Remember Brothers In Arms: Furious 4? It was Gearbox’s Inglorious Basterdsy four-player co-op game that caused a moderate stink when it was announced in 2011. It caused a moderate stink because the kerrazy, zany game was part of the previously sombre, WW2-set Brothers in Arms franchise, although it was later divorced from that series and rebranded as simply ‘Furious 4’. Very little has been seen of the game since then—though Gearbox president Randy Pitchford has finally confirmed that it’s no more. Farewell, Furious 4, we hardly knew ye.
Pitchford said as much at Develop: Brighton this week (thanks, IGN), revealing that, through the magic of development, Furious 4’s remains have been revived as Battleborn. Seeing as one of Furious 4’s characters, Montana, is in Battleborn, that might not be such of a massive shock.
“So the thing about that… Furious 4 is not a thing anymore, right?” Pitchford said at the conference. “Creative development is a trip. The idea that something that started as a Brothers in Arms game through some absurd convolution ended up as Battleborn is evidence of what’s possible. But I wouldn’t take Montana’s existence in Battleborn as being representative as a cameo. Montana really exists only in the Battleborn universe. He never existed in the Brothers in Arms universe, because that game never happened.”
Also at Develop, Pitchford revealed that a new, “authentic” Brothers in Arms is on the way (thanks again, IGN).
“I think the next Brothers in Arms game has to be authentic and we have been working on that. I feel we have unfinished business there with both the fiction and the history and I’d like to get into that. I spend a lot of time thinking about it.”
“I feel like I’m on the brink of it, but we’re not quite there yet. Once it happens development will really take off and then sometime after that - if we don’t completely kill ourselves - we’ll announce. But we’re in the incubation phase with the next one there, for sure.”