"SWAT: Urban Justice is dead! Long live SWAT 4!" This was the refrain that was sung by PC gamers today as Vivendi Universal Games today announced an all-new installment in the tactical police-action series.

　　The new title, SWAT 4, will be developed by Irrational Games, the studio behind System Shock 2 and the upcoming Tribes: Vengeance and Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich. Based on the Unreal-powered Vengeance engine, SWAT 4 will let players control a squad of up to five SWAT commandos in a variety of high-risk law-enforcement and counterterrorist operations. Like in previous SWAT games, players must follow police procedures to take down criminals while not harming innocent civilians.

　　"We are working collaboratively with Irrational Games on SWAT 4 to develop one of the best games in its genre," said VU Games Executive Vice President Michael Pole. According to VU, the as-yet-unrated game is expected to ship Q1 2005.

　　After seeing the new screens from SWAT 4, many gamers will likely be enthusiastic. However, others will still have questions. Namely, what happened to SWAT: Urban Justice, the fourth installment in the SWAT series, which was announced in February 2002? According to a carefully parsed statement from a VU spokesperson, work on Urban Justice has been "discontinued" in favor of SWAT 4's development. However, the same spokesman stressed that SWAT 4 is both a different game and a true sequel, so it will retain the series' gameplay elements, albeit in a refined form.

　　GameSpot will have more details on SWAT 4 as they become available.