David Jones, Creative Director at Realtime Worlds, has said that he expects his latest game , the cops-and-robbers MMO APB will not follow the expansion pack model that traditional massively multiplayer games take. Instead, he says, the game will expand 'horizontally'.
Speaking to PC Gamer ahead of the launch of APB, Jones said that when traditional MMOs “offer new content, it's really more of the same. They raise the cap, so players have to level from 70-80, and replace all of your armour. In terms of the core game, it's pretty much the same. The same combat, new dungeons. That's what I call vertical expansion, and I don't want to go down that route.”
Instead, the APB boss is set to explore new game types, that can be introduced using the technology and setting Real-Time Worlds has already built up. “Once we've built the cops and robbers game, there are many other kinds of games that I think would benefit from 100 players. We're going to expand APB horizontally. We're not going to say what those are, but it's going to be things you're not expecting. There's many different types of games we can do that would be pretty interesting with 100 players.”
APB launches worldwide on the 2nd July. If you'd like to try the game yourself ahead of the launch, PC Gamer is offering 'keys to the city' to anyone who signs up to our forums. Go on. You know you want to.
