The Outsider: "We'd be mad not to see GTA as competition," says Braben

Speaking at Develop in Brighton today, Frontier boss David Braben's given the first solid details on The Outsider, saying the game is an open-world action title based on the story of a framed cop.

"Obviously, we'd be mad not to consider GTA as competition because of the open-world nature, but in terms of the story-telling, I've not really seen people that are in that [place] yet, but I think that will come. I do think we're genuinely innovating there," he told VG247 today when asked which games he'd consider competitive to the secretive project.

"The themes: there are a lot of other where you get agents accused of terrible things. Certainly in cinema that's very common."

Braben added: "We've worked a long time on technology, and it's been in game development now for more than a year."

He described it as being pitched at the 18-35 year-old male.

"Yes, very much," when asked if that was the target audience. "We're writing the game for the sort of people that are working on it. You will get a game that's very rewarding to play.

"It's a very, very exciting project for us. It brings in some really interesting new issues to game development. It's fantastic. Just dealing with a story that's genuinely open presents lots of new challenges.

It's open-world, but it's getting the story [right]. If you think of most stories they're very linear with the occasional branch: it's not like that."

The developer boss wouldn't be drawn on a release date, saying he wants to keep the title under wraps to prevent fatigue.

"That's intentional," he said of the lack of information on the game. "We don't want to put lots and lots of news about something in advance. It's good to drip a bit out."

The Outsider has previously been confirmed as an Xbox 360, PS3 and PC release.