Vin Diesel's Tigon Studios working on Roman Republic era MMORPG

Talking with Destructoid the other day, Vin Diesel made the first strong confirmation of a new game in the works, Barca B.C. 

For those of you that weren't aware, Vin Diesel founded the game company Tigon Studios, which, amongst other games, have made games featuring Vin Diesel such as the recent two Chronicles of Riddick games, and The Wheelman.

This new game -- that has been in development for 2 or 3 years already, apparently -- is going to be a MMO with RPG qualities, set around 200 B.C, in the Punic Wars. (Shotgun blast history lesson: the Punic Wars were a series a battles in the Mediterranean against the dominating empire of day, the Carthaginian State, against the upstart Roman Republic. Hannibal Barca was a fearsome, legendary talented Carthaginian general, raised from birth to kill Romans.)

"The reason why it’s my dream game is because it is an MMO ...  where you create an avatar that lives in the reality of Hannibal Barca, the Punic Wars and life 200 B.C," Vin Diesel said to Destructoid. "You would have avatars that you would invest [in] -- it would be an RPG game -- and creating that ancient world as your backdrop. Creating an ancient world that is your 'Azeroth.' That is probably my dream scenario," Diesel went on to say.

From the interview, it seems that Diesel has a sincere interest and affinity for the world of the ancient West. In that period before the Roman Empire began, when the whole 'civilization' ball really started to roll, warfare was entering a new conceptual stage of tactics, and massive, well-equipped armies where deciding the entire course of history in the West.

It appears that Barca B.C has at least a few years of development before it will see the light of day. But it is a project the Diesel is personally motivated to see through to the end: "We all know those games take a lot of work to create, a lot of funds. We are just in the first two or three years of putting it together. It could probably take another four years before we see that game...When we talk about dream case scenarios, man, I would love to play as a Carthaginian soldier 200 years before Christ. Sailing around the Mediterranean, that’d be pretty damn cool. If you could add some historical elements to it, the better."

With the hordes of  YAMFRIES ( Yet Another MMORPG Featuring Rangers, Imps, Elves or Sorcerers) games on the market, the popularity of God of War, and Perpetual Entertainment's cancellation of Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising, a change of setting to a non-fantasy world in Earth's interesting past just might be a breath of fresh air in an otherwise crowded market.