Codemasters, Spark Unlimited Sign Deal For Fall of Liberty

Codemasters has announced that it has entered into a publishing agreement with Spark Unlimited ( Call of Duty: Finest Hour) for the upcoming tentatively titled first-person shooter, Fall of Liberty. Currently in development for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, the game is scheduled to ship in the fourth quarter of 2007. Set in an alternate reality World War II, Fall of Liberty is set against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied North America. Fall of Liberty's historical shift begins with Winston Churchill's death in 1931, after being hit by a taxi on 5th Avenue in New York. In reality, he survived the accident but walked with a cane for the rest of his life, but the game paints a decidedly different view of what might have happened if he did not live through the event. Without his voice to lead a country to war, Fall of Liberty's alternate reality is one in which the Normandy invasion never happened and the UK and all of Europe come under Nazi rule by 1945. This is followed by a Nazi surprise attack on North American soil on December 7, 1951, beginning with an invasion of New York. Fall of Liberty marks the second alternate reality next-generation first-person shooter to be announced for next-generation consoles, with the PlayStation 3 exclusive Resistance:Fall of Man from Sony and Insomniac expected to launch alongside the console this November. "Spark is very excited to be working with Codemasters to bring to life an event gaming experience that will dramatize what might have happened if history had taken a different course," commented Craig Allen, CEO of Spark Unlimited. James Sheahan, Codemasters’ director of brand added: "The team at Spark has a tremendous track record for successfully adapting history into authentic and compelling gaming experiences. Fall of Liberty will allow them to extend that knowledge base and create a world that thankfully never existed. This key concept brings originality to a genre where real-world WWII events have been covered and played through to exhaustion in other titles."