One of the best games on the Xbox One is Sunset Overdrive, the Insomniac Games developed exclusive action platformer that released last year for the Xbox One to general critical acclaim, but sadly, soft sales at retail. Those poor sales are what make the prospect of a sequel to the game so unlikely- especially since Microsoft seems to generally prefer a strategy of cultivating blockbuster exclusives for its system.
But the idea of a Sunset Overdrive sequel is not entirely off the table, like you would think. While Xbox’s Phil Spencer has confirmed that there is no work being done on the Sunset Overdrive IP currently, he also did state that there is always the possibility of revisiting the brand at some time in the future.
“On Sunset Overdrive, good things can get revisited. We aren’t doing anything right now though,” he said, in response to a fan tweet.
I mean, I guess it’s as close as we are ever going to get right now- it could have been worse, he could have just deflected the answer to Insomniac (who own the IP), in which case it would have been a pretty sure shot sign that there will be no sequel.
Spencer also discussed bringing Project Gotham Racing back via enabling it for Xbox 360 backwards compatibility on the Xbox One. Or rather, more accurately, he discussed why it might be difficult. Apparently, the issue is with licenses, and the difficulty with renewing them for the Xbox One. “Challenge with games that have a lot of licenses is most licenses are done per platform, licenses would have to be redone for X1,” he said.
That is pretty sad- I adored Project Gotham Racing, and while Forza Horizon is a good substitute, there is nothing quite as good as the real thing.