Battlecruiser Team Takes on Serious Sam Engine

The designer of Battlecruiser 3000 A.D., Derek Smart, has announced that he is the first third party to license Croteam's Serious Sam game engine. The engine will be used in a game code-named "Project ABC," for "After Battlecruiser." The new project will replace the Battlecruiser Tactical Engagement add-on module intended for Battlecruiser Millennium, the major revision of Battlecruiser planned for the end of this year.

According to Smart, "It won't be another Battlecruiser game, and while I have some ideas, I have not settled on exactly what type of game I want to do yet. I do know that it won't be another space or planetary flight sim. But, it will be an immersive game based in a persistent universe." Smart added that he has been looking at the Serious Sam Engine for "quite some time."

Smart called the Serious Sam engine a cost-effective and advanced alternative to the previous technology that his development studio, 3000 A.D., had been using. Croteam, the developer of Serious Sam and the associated graphics engine, also recently signed a publishing deal with Gathering of Developers' ODI division for its first-person shooter.

Released in 1996 after a seven-year development cycle, Battlecruiser was notorious for its ambitious design, partial feature implementation, and large number of bugs. Apart from Battlecruiser Millennium, Smart's 3000 A.D. studio plans to release Galactic Command Online, a persistent online Battlecruiser game, by the middle of next year.

Project ABC, scheduled for release in late 2001, will be developed for both the PC and the Xbox.