Reloaded Games and Deep Silver have joined forces together to bring APB: Reloaded from PC to the Xbox One and PS4 this June. The developers are working closely with another development studio called The Workshop, a group formed out of former members from Treyarch Studios.

Deep Silver made the news public earlier in the day via press release, where Klemens Kundratitz, CEO of Deep Silver/Koch Media commented about the deal, saying…

“APB Reloaded has become a phenomenon on the PC with a very passionate and faithful community. We are really thrilled to help Reloaded Games and The Workshop bring this fantastic world to life on the new generation consoles.”

The Xbox One and PS4 versions of the game will support up to 100 players per action district and will feature many of the same interactive and customization options from the PC version, along with a few other trinkets and goodies, too. The game was originally scheduled to arrive on the PS3 and Xbox 360 way back in the day, but the limited amount of processing power and RAM prevented the game from making the jump to seventh-gen consoles.

I had an opportunity to fire off a few questions to the CEO of Reloaded Games, Bjorn Book-Larsson, who answered succinctly and to the point regarding some of the details, features and differences between the PC version of the free-to-play action game, and the console version. Check it out below.

OAG: Will the console version of APB: Reloaded be running on the newer iteration of the Unreal Engine that the Reloaded Productions team have been working to port the original PC game over to, or will it be running on the older version of the engine that powered the game for so many years?

Bjorn: Yes. The PC, PS4 and Xbox One versions will all use the new engine going forward.

OAG: Will there be any major feature changes from the PC version to the home console version? Such as vehicles, skins, customization items or whatnot. Or will everything from the PC version make a 1:1 jump to the home consoles?

Bjorn: Some. On Day 1 the products will look very similar, but there will be a few unique features on the PS4 and Xbox One. Some feature changes are tied to the input method, and on console the possible inclusion of some mild “assist” mode (given the difficulty in aiming with a stick). Part of the strategy is to try to keep all three versions synchronized so that all three versions will benefit from the same new improvements and content.

APB Reloaded

OAG: The debate over resolution and frame-rate continues to rage on. APB had varied performance based on PC specs – do you know what the target specs are for consoles when it comes to resolution and frame-rate?

Bjorn: I just fired off a direct request from the dev team to give me the current FPS stats. The game is already playable on the PS4 at the moment (in Alpha version), but some of the optimizations still have to take place. If I get a good answer back that we think we can share publicly, I will pass it on to you.

OAG: Some free-to-play games on the Xbox One require that you have an Xbox Live Gold account to initially register and start playing, but when XBL expires gamers are allowed to continue to play some of these games in solo mode. Do you know if APB: Reloaded will require a constant and active Xbox Live Gold account or if it’s only required for the initial registration?

Bjorn: MS has started by demanding everyone have XBLG to play (for “free”). It’s really their decision. On the PS4 everyone can play, but PlayStation Plus members will get additional items and features added to their accounts and characters. I leave it up to players to decide what is the better strategy.

OAG: I know player-count has been a constant back-and-forth struggle for Reloaded Productions when it comes to population density versus optimization. Is there a final count on how many players will be able to fill out the action districts on the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game?

Bjorn: Because console hardware is so much more uniform, we fully expect to have 100 players per district on console. And other benefits of course also include far lower chance of cheating and abuse on the console side.

Lower chance of cheating, no more worries about system requirements, and free-to-play? It’s hard to complain about that.

Reloaded Games have been going over and beyond to deal with cheaters, so maybe we’ll also see that continue as they strengthen the security in the coming months on the PC side when the console versions release.

Additional information about the console ports can be found over on the official APB Reloaded website, where a community Q&A is taking place on the forum. It’s well worth reading over if you’re really curious about some of the additional details of the upcoming console port. And, if you have no idea what APB: Reloaded is all about, just check out the video below.