Insomniac Games is busy with Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Wolverine (with other Marvel-adjacent properties to reportedly follow). While a new Ratchet and Clank is seemingly in the works, it seems that Resistance, its acclaimed post-apocalyptic shooter franchise, will remain absent.
Ted Price, who recently retired as the studio’s CEO, revealed to the Kinda Funny Gamescast (transcription via WCCF Tech) that Insomniac had pitched the idea of a Resistance 4. However, Sony refused to greenlight it, which he blamed on “timing and market opportunity.”
“Resistance 4. We did pitch that one, and it was a wonderful concept. It’s just that in terms of timing and market opportunity, it didn’t work out. But it was the result of a lot of Insomniac team members being passionate about extending the story further.
“I believe Resistance has set up a cool alternate history base where anything can happen with the Chimera, where they go and what their origins are. We spent a lot of time working on the backstory and kind of brainstorming on where we could take this in the future, and I love this franchise.
“I was fortunate enough to be Creative Director of the first few Resistance games, and I will remember many, many moments, good and bad. When it comes to development, it taught us all a lot about how we could elevate ourselves under some pretty heavy and some pretty difficult situations.”
Could it happen in the future? Price hopes so since he would “love to see this story taken further.”
“It’s near and dear to my heart. There are so many cool things about it. […] Resistance 3 was intended to end that chapter of the franchise in the way that we ended with Capelli and closed a lot of loops on various smaller story items. We wanted to do that so we would have more options in the future, whether we were to go ahead with more Resistance games or take another turn.
“When you work on a franchise for a long time, it’s nice to have a chance to move on to something else. At the same time, it’s also nice to come back to it. Fortunately, because we’re part of Sony and Sony owns the intellectual property of Resistance, we will always have that opportunity to revisit Resistance. If it works out again, as a fan, I’m going to be pretty excited.”
The franchise first debuted in 2006 with Resistance: Fall of Man on PS3, taking place in an alternate history where mankind fought against invading aliens known as Chimera. It received strong critical acclaim and commercial success with Insomniac subsequently launching two more titles – Resistance 2 and 3. There were also spin-offs like Resistance: Retribution for the PSP and Resistance: Burning Skies on PlayStation Vita.
