While extremely linear and fairly short, this Starbreeze Studios-developed FPS was quite a looker back then … and it played well, too. In fact, Syndicate was ahead of its time in terms of gameplay. Being able to “breach” your opponents to cause damage/modify behavior eventually became a staple of modern shooters like Rage 2 and action-RPGs like Cyberpunk 2077. Syndicate’s art style, despite being 11 years old, remains current outside of the excessive bloom. It’s a beautiful, beautiful game.
It shouldn’t be too expensive (or too much trouble) to take the PC version and make sure it runs at 4K/60 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X – including HDR support, of course. As far as I know, EA owns the IP so remastering Syndicate should be a no-brainer. An exciting 7-hours single player campaign with fun gunplay and plenty of eye-candy – what’s not to like?
While I had fun with the Syndicate FPS I would like a new proper Syndicate game, meaning managing your squad from up above. While Satellite Reign is the spiritual sequel it didn’t click for me. The not so open world with unending waves of respawning reinforcements if you fucked up sneaking just wasn’t Syndicate.
Maybe the same team that made the new Jagged Alliance could do a new Syndicate? Love the first two games. Also liked the fps.
I’m sure there are a lot of teams that could do it properly with enough time and money but I don’t think EA at the moment is very content just sitting on the IP because it’s not relevant anymore. And most likely they would like to make a new FPS or live service game or multiplayer focused because old school syndicate is… well… old school.
You don’t need to call it Syndicate outside of nostalgia reasons. EA doesn’t have exclusive rights to top-down tactical squad games in a dystopian cyberpunk setting, someone just needs to get the gameplay right.
This is what I want. A return to Syndicate and Syndicate Wars. I want to be able to nuke grenade the road into oblivion and watch the cars disappear for a few minutes before popping back up again. And miniguns. Lots of miniguns.