Playlogic enlists Rebellion for National Guard game

As the National Guard's credo has expanded far beyond the old "One weekend a month, two weeks a year" slogan, so too has its viability as the subject for a game. The National Guard itself obviously thinks so, as it took a page from the US Army's playbook and commissioned Virginia-based Rival Interactive to develop a pair of PC games for the Guard two years ago. The first game, Prism: Guard Shield, was to be used as a military recruiting tool, much like America's Army, while the second game, Prism: Threat Level Red, was to be a commercially available counterpart to Guard Shield.

Little had been heard about the games of late, but today news has arrived that development on Threat Level Red has been entrusted to British developer Rebellion, with Amsterdam-based publisher Playlogic set to handle distribution of the game. The operation isn't entirely un-American, however; a Rival spokesperson confirmed for GameSpot that it is assisting Rebellion with the game design while it concentrates its own efforts on finishing Guard Shield.

Combining stealth and action elements, Threat Level Red will be a first-person shooter that pits players against terrorists set on attacking locations within US borders. It should be somewhat familiar territory for Rebellion, as the company has previously developed the military shooters Delta Force: Black Hawk Down and Sniper Elite for the PC, PlayStation 2, and Xbox. The company has also worked on more fanciful fare, such as Snood 2: On Vacation for the Nintendo DS, and the upcoming sci-fi shooter Rogue Trooper on PC, PS2, and Xbox, based on the 2000 AD comic series.

Threat Level Red is scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2006.