The Digital Continuum: What's up with APB?

I'm not entirely sure what's going on with All Points Bulletin and the only reason I'm bothered enough to consider worrying about a game that we know only fractions of is because those fractions are amazingly potent pieces of excitement. The depth of customization, the level-less progression wrapped around a GTA style game make for powerful appeal.

I was hoping that because it'd been a year since the last GDC, when All Points Bulletin was first revealed to a dumbstruck media, we would be treated with a delightful updated look at the game. That just wasn't the case at GDC 2009, and frankly it has me slightly worried.

Granted, it's not as though Realtime Worlds and APB haven't been in the news lately with their Vivox and hiring announcements. That hasn't been the issue, what has been are the lack of any beefy game updates beyond the occasional newsletter or hiring blurb. No new screens, videos or even interviews teasing about the game's features or even smaller aspects. Am I just spoiled by the likes of Cryptic, Turbine and dare I say, Blizzard? Possibly, but then again there could be other reasons as well...

There are all sorts of factors that could be causing the delay of substantial fresh APB information. For one, Realtime Worlds might have procured (or been absorbed into) a highly desirable publisher and currently have their hands tied by a strict time sensitive schedule. And if this is the case and we're treated to a deluge of knowledge at this year's E3, I'll be overjoyed. I also may erect a shrine fashioned from magazine clippings and glue -- or whatever it is a crazed videogame fanatic crafts shrines out of these days, I've lost touch since my youthful Final Fantasy obsessions.

Another possibility is simply that Realtime Worlds is sitting on much of the "good stuff" as a method of protecting their long-term investment that is APB. If they possess some game design philosophies or tech abilities beyond anything else on the market, I could see secrecy and caution being high on their list of "How to avoid bad things." scenarios.

But whatever the case may be -- whether it's publishers or spy related worries -- the dried up, once life giving stream of news and previews is slowly beginning to kill me a little on the inside. I'll be honest, at this point, a batch of three or four new screenshots would probably make my month in terms of new APB goodies. It says a lot about the potential of a game -- at least for me -- when I'm willing to put up with this kind of silliness.

So assuming that the game is actually coming out within a the next twelve months (that's a fair assumption, right?) we should be seeing some news around E3. If that doesn't happen, I'll probably still hold out hope that an announcement is coming shortly. But secretly, you can count on my panicking and stressing over just exactly what fate has befallen one of my most anticipated MMOs in a long, long time.