Condemned: Criminal Origins, and to a lesser extent its sequel, were damn fine horror games. With the last game in the series released back in 2008 however, it’s seemed less and less likely that developer Monolith would ever return to the franchise.
The good news is that studio founder Jace Hall hasn’t quite given up on Condemned yet, though if the series was to return, it might not be in quite the way you’d expect.
”Since I am focused on other things, and will be for quite some time, this franchise is just sitting there,” Hall wrote on Facebook. ”I am contemplating finding an interested and proven Indie development team AND PROVIDING IT TO THEM, so that they can take over the franchise and move it forward.”
”As an indie, it can be very hard to get marketing/media attention for a title that you work on. This franchise is already quite known, has market demand, and is in an innovative genre/category.”
Monolith are presumably already working on a sequel to last year’s Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, hence Hall’s desire to see someone else take on the Condemned property. There’s no shortage of talented indie horror developers out there that could pick up the baton of course, and some familiar names popped up when Hall asked the community for their input; Outlast’s Red Barrels team, Blackpowder Games of Betrayal fame. Whether handing over the rights to a prominent series would be as easy as Hall suggests is unclear, but it’s exciting news for people like me who love hitting people in the face with bowling balls.
