E3: Insomniac's Price Talks Going Multiplatform With Overstrike

Although independently-owned Insomniac has been developing exclusively for PlayStation hardware for a number of years, doing a multiplatform game was "something we'd been talking about quite a while," studio president and CEO Ted Price tells Gamasutra. "In this generation there's much more parity between platforms in terms of sales than there has been in previous generations," he says. That made it a good time to work on Overstrike, the four-player co-op shooter the studio announced at E3. "We knew this was a direction we wanted to go; we planned for it, and with Overstrike it was designed from the very beginning as a multiplatform game," he explains. Insomniac, which will release two PS3 exclusives this year in Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One and Resistance 3, nonetheless maintains a strong relationship with Sony, Price emphasizes. "We've in some ways grown up with Sony," he says. "We've had really great relationships with them for over a decade, and there's a lot of trust between us." At the same time, the 17 year-old studio says it's excited to work with a new partner in Electronic Arts, which will be publishing Overstrike and unveiled the game's debut trailer at its E3 press conference. Price says in particular the match is good because of EA's approach to partnering with studios that own their own IP. Overstrike, which like some past Insomniac titles arms stylized characters with fun weapons and gadgetry, is a reflection of the studio's personal interests, Price explains. "This is just a different twist on that particular passion, when it comes to what you see in the trailer." "We've also been committed to character-driven stories," he adds. "With the four characters we presented in the trailer, we're excited to introduce four stories... they're four very different characters with four play styles in a cool four-player online co-op game." The studio isn't currently commenting on whether there'll be a single-player or offline mode for the game -- "we're focusing on online four-player co-op right now," Price concludes.