Twisted Metal was one of the bigger hits on the original PlayStation, one that didn’t quite transfer into the modern age. But it appears as though Sony is going to give it one more go as a recent report states that there is a new Twisted Metal in the works that will coincide with the upcoming television show starring Anthony Mackie.
VideoGamesChronicle has said report (which corroborates a tweet from leaker Tom Henderson), which comes by way of some unnamed sources familiar with the project. The game is very early in development at Lucid Games, the developer that released Destruction AllStars on the PlayStation 5 in February. The game will also allegedly be free-to-play, making good on Sony’s initiative to develop more service-oriented games.
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This move is said to be in response to Destruction AllStars‘ unusual development. It was supposed to launch alongside the PS5 in November 2020 as a premium $70 title before being suddenly delayed around two weeks from its planned launch. The game was then revealed to be a PlayStation Plus title for February 2021 that sold for $20 for non-subscribers who picked up the game later on.
Reception to the title was relatively poor, as it got an average score of 62 according to OpenCritic. Some updates addressed its shortcomings, but its inclusion of bots gave the impression few stuck with the title.
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Despite this, Sony appears to trust Lucid for its racing expertise. Lucid has not only developed games like Need for Speed Payback, but it was started by former Bizarre Creations employees, the studio behind a whole host of car-related titles like Project Gotham Racing and Blur. And while the art style is different between the two franchises, not many other developers are making car combat games, much less ones exclusively for PlayStation, so Lucid seems like one of the only choices for the job.
The report says Sony wants to have this coincide with the aforementioned television show that’s rumored to have a 2023 release window. And this seems to line up with other rumored projects since Sony is said to also be remaking the first Last of Us game. If Sony is trying to match up its gaming IP with its shows, then this would make sense, given the upcoming HBO series.
Twisted Metal has been dormant since 2012 when the PS3 reboot released. It was also tepidly received with an average score of 76 according to Metacritc. The servers were shut down in January 2019.