3000AD Announces Xbox Project

The designer of Battlecruiser 3000AD for the PC, Derek Smart, has announced that he is the first third party to license the 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 Millenium, the major revision of Battlecruiser planned for the end of this year.

Talking to GameSpot about Project ABC, Smart said, "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, 3000AD, had been using. Croteam, the developer of Serious Sam for the PC and the associated graphics engine, also recently signed a publishing deal with Gathering of Developers' ODI division for its first-person shooter.

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