The latest entry in the Twisted Metal video game franchise has gone live, and with it, the franchise is being rebooted.
The project was originally titled Twisted Metal: Apocalypse, and was intended just to be the next game in a long line of the same old Twisted Metal, to be released on PSN as a download only title.
Partway through the development process, however, Sony decided that it had more on their hands here than just another churning up of the classic franchise. The name was changed, as was the focus. Now Twisted Metal is a full commercial title with a major marketing campaign.
Today, we learn that there may have been more to that decision than just the discovery that the Japanese-based corporation had a nicely made game on their hands.
Indeed, Sony’s video game branch sent the franchise rights for the property over to Sony Pictures, who has already hired Bryan Taylor (co-director of the new Ghost Rider film) to helm the project.
The game’s story is, as with most action titles, secondary to actual gameplay, so they will likely flesh out the plot for the film, but at its core, it’s about a tournament.
Basically, Calypso Industries is hosting a no-holds-barred, armed, demolition derby tourney, in which anyone with any vehicle can come to compete to be the sole survivor of the terrible, and explosive, spectacle.
The prize for winning? Anything, as Calypso claims to have the power to grant any wish to the victor of the contest.
The series of games has featured dozens of characters throughout its decade-long history, but a few stand out, and are being focused on specifically in the new game, and so can be assumed to be the primary characters of the new film as well.
For example, Mr. Grimm is a Louisiana man who lost his father in a traffic accident and blames himself; Doll Face is a former supermodel who, after receiving a minor scar on her face in a traffic accident, has hidden herself behind a porcelain mask; and Sweet tooth is a clown-masked ice-cream truck driver who kills for his own mysterious reasons – which change from game to game.
Here’s the trailer for the video game.
Twisted Metal is still in development, but the studio is aiming for a 2014 release date.
