Although the third installment in the Insomniac Games' Resistance series of first-person shooters was released nearly ten years ago, some players are still yearning to continue the plot about aliens conquering Earth. And it appears that even Insomniac Games had intentions to continue the franchise at one point.
Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price revealed a few months after the release of Resistance 3 in 2011 that the company has "no concrete intentions" to work on other Resistance games. While the third game in the series didn't break any sales records, it did sell well and mainly garnered excellent reviews; therefore, the reason for this move was unclear.
The studio appears to have reversed course on that decision, and Insomniac pitched Resistance 4 to Sony, but it was ultimately rejected. In an episode of the PlayStation podcast Sacred Symbols, game creator Colin Moriarty disclosed that this snippet of knowledge had come from friends within Insomniac. According to reports, Sony turned down a plan to build a fourth Resistance game since there were already too many post-apocalyptic games in production.
At the time, Killzone Shadow Fall, Horizon Zero Dawn, Days Gone, and The Last of Us were all in pre-production on the PS3 and had a similar post-apocalyptic feel. Sony was concerned that the premise of Resistance 4 was too similar to that of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us and that the two games might cause gamer fatigue if released simultaneously. "Resistance was shut down at that point," Moriarty says.
While this may be disappointing news for some fans, it does not mean that Resistance is no longer a viable option. At this point, The Last of Us sequel has received a resoundingly good response, and anticipation for Guerilla Games' Horizon Forbidden West is only building as the game nears completion. However, gamers' thirst for post-apocalyptic scenarios hasn't decreased, and Sony may be more interested in Resistance 4 now or in the future.
The Resistance games and the Last of Us appear to be very different at first glance. The former tells the story of a fatal fungus that transforms humans and animals into hostile mutants, and the latter depicting an alternate past during an alien invasion of Earth. The aliens in Resistance, on the other hand, expand their army by infecting humans with a virus that accelerates evolution and creates a variety of mutations. Although the first game was set in the United Kingdom, Resistance 2 and 3 were set in a post-apocalyptic America, similar to The Last of Us.
The Resistance series is available on PS3.