Recently leaked pitch documents shed some light on the 2012 Resistance game for Sony's big handheld at that time, the PlayStation Vita. The pitch documents relate to the last entry in the series before the franchise seemingly went silent. Because of this, these leaks are one of the first pieces of Resistance news in years.
Resistance was a Sony-exclusive first-person shooter franchise developed by Insomniac Games that rose to prominence in the late 2000s. Alongside the seemingly dead Killzone series, Resistance was Sony's response to other massively successful AAA science-fiction shooters like Halo. The games took place in an alternate version of the 1950s, where a hostile alien race has begun taking over the planet. Players are tasked with fighting back against these terrifying creatures and working towards a better future for humanity. Like many other PlayStation franchises, Resistance received a portable spin-off game developed by a smaller studio in 2012 called Resistance: Burning Skies.
According to the leaked documents broken down by video games having their names changed prior to release. The original title was likely chosen to reflect the boots-on-the-ground action and personal story that the game would be presenting.
The pitch outlines some of the narrative and tonal particulars. Players would be filling the shoes of Tom Reilly, a firefighter and veteran who uses his bravery and strength to protect innocents from the ongoing alien threat. Themes of heroism and hope would be present in the gameplay mechanics as well, as the pitch includes details for a morality-slash-reputation system that would lead to NPCs treating the player differently based on their actions. The game would also take advantage of the Vita's touchscreen and gyro controls, which were innovative hardware features typical of Sony devices.
While most of these features made it into the final product, these leaked documents are still fascinating to look through. They serve as a sort of time capsule of a different era in gaming when first-person shooters and alien invasions were much bigger staples in big-budget titles. More specifically, these documents present a very different image of Sony before story-driven third-person games became what the company was known for.
Specifically, the heavy focus on gunplay and multiplayer set the Resistance games apart. While Resistance: Burning Skies was not an Insomniac-developed console release, it still carries the spirit of the series through these two gameplay pillars. Even though a new entry in the Resistance franchise is unlikely, it is still fun to look back on the series as a collection of solid, if a bit outdated, video games.
Source: TechRaptor
