July 9, 2012 by Paul Curtin
Unlike most hardcore fans of the Brothers in Arms series, we loved what we saw back in 2011 when Ubisoft and Gearbox Software debuted footage of Furious 4 at E3. The next installment in the long-running series’ wild take on punishing Nazis looked like the three-way love child of Bulletstorm, Left 4 Dead, and Inglourious Basterds. And what we saw behind closed doors made the gameplay live up to the hype surrounding the debut trailer.
Unfortunately, Furious 4 no-showed at this year’s E3, and neither Gearbox nor Ubisoft had anything to say about its whereabouts. Furious 4‘s no-showing only added fuel to the fire of rumors that the project had been cancelled after it was discovered that Ubisoft and Gearbox had let their trademark for the game expire back in May.
The trademark issue turned out to be solely due to dual-applicants of the same trademark being an issue with Gearbox Software now filing individually and Gearbox’s CEO, Randy Pitchford, making an official statement today on the game’s status via CVG:
“I’m looking forward to being able to talk about Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 soon,” Pitchford told CVG when asked on the status of the project.
“The game has evolved, I think people are going to be surprised by what they’ll see, and it’s still evolving. One of the reasons why we’re not talking about it now is that it’s evolving and we need to make further changes before we can start talking about it.”
“I can’t really talk about Furious Four right now,” he said.
“Borderlands 2 ships in September, so we’re spending most of our time talking about that, and Aliens Colonial Marines comes out after that in February.
“I might come around to talk about Furious Four between the releases of Borderlands 2 and Aliens: Colonial Marines, but certainly I won’t before the release of Borderlands 2.”
What could Randy be talking about when he says that “the game has evolved”, and when can we expect to finally see more on the game? Your guess is as good as mine, but I’m willing to bet the delay is due to Pitchford and crew adding a new multiplayer component to the game. Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 was originally expected for release later this year; hopefully we’ll be able to get our hands on it again shortly after Aliens: Colonial Marines comes out around Spring 2013.
