GDC: Splash Damage says new action IP will be "deeper than Enemy Territory"

Talking to videogaming247 ahead of GDC in San Francisco today, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars developer Splash Damage has confirmed that it’s now working on a brand new IP - an action project leading on PC - and that it will be as "deep, or deeper" than last year's id franchise-shooter.

The studio is currently negotiating a deal with an unspecified publisher on the new title.

Start of work on the game is responsible for the studio’s recently announced recruitment drive.

"We want to demonstrate that we can do something completely new," said Splash Damage owner Paul Wedgwood, adding that ongoing attempts to make Enemy Territory: Quake Wars easier on new players had informed the entire approach to the new game, with "a third" of the company's efforts going into making an interface to help out newbies.

"Accessibility is the key,” he said. “The new game will be as deep, or deeper, than Enemy Territory, but easier to get into.”

Wedgwood said that the PC remained the key focus for prototyping and development at Splash Damage. While Texan developer Nerve Software handling the company’s console versions for Quake Wars, the console side of the new project will be handled internally at Splash Damage.

"The PC is really strong," he said. "But you have to develop specifically for the PC, because back-porting from consoles just doesn't work... You miss vital elements."

Extolling the virtues of PC gaming, Splash Damage's business development manager Steve Gaffney added that the company saw "no downside" to Valve's approach to PC delivery, and argued that Steam and the recent Steamworks announcement was the best thing to have happened to PC gaming.

"There are basically three formats," Gaffney said. "PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Steam."