A new Brothers in Arms game is in development, confirms Gearbox CEO

Brothers in Arms: Hell Highway
(Image credit: Gearbox Software)

In an interview with Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price for the AIAS Game Maker's Notebook podcast, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has confirmed the studio is working on a new Brothers in Arms game. The podcast was originally published in April but only recently uploaded to YouTube, where Alt/Char spotted the news.

The Brothers in Arms project comes up during a discussion of Gearbox's Aliens: Colonial Marines. Pitchford explains how both Fox and Sega were so eager to share news of the project that both parties announced the game before any contract had been signed. "The second you hear Gearbox and Aliens and Unreal Engine, everybody already decided the game in their head," Pitchford said.

Price notes how unusual that early announcement was and Pitchford agrees, pointing out that Gearbox waited until Borderlands 3 was late in development before announcement. "I didn't even announce Borderlands 3 until it was in beta," Pitchford said. "It sucks because I know there's a lot of people —we're working on another Brothers in Arms game—but I'm not saying shit until we have it. We have fans that really love that [series], but they're just going to have to suffer."

While the Brothers in Arms series has spawned a handful of smartphone games and offshoots, the last major instalment was 2008's Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway, the third mainline title. It's been a long time between drinks for the squad-based FPS, in other words, but Pitchford said in 2015 that the studio still has plans for the series.

"I think the next Brothers in Arms game has to be authentic and we have been working on that," he told IGN at the time. "I feel we have unfinished business there with both the fiction and the history and I’d like to get into that. I spend a lot of time thinking about it."

In the meantime, something resembling a Brothers in Arms TV adaptation is currently in the works, though it has neither a network or release window at present.

Shaun Prescott

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.