Sony Pictures Consumer Products has announced it'll be launching a Total Recall MMO to tie in with next year's movie remake. Sony promises the title will “dovetail perfectly” with the release of the movie, which is set to update Philip K Dick's short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale for the 21st Century by adding Colin Farrell and lots of CGI (it's safe to assume). The game will take the form of a 3D browser-based, free-to-play MMO with microtransactions, social-gaming features, competitive, and co-op elements.
Above: The one to beat
Chinese developer ZQGame, currently known for sci-fi MMO Shadowland Online, will be handling development of the Total Recall MMO, with SEE Games handling distribution of the title's 2012 release. It's actually going to be the third game based on the license, going up against Acclaim and Ocean's titles based on the 1990 version of the film. Let's just come right out and say it'll probably be better than those titles, none of which are remembered as particularly shining examples of the medium.
Above: That's more like it
Total Recall also saw unofficial, erm, “tribute” paid via Delphine Software's Flashback: The Quest for Identity, which included all the movie's best elements except the bits that you couldn't put into a videogame in those days (exploding faces, mammarially advantaged escorts, Michael Ironside). While ZQGame's MMO probably won't take too many cues from Delphine's platformer, the Chinese dev could certainly do worse.
What elements would you like to see in a Total Recall MMO? And don't say three-boobed hookers, that goes without saying. We all want three-boobed hookers in our video games.
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