APB coming to mobiles this month

A surprise mobile companion to UK developed MMO APB Reloaded will be coming to iOS this month – and Develop has the first details.

Entitled APB Retribution, the game takes players away from the streets and into the seedy backstreets of San Paro where they will tackle the heavily-armed thugs of the city’s underworld.

The top-down tactical shooter has been developed by APB studio Reloaded Productions and Edinburgh-based Blazing Griffin, a studio that opened doors in 2011 in the same street as Reloaded.

The project has taken six months to develop, with plans for the spin-off in the works since Blazing Griffin pitched the idea in March 2013. Blazing Griffin has managed to nearly double its team since development began.

APB Retribution realises Reloaded’s long-term plan to expand beyond the main MMO, which was original developed by the now defunct Realtime Worlds.

“Working alongside Blazing Griffin has allowed us to expand and explore a different aspect of the APB universe, whilst still concentrating on content creation for APB Reloaded,” said Reloaded Productions MD Michael Boniface. “This is something that would not have been possible without undertaking in this co-development experience.”

Blazing Griffin MD Peter van der Watt added: “We’ve been able to gather insight into how a larger games studio and brand operate. Due to the nature of the collaboration and level of creative freedom we’ve been granted, we’ve been able to contribute in a much more substantial way than is usual on a project of this type.”

APB Retribution is due for release on iOS in December 2013.