Rebellion elated with AvP sales, wants sequel

Longstanding UK developer Rebellion has revealed its delight after new release Aliens Versus Predator shot to number one in the UK charts.

And the studio told Develop that it’s keen to progress negotiations with Sega for a sequel to the game.

“We’re delighted to see the game shoot to the top of the UK charts,” said company co-founder and CEO Jason Kingsley, speaking from Paris.

“We wanted Aliens Versus Predator to be a critical success as well as a commercial success, which we think we have achieved.

“We’re also in discussions with Sega about ongoing support for AvP, and also about a sequel to the game,” he added.

“I won’t say what stage those negotiations are in, but we would love to revisit the franchise. Fox are excited about what we’re doing, and we feel we’ve added value to the franchise.

“We would love to work with Sega again, there were a lot of things we couldn’t fit into the original. We are trying to do all the right things to make the franchise a success now and in the future.”

Aliens Versus Predator’s commercial success is great news for the British development industry, which is currently fighting for producion tax breaks to remain more globally competitive.

AvP may offer a view of what can be done if the sector is fully supported.

Developed at Rebellion’s Oxford-based studio, AvP has become the UK’s fastest-selling new release of 2010 – even outpacing Mass Effect 2, built by Canadian outfit BioWare.

And AvP’s success comes hot on the heels of Londoners Rocksteady taking three AIAS Awards for Batman Arkham Asylum.

“We’ve always of course been concerned with the UK dropping down the global league in terms of sales of UK-developed games, so it’s great to see AvP’s response,” Kingsley addd.

“The UK isn’t the cheapest place to develop games, but it’s definitely not the most expensive. So, fingers crossed, the success of AvP may help the UK get noticed a bit more right now.“

Kingsley said he was generally happy with the game’s critical response.

“The reviews have been mostly good,” he said. “We’ve had three totally shit reviews by some Americans, which is a bit odd. Some of them were inexcusably bad.

“If you discount those poor reviews AvP is averaging high for us.

“Obviously in the past we’ve had constraints put on us, meaning we’ve released games that we wanted to spend a bit more time on, which have critically been a bit underwhelming. That’s always a shame.”

Kingsley confirmed he was referring to recent release Rogue Warrior when citing those constraints.

“We do the best we can given the circumstances, and hopefully we have enough time to make the best game we possibly can, and that’s what happened with AvP.

“With Rogue Warrior, we did the best we could in the timeframe, and I doubt anyone could do any better given the circumstance."

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