It took two-and-a-half years of decided digging for Rebellion’s sibling founders, Chris and Jason Kingsley, to amass Judge Dredd license holders 2000 AD. Before them, a Danish firm had ended up with it in a sequence of acquisitions, as a part of an effort to pay money for some Disney licenses. That firm didn’t know what to do with the quintessentially British publishing home that ought to, actually, be thought of a nationwide treasure.
Read about how Rebellion’s game jam was born from a person punching a fish.
“I think it should be more well loved in some kind of way,” Jason Kingsley tells me. “Pretty much everybody has heard of it who are into genre, but it’s not considered a big part of culture in some ways. But if you look at anybody who worked in creative industries, it is hugely influential. We managed to persuade [the Danish company], take it on board, reinvest in it, and do good things. And now I believe we are the people who have owned 2000 AD the longest.”
Rebellion are additionally sport builders – identified for titles resembling Sniper Elite four and Battlezone VR – however regardless of fortuitously holding the license for 2000 AD because the 12 months 2000, they’ve solely launched a handful of video games based mostly on the various, many tales the sci-fi comedian sequence has put out over the many years. That is because of a scarcity of time, a scarcity on manpower, and the truth that the studio is already juggling a number of initiatives. This is why they made the choice earlier this 12 months to license out 2000 AD to other game developers, so we will lastly see the imaginative worlds of 2000 AD in video games, even when Rebellion by no means discover the time.
“Because they’re short bursts of episodic content – though they occasionally have arcs that span a few episodes – there are hundreds of encapsulated stories where they’re designed for the reader to jump in and get what’s going on, whether or not you have any kind of history with the characters,” Steve Bristow, lead designer on Rebellion’s Strange Brigade, says. “There’s almost nothing in 2000 AD’s back catalogue that couldn’t work in a game.”
So, out of all these worlds and experiences, what video games would the workers at Rebellion wish to see?
The Helltrekkers RPG
In the Judge Dredd mythos, the Cursed Earth is an irradiated wasteland exterior of the city sprawl of Mega-City One, and its inhabitants are disgraced Judges, mutants, robots, and gangs of outlaws. In The Helltrekkers comics, one group determined it was higher to danger their fates on this scorched desert than to endure the torture of recent life within the overpopulated Mega-City.
“I want a sort of journey to the Cursed Earth for Helltrekkers,” Jason Kingsley says. “I always liked the offshore colonies in Judge Dredd’s world. I like the Undercity. Personally, I’m very interested in the peripheral areas of the Mega-City. I’m not a particularly city person; I live in the countryside. What’s equivalent to the countryside to Mega-City One? It could be open-world, RPG, exploration, city building. I love my post-apocalyptic stuff, so I love the Fallout series of games, so you can imagine that could be Cursed Earth: a Fallout-style open world. You’re a survivor and you wake up in Cursed Earth and you’ve got to get home. That could be interesting.”
The Undercity RTS
Mega-City One was constructed on high of outdated cities and the polluted Ohio River. These locations, deserted, desolate, and with out daylight, turned a lawless location identified solely because the Undercity. Some of the residents who couldn’t address the futuristic metropolis above retreated into its dank bowels, lots of them mutating due to the poisonous circumstances. In the comics, a gaggle of those mutants, the Troggies, hatched a plan to explode Mega-City One.
“Maybe you could have a whole bunch of Troggies in the Undercity, and it’s a real-time strategy game,” Kingsley suggests. “Or maybe you have a Civilization equivalent, but it’s in the Undercity where you have judges coming in and busting you up. You’ve got werewolves there as well.”
Strontium Dog journey sport 
Strontium Dog is a bounty hunter who travels the galaxy trying to find criminals. It is the proper premise for a videogame. Kingsley agrees: “I love Strontium Dog as character and a conceit, I love the idea of a first-person/third-person action game, travelling around, arresting criminals, tracking them down, solving problems – that could be rather fun.”
“Strontium Dog is one of my favourites,” Steve Bristow provides. “There’s loads of game mechanics in those stories – really good action mechanics that work well for comics and would for games. Strontium Dog’s time grenade is a classic. He’s got a gun that’s similar in some respects to Dredd’s Lawgiver, where you can select different types of shot – armour piercing, incendiary, and whatnot.”
As properly as having these cool weapons and devices – I imply, who wouldn’t need to throw a grenade that sends somebody and the surroundings round them into area? – Strontium Dog has co-op mechanics baked in. “You’ve got this buddy thing as well: his mate, Wulf Sternhammer – a sort of melee specialist,” Bristow continues. “You’ve got this enormously fertile canvas, a universe full of scum and villainy that you can go exploring. Strontium Dog as an open-world game would be really interesting because he’s this classic hero character who has a quest.”
Sláine RPG
Sláine is like Conan’s unhinged Irish cousin, his tales based mostly within the realm of Celtic delusion. This is a man who wields an enormous axe known as Brainbiter and might shapeshift into an ungodly monstrosity with terrifying, brutish power. He would really feel proper at residence in a frantic PlatinumGames launch.
Kingsley, himself an appreciator of melee fight, prefers to consider it as a sprawling RPG. “I love Slaine,” he says. “I love the idea of the Land of the Young, and very early mythological history, so that would probably be sort of a roleplaying game, like Skyrim maybe.”
Ace Trucking journey sport
Ace Trucking is a sequence a few band of misfit aliens who run an area trucking firm, headed up by a cone-headed extraterrestrial known as Ace Garp.
“A secret favourite of mine is Ace Trucking – some ‘70s-based, CB radio twist of the future,” Kingsley says. “That could be quite fun. You could have an intergalactic trucking company.”
Perhaps it may work as a Telltale-esque narrative sport, or perhaps it might be Elite with a way of humour. Hell, you may even peg it as four-player co-op, with every of you taking up an important ship position as you trawl throughout the galaxy, often stopping for some mischief.
“It’s a couple of weirdos hauling stuff across the universe and getting into trouble,” Bristow provides.
Judge Demarco detective sport
Judge Demarco is a billionaire by way of inheritance, however she selected to forgo that wealth to pursue a life as a Judge. After shortly rising by way of the ranks, she discovered herself falling in love with Dredd, which is forbidden. She was disgraced and ejected from the drive, however Dredd pulled some strings to grant her a firearm license and the prospect to work as a personal investigator.
“I remember back in the day, after Dredd vs. Death we did a ‘making of’ book and they asked us [what other 2000 AD games we’d like to make],” Battlezone VR lead programmer Richard May says. “One of the things that struck me was doing a Demarco P.I. kind of thing. Judge Demarco is a fallen-from-grace Judge. She has a kind of Mega-City noir thing going on. She has this sentient gorilla partner and they try to solve crimes that the Justice Department won’t go near. It always struck me as a nice thing to do.”
Nemesis the Warlock Soulslike
It’s the distant future and humanity is dominated by a fascist human supremacist who desires to wipe out all aliens. Nemesis is a demonic, fire-breathing alien who desires to rid the world of its xenophobes together with his large sword and scorchy breath. It is a darkish story the place good and evil don’t exist, with extra shades of gray than that ebook in regards to the bondage man. It is a world that’s rife with non secular fanaticism.
“I’d really love to see a big, nasty Nemesis game,” 2000 AD publishing assistant Owen Johnson says. “A extremely darkish Nemesis sport within the fashion of Dark Souls. That would look actually superb. Nemesis has such a large, expansive canvas on which to do stuff like that. It would contact on a number of the non secular themes, the persecution, and racism that’s in Nemesis.
“It’s this enormous backdrop of alien creatures and that form of factor. It’s obtained Torquemada who’s this large villain of galactic proportions. That can be completely superb. Although superheroes have been carried out, Nemesis has a extremely good story and it’s mounted, it doesn’t go on and on – it’s one thing you may take from actually simply.”
Lawless journey sport
“I’ve been really enjoying Lawless, a Dan Abnett series – it’s the Dredd world divorced from Mega-City One,” Richard May says. “It’s a colonial frontier type thing. A bit like if you took Dredd and mixed it with Firefly. It’s about Colonial Judges, and there’s one particular one, Metta Lawson, who turns up in this backwater town to replace the Judge they had previously – a sheriff essentially.”
As a sport, Lawless might be a sci-fi tackle the Red Dead mannequin – using by way of the Frontier taking up quests and tagging criminals as you go.
“It’s about her adventures in this Western parallel, but with all the crazy future stuff that you get in 2000 AD: sentient aliens, robots, labour conflicts between the robots and the indentured servants, and there’s a whole apocalyptic thing going on in the background as well,” May continues. “That kind of Firefly setting is dear to people’s hearts anyway, but mixing that with the Dredd universe gives you something that’s away from the years of baggage in Mega-City One. You don’t have to know all the history but it’s still compelling.”
Chopper Cannonball Run
When you consider a Judge Dredd sport, you consider enjoying it by way of the eyes of the regulation. One outlaw within the Dredd-verse has a narrative that will make for a simple approach to expertise that world, nonetheless.
“There’s a secondary character in Dredd called Chopper – essentially an outlaw and graffiti artist who rides around Mega-City One on this hovering surfboard,” Bristow says. “He’s like this Californian dude or Australian beach bum. There’s this legendary race that happens that he wants to compete in, but it’s completely illegal – a cannonball run kind of thing. That’s another one – a relatively simple piece of game design already done for us there.”
D.R. and Quinch platformer
“I quite like D.R. and Quinch as a series,” Kingsley says, “those characters are really interesting. Alan Moore’s early work. A kind of comedy series, delinquent juveniles, aliens, very powerful, going around causing havoc and chaos.”
Publishing assistant Owen Johnson has a selected sport for this duo in thoughts. “My favourite characters are D.R. & Quinch, alien delinquents that go around with nuclear capabilities and start trouble in a very mischievous kind of way,” he says.
“I’m stuck in the past and love the N64, so I’d love to see an R-rated Rare-style game with D.R. & Quinch that’s like a Conker’s Bad Fur Day or Jet Force Gemini’s giant guns – if you botched all that together, like a Banjo Kazooie, or Conker’s Bad Fur day, but with D.R. & Quinch, I’d be all over that.”
Judge Dredd Block Wars
“One request we always get is a big, Arkham Asylum-style game for Judge Dredd, set in Mega-City One or the Cursed Earth,” Johnson says. It is not any shock. Dredd is by far 2000 AD’s hottest character – a British icon with a sq. jaw and unbending morals. The character has many years of tales that videogames may discover, even away from the interdimensional foes he faces in Rebellion’s first-person shooter, Dredd vs Death.
“I know it’s obvious, but there’s so much in Judge Dredd that needs to be a game,” Bristow provides. “I might love to do this character, who means lots to me on a private degree, justice. There’s apparent huge storylines just like the Apocalypse War and the Block Wars. It begins with Block Mania, the place a Russian spy infects the water provide in Mega-City One with one thing that causes everybody to get [aggressive] with one another. It ferments a civil conflict inside the town, primarily.
“That causes chaos, and in that chaos they take benefit and launch an assault on Mega-City One, to which Dredd responds characteristically with a right away launch of nuclear weapons. It’s one in all my favorite panels in a 2000 AD comedian, truly – the place the Chief Judges and the Senior Judges are dithering about whether or not or to not launch this pre-emptive strike in opposition to Russia. Dredd strides as much as the management panel, says, ‘The decision is mine’, and presses the button.”
Rogue Trooper 2
Rebellion have already carried out Rogue Trooper, a third-person shooter that was just lately remastered. That doesn’t imply they wouldn’t do one other, nonetheless. In reality, Kingsley admits that the remaster was a check to gauge whether or not there’s an urge for food for blue military males with sentient tools.
“I’d love to make another Rogue Trooper game,” May says. “In phrases of gameplay it could be similar to the unique. If you take a look at issues like Sniper Elite four – it has a number of similarities to the unique Rogue Trooper. There’s clambering over the setting for well-placed pictures, traps, and extra environmental interactions. You’d place Gunnar, issues like decoys. You have the identical in Sniper Elite, the place you’ll be able to decoy an enemy, however that’s carried out with rocks and whistling, whereas within the authentic Rogue Trooper we had holograms that you may set as much as annoy individuals with.
“You can see widespread DNA between the video games, and I may see how you’ll take these mechanics, twist them just a little with extra futuristic know-how, paint the blokes blue, subsequent,” he laughs.
At the time of launch, the unique Rogue Trooper was doing a number of issues different video games weren’t. I nonetheless bear in mind how satisfying it was if you shot an enemy’s oxygen tank they usually exploded, often taking down a few of their pals as they go.
“It was so satisfying: ping the tank, watch them running around, their buddies would try to get away from them because they knew they were going to explode, and you might catch two or three with one shot,” May agrees. “Those kinds of encounter moments, where you can make a plan and execute it, are what I really love about the original Rogue Trooper.”
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