APB Officially Back From the Dead

Speculation on the fate of Realtime World’s APB: All Points Bulletin has circulated around the world wide web for months. Now, it’s offiical — Free2Play MMO publisher GamersFirst has aquired the IP rights to APB and will re-release it as a free-to-play game called APB: Reloaded.

The sale is good news to ex-Realtime Worlds employees, who will now receive any outstanding wages and holiday pay that are owed to them. GamersFirst is also encouraging the community to provide feedback on what they liked and disliked about the game, so that they can incorporate it into the development process.

“APB was a game that had several exceptional features and some brilliant ideas, even though it was plagued by some initial balance and monetization issues,” says Bjorn Book-Larsson, CTO and COO of GamersFirst. “We want to take all the unique features of this title, such as its unparalleled character, weapon and car customization systems, and convert the game to a true free-to-play game. We are deep into the planning and early execution stages for this next chapter of APB and we will share more details in the near future. In order to put ‘Gamers First’ we will also actively engage the community in many aspects of all the planned changes.”

GamersFirst and Reloaded Productions plan to launch APB: Reloaded in the first half of 2011.