It will relaunch ”somewhat close to the final, unreleased patch” revealed Bjorn Book-Larsson, the new owner, but it’s still a ”multi-year” process.
”Oh no - we think it’ll take four or five years,” said GamersFirst boss Bjorn Book-Larsson, in response to APB up and running as it should be in just 6 months or so.
”We’ll release the game somewhat close to the final, unreleased patch; we’ll get the game out with some of the modifications, probably leased guns and some premium features. After that, presuming there’s an interest in the game, we expect this to be a multi-year development process where we continue updating the game,” he continued.
It’s rumoured that GamersFirst was the highest bidder at just $1.5 million for the entire APB project, while the development process cost Realtime World $100 million. That’s quite the steal indeed but one that Book-Larsson can’t confirm or deny.
”We got around pretty late,” he admitted. ”By the time we got around to it, the company went from 270 people down to 60, and then down to just five or six to maintain the source-code to be sold. So there really wasn’t a company left - they were just selling things for parts.”
”In some cases people may have put in bids for just a small portion of the asset, in other words, they’d have been interested in components like the customisation system. And we were probably one of the few that considered the asset as a whole.”
It’s possible Dave Jones, creator of APB, may still have a ‘role to play’ in the development as Book-Larsson is open to him sharing his thoughts. ”We don’t have any formal plans to work with Dave,” he added, ”but obviously we’ll stay connected with him.”
”He seemed to be relieved that the game will continue, and I think that was the general sentiment from a lot of people who had spent so many years of their lives of this thing and would like to see it go on.” APB relaunches in the first-half of 2011.
