Brink game Paul Wedgwood interview

Splash Damage CEO, Paul Wedgwood, recently expressed his dream for the future of the first-person shooter. Wedgwood expressed his desire to see the FPS genre grow in terms of the multiplayer experience, allowing gamers to shoot and kill- er, I mean interact with, hundreds or even thousands of other players at the same time.

The idea is an enticing one, and while the first person shooter MMOs have floated around various developer's heads, we have yet to see one climb its way out of the conceptual ether. Wedgwood doesn't see a good reason as to why there hasn't been one.

In chatting with CVG, Wedgwood almost can't handle the fact that there are no legit FPS MMOs yet.

"I'm desperate for it. Why isn't there [an MMO FPS]? I just can't stand the fact that there isn't one yet. I'd do it, but 140 staff? Managing 140 people? It's just so hard."

Speaking of the difficulty, Wedgwood himself then explains a bit about why the idea hasn't come to fruition yet.

"You know, for a long time it hasn't been technically feasible because you need super low latency connections for good shooter combat and that's generally incompatible with 1000 people being on a server at the same time. But there are enough solutions around now so that it's reasonably feasible. I know that there are some teams on the periphery working on ideas for this."

Who is working on ideas like this? Well one high-profile example might be Bungie's “massively multiplayer action game.” While it's not known whether it will be an FPS or not, Bungie's track record places the odds in favor of their new franchise fulfilling Wedgwood's dreams of massively-multiplayer FPS action.

The subject of MMO FPS games has been largely untouched by major gaming, with the only information on the subject turning up rumors and cancelled games. However, in terms of smaller, independent developers, one can find a few MMO FPS games, but they aren't pushing the genre forward much. One promising title that will be releasing later this year is Red5's Firefall, which is worth checking out for anyone interested in the idea of an MMO FPS.

"I think there's definitely going to be some cool stuff that comes around but I think the massively multiplayer shooter, one where we're all engaged in the same continuous environment is the thing that's going to truly impress me next."

Paul Wedgwood is definitely interested in the genre, and I'll admit, I am too. How about you, Ranters? Has anybody played or heard of an MMO FPS game worth note? How much further can we go with multiplayer in video games?

Splash Damage's FPS, Brink is set to release on May 17, 2011 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Source: CVG