During his keynote at GameHorizon, Realtime Worlds Creative Director Dave Jones revealed that the company is working on a new project. The exec had no further details about the game, but stated that the first details will be revealed next year. If you want the details now, um ... we recommend getting a job at the company.

Jones noted that the unannounced game was actually the first title (pre-Crackdown) that the developer set out to build and is "very, very ambitious." The company even received $30 million in venture capital at the time to make it. Hopefully the studio will get APB out the door before talking about its next project.

Source -- Realtime Worlds reveals "very ambitious" new project
Source -- Realtime to announce second MMO next year

Imagine: Your company makes a hit game (and gets bundled with a hit beta). The publisher won't green light a sequel, so your team begins work on another franchise. Then the sequel is awarded to a developer ... in your own town, who permanently borrows your talent. With all that said, it's understandable that Realtime Worlds Creative Director David Jones was a "bit miffed at Microsoft" for giving the Crackdown sequel to start-up Ruffian Games.

Speaking with GI.biz, Jones explains that Realtime Worlds was all set to do a sequel before Crackdown's release. When the company didn't receive the go-ahead from Microsoft, it moved on to create APB. Jones wishes that Microsoft had chosen one of its shuttered internal studios to make the game instead of going with Ruffian Games, a company that's in the same town and takes from the same talent pool. He notes it's "challenging to get enough developers in one region as it is." Maybe Realtime can get the third title in the series? Trade off like Infinity Ward and Treyarch did with Call of Duty.

Realtime Worlds has an extremely ambitious plan to bring an enormous sandbox world full of customization to the PC player at home, and creative director Dave Jones is calling APB "The game he wanted Grand Theft Auto to be." Although we imagine those 1997-era graphics and the top-down view would have limited it somewhat. They've more than made up for that in this new game, which has some pretty slick built-in design tools .. but no cohesive story.

That's one of the things that causes the hair on the back of our necks to rise, and probably those of the marketing team as well. When asked about the game, Jones said "Well, we don't really have an overarching story." In fact, their website's FAQ will tell you, "What will the outcome be? The great thing is, we don't know." We don't know either. But if you want to find out what we do know about the game, head beyond the break and give it a peep. Here's a teaser: They could release this tomorrow as Back Alley Tattoo Artist and it would clean up.

APB was probably one of the most impressive games we didn't actually see played at E3 -- while Realtime Worlds didn't have any actual gameplay to show off, they did have a nice demo session (in a booth guarded by these two tattooed ladies -- don't worry, EJ's wife, we asked him to pose for this one) where they talked about how their persistent MMO shooter will combine emergent cops-and-robbers gameplay with an extremely impressive level of customization.

After the demo session, lead designer EJ Moreland sat down with us, and cleared up most of the wanted bounties we still had on the game: what's advancement like? How is the game using Last.fm? And just how will they balance out the ad-hoc gameplay of criminals committing crimes and enforcers catching them with the usual MMO process of character advancement? Read on for more.

Earlier today, EA announced its plans to bring the crime-inspired All Points Bulletin to the online masses. Planned for release on PC, the upcoming MMO action game is one part Grand Theft Auto and one part Grand Theft Auto. This trailer showcases some of the gameplay, and we see a lot of traditional over-the-shoulder shooting in an open world city environment. We can't complain, especially after the hours we've spent in GTA IV's online lobby, mindlessly shooting our friends.

Just announced at EA's press conference, we now know that Realtime Worlds' ambitious MMO All Points Bulletin will be backed by an equally ambitious company. Realtime Worlds founder Dave Jones took the stage to announce that EA will help the 100-player MMO reach awaiting gamers sometime next year, which is the current release window EA is listing for the game.

Looks like we'll be seeing more capri pants from All Points Bulletin developer Realtime Worlds in a few short weeks, as the company announced this morning its intentions to attend E3 2009. RTW community manager Chris 'Ulrich' Dye dropped the knowledge on APB fansite APB Evolved, along with the "first in-game screenshot" of APB (seen above), saying, "Yes, we WILL be at E3 this year and this will mark the start of lots more news, activities and information coming out about APB: All Points Bulletin."

He also teases a bit of info on the game, noting that the screen provided is meant "to give you another look at the awesome character customizations that will make up a large part of APB," rather than just show you some more folks holdin' gats. Like you, we're stuck waiting for another two weeks to find out more. Thanks, Realtime Worlds!

We've been hearing rumors of Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds' appearance in the upcoming Microsoft E3 Conference for a while now, though we've heard no confirmation of All Points Bulletin's involvement in the highly anticipated, green-hued showcase. However, Eurogamer recently got an intriguing response from Realtime after inquiring about the crime-filled MMO's MicroCon debut.

Realtime Worlds boss Colin MacDonald responded to Eurogamer's query, saying, "I couldn't possibly comment at the moment," but went on to add, "if we happened to be going, I'm sure we would make it known before too much longer, and we'd certainly give Eurogamer a shout to try to meet up." Jeez, you guys. Get a room.

Realtime Worlds put out an APB (get it, like the game it's making?) for a new CEO and now Gary Dale has answered the call. If Dale's name is familiar to you, it's likely thanks to his previous job: Chief operating officer of Take-Two, though he also served as the European managing director of Capcom.

We'd like to humbly suggest that Dale's first official act should be putting higher-res pictures of himself on the internet for bloggers to put funny captions on when they write about him. Ask Mike Gallagher, it's totally worth it.

Shortly after he announced he was leaving his gig at SCEE, it was rumored that the outspoken David Reeves would move to a "senior position" at Scottish dev Realtime Worlds. Speaking to Develop magazine, Reeves has shot down those rumors, saying that he hadn't heard of the studio a week or so ago.

Now, that's not to say the rumors are necessarily untrue. Even if he had never heard of the company, it's possible Reeves was being lead there by a series of omens and portents, or by a spectral white wolf, vision-quest style. But even with our abiding belief in the paranormal, it seems unlikely.

VG247 has heard whispers on the north winds that David Reeves will be taking a position at Scotland-based Realtime Worlds, which is currently developing APB. Reeves won't be taking just any position, but a "senior position." Well, if true, it's hard to imagine ex-Sony President and CEO Reeves working in QA.

VG247 seems to be putting its own rep behind this, saying that despite being a "rumor," to not "say [they] didn't warn you." The current party line is that Reeves is "retiring." We've contacted Realtime Worlds for any further details and will update as soon as we hear anything.

It may be an awful time to be searching for a job, but Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds is apparently doing just fine -- and looking to share the wealth. If you're interested, all you have to do is A) attend GDC, B) be good at some aspect of game development (obviously) and C) be willing to temporarily relocate to Scotland.

In a press release titled "Realtime Worlds Offers Lifeline in Credit Crunch," the company announced plans to look for "more than 40 additional staff" at next week's Game Developers Conference. "In contrast to many other companies and sectors at the moment, our biggest challenge is in recruiting staff of the calibre, and in the quantities we need," John Duffie, Head of PR, said in the release. "Already 25% of our workforce comes from outside the UK because we aren't able to find everyone we need here."

Contract employees from outside the UK will receive "free quality accommodation" in Scotland during their tenure, and a free return flight afterward. The new positions are for All Points Bulletin and one other unannounced project.

Been eagerly awaiting news about Realtime Worlds' console MMO All Points Bulletin ever since they showed a tech demo during GDC? Well, good news for those patiently waiting, because Realtime Worlds' studio manager Colin Macdonald has just hinted that progress is being made and that a release isn't that far off. "Things have been going really, really well" Macdonald told videogaming247, admitting that development is "still going to take a little while, but we're not talking about that far away now."

Good thing too, because we were beginning to think that APB was slipping away into the magically mystical category of vaporware. A place no game wants to be.

[Via Eurogamer]

Realtime Worlds announced in a press release today that the company has hired a community manager, Chris "Ulric" Dye, for its MMO APB. RW's Business Development Manager Mario Rizzo says the hire signals an "important milestone" as the company moves the game into alpha and prepares for a "full public beta."

APB has popped back on radar over the last couple months since Realtime Worlds took back the distribution rights from Webzen in April and rumors surfaced the game was trying to become Grand Theft Auto Online. Here's an APB for Mr. Community Manager: Feel free to contact us when you get a chance, we'll be happy to talk about the game.

As far as rumors go, this one isn't much of a surprise. A mysterious masked man told Eurogamer that developer Realtime Worlds recently bought the distribution rights to its forthcoming MMO All Points Bulletin (APB to you kids) with one specific goal in mind: "so that it could try and sell it to Rockstar as GTA Online."

Now, Realtime's motivation for the purchase can really only be parsed two ways: either it's going to go it alone or it'll partner with "someone else who may well be interested and have the infrastructure [to support it]." Though the founders of Realtime Worlds used to call Rockstar Games "home" – not to mention the instant similarities between APB and the money-printing franchise – the developer is opting to downplay the GTA Online link, only saying that it re-secured the license to give itself "some options."
[Via X3F]