Why Ubisoft's Next FPS is Set to Impress

We reveal all from a private showing of FPS western prequel Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood.

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The prequel tells the back story of the characters that players met in the original game, promising a "deep and mature" storyline that shows us how they developed into their COJ1-selves. "We wouldn't say it's extreme in terms of sex and violence", says Senior Producer Mathieu Girard, "but there are definitely mature moments", he told Kikizo.

We can confirm a high audio standard, with decent, authentic-sounding voices and almost enough cursing for our tastes, as well as a movie-style orchestral-like soundtrack. Hopefully the game will strike some sort of balance between the big, gung-ho BGM with some more subtle numbers as well.

The western setting also boosts the multiplayer component, according to Girard: "the setting gives as an opportunity to have very refreshing gameplay modes", including an objective-based mode where you break into the bank, raid the safe for loot and then get horses to make an escape, with the sheriff spawning at various places on your ass the whole way. But there'll also be "instant fun" modes like Death Match as well as Wanted mode, which elects one player as 'wanted' while everyone else has to kill him, plus a team variant of that. We're told it's "really fun and immediate".

There's no co-op mode though, with Ubi Paris citing the fact that the slow-motion Concentration mode is not very "multiplayer friendly" as well as having a story in which the two brothers eventually "confront each other" (their words, not ours). "We really wanted to promote this Wild West shooting feeling and the deep story," Girard explained. Seems fair enough to us.

Call us daring, but we'll go as far as to say that since the original Juarez was solid to begin with, the improvements and additions Techland and Ubisoft have implemented in the prequel could make this a truly top-class FPS. We'll reserve judgement until we get our hands on the final game though.

Ubisoft's latest release schedule says that Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood will be out on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC in June, which is quite soon actually, so expect a review next month. Probably. You can find our review of the original Call of Juarez here.

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