in syndicate do lend themselves to an FPS type game. i cant wait to gauss gun some sucker pedestrian meat shields. also this game better have self destruct upgrades!!
and its confirmed, jimmx never reads articles before posting.