Seven developers we want to finish inSANE with Guillermo del Toro

Famous for: Dead Space franchise, Dante’s Inferno

Why they should handle it: Put aside for the moment any conjecture that Visceral’s parent company, EA, might not want to take the plunge on such a huge new property. We want to see Visceral take it on because they’d be great at making inSANE a blockbuster title it should be while also keeping the violence as intense as it could be. Guillermo del Toro’s films have been both personal and more mainstream – see Pan’s Labyrinth and Hellboy – a balance the platinum hits artists at Visceral have proven to be pretty great at as well. If inSANE wants to be a financial success, Visceral is the game’s best chance.

Famous for: Enslaved, Heavenly Sword

Why they should handle it: In film special effects can do so much, something del Toro has used to great success in the past, but you still need an actor to make it come alive. You can see that in how Guillermo continually uses actor Doug Jones to bring his strange creations to life. Ninja Theory no doubt sees eye to eye with the director, because its games are always known for the impressive performances of its digital characters. And Ninja Theory knows how to mix those expressive faces with compelling gameplay. The upcoming Devil May Cry reboot may be its first vaguely scary game, but we trust that the team already knows how to illicit emotional response, no matter

Famous for: Ico, Shadow of the Colossus

Why he should handle it: In interview after interview about inSANE del Toro continually mentioned the games of Team Ico as inspirations for him. He saw titles like Shadow of the Colossus as proof that games are be art and he wanted to make similar masterpieces. As luck would have it, just as THQ is letting go of inSANE, Team Ico’s leader, Fumito Ueda, is exiting Sony once the dev’s next game, Last Guardian, is complete. Ueda should team up with his biggest fan and help Guillermo figure out just what he wants to do with his would-be horror franchise. Sure, the game wouldn’t be out till 2017, but it’d be worth the wait.

Famous for: Condemned, FEAR

Why they should handle it: Also experts in trippy horror, Monolith as proven its chops at scaring people to death in spooky franchises like Condemned and FEAR. The dev has a variety of scary skills, be it the ghostly dread of the omnipresent Alma in FEAR 2 or the visceral sense of bashing in a hobo’s head in Condemned 2. That versatility would suite del Toro well, but the real reason we want to see Monolith take over inSANE is to get them back to making AAA games again. Gotham City Impostors was fine for a downloadable, but we want to see what they can do with a retail release again.

Famous for: Eternal Darkness, Too Human

Why they should handle it: Forget what you know about Silicon Knights based on the two lackluster games it put out in the last six years. Before then the company, owned by controversial figure Denis Dyack, was known for its ability to illicit screams of terror from players. That began with action-horror title Legacy of Kain, but the developers proved their true aptitude for frights with Eternal Darkness. The scary GameCube game didn’t play by the rules, tricking players with unpredictable Sanity Effects that seemed to shut down their system or have your character commit suicide. That outside the box thinking having to do with sanity would help inSANE greatly and dedicating themselves to this franchise would help refocus the developer after its recent setbacks.

That’s who we’d go with if it were up to us, but you might have other ideas. Would you rather see it made by the teams behind BioShock or Amnesia? Tell us in the comments!