Former Insomniac Games founder and CEO Ted Price revealed that the studio had pitched Resistance 4, but Sony refused. Speaking on the latest episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, when asked about something the studio had come up with without getting it greenlit, Price picked this game:
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 do believe that Resistance has set up a really cool alternate history base where anything can happen with the Chimera and 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 personally, 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. Fortunately, we love the fan response and we know that fans ask pretty regularly if we’re going to do another Resistance. There’s no answer to that, but I will say we pitched Resistance 4 and it was cool.
When asked whether he thought Resistance 4 could still happen at some point in the future, Price replied:
Honestly, I hope so. I 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 with 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 be able 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.
Technically, the most recent franchise installment is the spin-off Resistance: Burning Skies, developed by Nihilistic Software and released in 2012 for the PlayStation Vita.
As for the likelihood of a new game by Insomniac, Sony appears committed to the partnership with Marvel. At the same time, the enormous licensing costs (following the Insomniac Games leak, it was reported that Sony may have paid Disney around $109 million for the Spider-Man IP) may eventually lead Sony back to its own franchises, which might re-open the door for a new entry in the first-person shooter franchise.
