Starbreeze: Syndicate doesn't have to compete with other shooters

Starbreeze chose to develop Syndicate as a shooter because that's what it does best, and isn't concerned by the saturation of the market.

"We'd been asked by EA - they came to us, and this is what we know; this is where our expertise lies. So that's why we made it an FPS," CEO Mikael Nermark told Gamasutra, adding that the developer is comfortable enough with shooters that it isn't too daunted by competition.

"You have to trust your own skills and realize what your strengths are. I think we did that, and I'm extremely proud of the studio and the guys working on the team.

"But it's definitely a hard genre to be in, no doubt," he acknowledged, arguing that games should be judged - and built - based on their merits as experiences, not across broad categories.

"When we look at any project, when we look at any games, we don't look at genre. We don't look at it like we're making a game; we're making an experience for the player which is competing with whatever he or she would do - spend time with loved ones and things like that," he said.

"So we have to make a great experience so that you think it's worthwhile playing our games. If we put shooting in our game, it has to be top-notch shooting, and it has to be competing there, and it has to be right for the game. If it's driving, it has to be right for the game.

"I'm not saying that, if we do a shooting game, we have to go and compete with the Battlefields or Call of Dutys, but we have to have the right kind of shooting for the game we're making. So we don't look at it from a genre perspective anymore."

Syndicate releases for PC , PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in February.