Resistance 4 Is Not Dead...Yet

Insomniac Games is probably best known as the studio behind the brilliant superhero action game Marvel's Spider-Man and the iconic action platformer Ratchet and Clank. However, if we look back a little, during the PlayStation 3 era, the company's big franchise was the Resistance trilogy. Those who played the Resistance series had always expected that the series would continue. Little did they know that Sony scraped that expectation even after Insomniac proposed a Resistance 4.

Earlier this year, when Sony canceled several live-service projects, and PlayStation wanted to focus on single-player games, many assumed that they would bring this first-person shooter back to life. Resistance 4 would be a perfect game for PlayStation since Killzone and Resistance were the only two exclusive FPS games with which PlayStation had good success. Insomniac Games even pitched the idea of a Resistance 4 to Sony and got rejected, which occurred years ago.

Yes, this happened in 2012, a year after Resistance 3 launched, but it was only revealed through an interview with Insomniac's founder and CEO, Ted Price, who will retire in March. In the interview, Ted Price mentioned that they pitched Resistance 4 to PlayStation, and they had a fantastic concept. It's only that the timing and market opportunity didn't work out, but it was due to several Insomniac team members' strong desire to expand the story.

Ted Price also stated, "We believe that Resistance has established a really cool alternate history base in which anything can happen to the Kamara, including where they go and where their origins are. We spent a lot of time working on the backstory and brainstorming ideas for where we may take this in the future, and everyone loves the franchise".

Furthermore, Ted stated that he was very fortunate to be the creative director for the first few Resistance games, and he will remember many, many moments, both good and bad when it comes to development. It taught us all a lot about how we could evaluate ourselves in some pretty heavy and difficult situations. Fortunately, we adore the fan response and are aware that fans frequently ask if we would produce another Resistance. There is no answer to that; we pitched Resistance 4, which was cool.

He was then asked if Resistance 4 might still happen in the future, to which he honestly said, "I hope so". He would like to see this story developed further; it is really close to my heart. There are so many cool aspects to it. Ted also mentioned Resistance 3 was supposed to end that chapter of the franchise, but Joseph Capelli, the protagonist of Resistance 3, could have more alternatives in the future, whether they continued with Resistance games or took a different approach.

After working on a franchise for a long time, it's good to have the opportunity to move on to something different. At the same time, having the ability to return to it is convenient. Fortunately, because we are a part of Sony, which owns the Resistance IP, we will always have the ability to revisit it. If it works out again as a fan, I'm going to be very excited.

All these remarks from Ted suggest that Sony may still approve Resistance 4 or develop it with Insomniac in the future. Since Ted is retiring, and even if there were plans for Resistance 4, he's not going to announce that it'll never happen casually. However, many FPS fans are still unaware of how amazing the Resistance games were. Resistance 3 alone sold 180,000 copies in 2011 and was the seventh best-selling game in the US.

But those who played the Resistance games still have an affection for this series and will nothing but be thrilled if there's ever a Resistance 4. Black Ops II released a year after Resistance 3 and followed by Battlefield 4 in 2013, both of which became very popular in the FPS genre. That's when Resistance 3 struggled in competition, and probably why Sony opted to go on to something less competitive. However, this is highly unpredictable; in the future, something like a Resistance 4 may be incredibly remarkable and very necessary.