Upcoming Racing Game Repeatedly Compared To A Shooter

Activision’s CEO already said Blur could be the Call of Duty of racing games, but it’s the four varied references to shooters in Edge magazine‘s cover story on the game that drive that home.

From a “business perspective” it’s not hard to see why Activision would hope that the first racing game Bizarre Creations makes since the publisher acquired the Project Gotham Racing development studio would have a Call of Duty impact.

But did you know that Blur seems to be drawing some creative inspiration from some top shooters?

The cover story of Edge magazine‘s June issue elaborates on the Mario-Kart-Meets-Forza design and the Facebook influence on Blur. But what caught my eye were the references to shooters.

Here, in a discussion about how the power-ups strewn on the track can affect gameplay: “The perfect lap is not apex to apex, it’s about decisions: I need this, I can go and collect it, then I can use that. We’re building up a story that the player is putting through in his mind, very similar to the process that a seasoned FPS player will do – they have a path they follow, picking up this weapon, using it, and then going to collect armour. We’re hoping people will start to generate that sort of racing line through our game, as opposed to car control per se.” – Martyn Chudley, creative director of Blur development studio Bizarre Creations

Here, in the context of how one race in the game’s single-player campaign is designed to make the player fail the first time: “Shooters have been doing this for ages, but nothing like it seems to happen in racing games – you just go for first, restart, retry. In shooters there’s a big robot you can’t kill until you get the gun.” Co-lead designer Gareth Wilson

Here: “It’s clear that Bizarre has been very carefully watching Bungie’s work with the freedom it has granted users to make their own gametypes and share them online in Halo 2 and 3.” – The Edge article’s author

And here, your direct Call of Duty reference: “Bizarre originally named Blur’s power-ups ‘perks’ because they were all about empowering the player in a similar manner to COD4’s Perks. Early ideas included the ability to see through cars.” – The Edge article’s author

Remember, Bizarre Creations hasn’t just made racing games before. The studio is responsible for score-based third-person shooter The Club and the twin-stick arcade Geometry Wars games.

Coming later this year from Activision, it seems, is the feeling that there’s an FPS in your racing game.

Much more on Blur can be found in Edge’s cover story, which isn’t online but is on newsstands in the U.K.