Looks like we've been misled: though Starbreeze, developer of the new Syndicate title -- codenamed Project RedLime --  previously stated, "We're already deep in development on [the game] and the team at EA is giving us the time we need to perfect our vision. We're excited to bring a new perspective and gameplay innovation to this beloved fiction," the series' creator Sean Cooper informs us today things in fact aren't going so well after all:

"[EA] been saying [it will come out] for the last fifteen years. Looking at EA's track record of announcing titles, saying they're going to revive it ... they don't tend to do it, because I don't think they really understand what the original game was."

We're sad to announce hopeful fans will probably all but give up at this point, too -- Cooper says every prototype he's seen so far has been "misguided", none capturing the spirit of the original.

“They've tried to be too quirky," he remarks. "They've tried to do things that aren't what the essence of the game was. One of [the prototypes] ... it was something about using different senses. Something was leaving a scent and the agents were following it. I remember seeing them demo it in a conference room and thinking 'What are they trying to achieve? What are they doing?'"

"The essence of the game was killing people - and that was it. Big guns. Strong dudes. Terminators essentially. If I have to kill everyone, I will. That to me was the essence of the gameplay."