Riddick developer Starbreeze inks deal with US publisher for next-gen action title

Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios has signed a letter of intent with an American publisher to develop a new action game for next-generation console formats within the next two years.

According to a statement issued on the developer's website this week, the budget for the new project is larger than previous titles - including The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, which is due out in Europe on August 13th after much critical acclaim - and the company will be recruiting new staff to work on it.

"After the success with Riddick many leading publishers have shown interest in co-operating with us," CEO Johan Kristiansson said in a statement. "That has given us a favourable negotiating position and we have been able to choose between many different projects. Our intention now is to complete negotiations about the development agreement during the next few months."

Starbreeze hasn't revealed any details at this point, but speaking to our sister site Eurogamer in June, Jens Andersson, lead programmer on Riddick, said the company would "definitely" reuse existing technology for its next game.

"In the same way we reused the Enclave engine. We will evolve it. We'll have this as a base - we can do prototypes, we can start developing the gameplay, have a really quick start with the next project," he told Eurogamer. "And as the project is developing we can really focus on new features." He also said that he felt Starbreeze "will keep to one project at a time".