Electronic Arts and Syndicate developer Starbreeze believe that rebooting Syndicate as a first-person shooter was “the right choice.”

The decision to adapt the Syndicate intellectual property to another genre was controversial among fans of the original, something that Starbreeze says added significant pressure to development. However, EA believes that it was the correct decision given how old those games are, and that they’re still around.

“It's been nearly 20 years since the original Syndicate came out back in 1993,” said EA producer Jeff Gamon to Eurogamer. “So a lot of people playing this game would probably have heard of the original Syndicate but not necessarily have played it. Obviously we get asked a lot about the reaction of fans of the original to us taking it into first-person direction. But we have to maintain that was the right decision.”

 

UPDATE: Electronic Arts has issued the following statement regarding Syndicate's refusal of classification in Australia:

It’s regrettable that government policy in Australia is denying adults the right to play Syndicate. The game will be not be available in Australia despite its enthusiastic response from fans. We were encouraged by the government’s recent agreement to adopt an 18+ age rating for games. We urge policy makers to take swift action to implement an updated policy that reflects today’s market and gives its millions of adult consumers the right to make their own content choices.

ORIGINAL: Electronic Arts’ reboot of Syndicate has been refused classification in Australia, ruling out its distribution across the Tasman.

 

In the year 2069, corporations have succeeded governments as the dominant social and political structures in the world. These syndicates care for their consumers’ health, housing, education, employment and entertainment. With neurological chips, augmented life and lifestyle comes in a single package. But in the battle for market dominance, business is war.

Perpetrating this corporate espionage are the agents, neuro-chipped assassins who can hack into the hyper-connected world and its citizenry in order to breach the research and development departments of rival syndicates. One such syndicate is EuroCorp; its agent: Miles Kilo.

There’s no argument that it’s a topical time to reintroduce Syndicate’s vision of a dystopian corporate future. Never before have we been so cynical of the glass castles erected on Wall St. Whether by sheer luck or by good planning: cometh the hour, cometh the game.