Could Project Gotham Racing 4 be the last such game in the series when it hits Xbox 360 in October? Maybe, considering Activision today acquired Bizarre Creations, the studio responsible for the PGR series, Geometry Wars and the upcoming The Club (to be published by Sega).
All signs point to PGR4 and The Club being published as normal, but the future of Bizarre Creations’ series remains up in the air. Presumably Microsoft and Sega own the rights to those respective franchises, but there’s nothing stopping Bizarre from creating the next game in each series under a different name (a la Monolith working on a F.E.A.R. sequel under the name “Project Origin,” which Warner Bros. Interactive will publish).
According to the announcement from Bizarre, “[t]his is fundamentally a different deal than some you’ve seen around the industry recently. Bizarre isn’t a developer in financial trouble, and we’re certainly not looking to be ‘saved’ by a bigger corporation. We’re a dev looking to take our games to the next level, and make the absolute best products we can possibly make….Bizarre Creations continues to exist as is. We won’t become Activision Liverpool or anything like that….[and] All of our teams continue to exist exactly how they are at the moment. Amax team (PGR4) and Shitstorm team (The Club) will move onto new games, whilst our Shared Technology team will use this opportunity to take our experience and tech to new levels and new formats.”
Bizarre Creations has already begun working on two games for Activision, one a racing game, the other a character-driven game. Activision hasn’t really tried to make a serious racing game since Supercar, for the PS2 launch.