Ubisoft doing "new version" of Driver

By Robert Purchese Published 18 June, 2008

Looks like it might be more cartoony.

Ubisoft is busy making a "whole new version" of Driver at its Reflections studio in Newcastle.

That's if you believe the BBC, which sent Rory Cellan-Jones along to the studio to see the state of game developers in Britain.

"So this is a typical games development studio," began Cellan-Jones in his video report. "It's in Newcastle and it's Ubisoft Reflections and they're best known for this game: Driver."

"And they're working on a whole new version here in the studio."

He then corners studio boss Gareth Edmondson and is taken on a tour. He gets a look at artists modelling flashy sports cars and an animator making two wireframe models have a chat in a car.

There is more footage in the report which, if from the upcoming project, shows a stylised and slightly cartoon take on reality.

Ubisoft bought the rights to the series and acquired most of the Reflections staff from Atari back in 2006, but has yet to make anything out of it.

Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot told GamesIndustry.biz in May that his goal was to "cover more fields" and he bought Driver to "go into the racing business".

Sony also let slip at the 2006 Tokyo Game Show that there was a PS3 Driver game in development.

The last Driver outing to appear in shops was Driver Parallel Lines from early 2006, which told a mission-based-driving story in two eras: the 70s and the present day. It was competent, and certainly better than previous instalment Driv3r.

We're waiting for a response from Ubisoft, although a spokesperson has already told Videogaming247 it knows nothing about the game.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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