Sony have just announced that there isn’t just one but two Resistance games on their way to the PlayStation platforms in the next year. Resistance 2 was given an in-game showing and hits the PS3 later this year, but Resistance: Retribution is also being developed and will be hitting the PSP in spring next year.

Hit the jump for more on this.

Resistance 2 was given a fair chance with both a glossy preview trailer and in-game footage, showing Nathan Hale’s encounter with an utterly huge Chimeran enemy several storeys tall. Everything looked pretty good, more detailed and rounded-off than the original Resistance, even if it was painted with that typical “brown and bloom” realism filter. It’s set for release this Fall.

Still, this wasn’t the surprise of the show as Sony had another Chimeran-based feature up their sleeve. Just after the Resistance 2 showing SCEA CEO Jack Tretton announced that Sony Bend (named after the Oregon city in which they’re based) will be developing a third-person shooter set between Resistance and Resistance 2, titled Resistance: Retribution. My hopes will be high as Sony Bend were the studio behind every game in the excellent Syphon Filter shooter series, including PSP incarnations Logan’s Shadow and Combat Ops.

Resistance: Retribution looks pretty good, judging only from the video that was played during the conference (available as soon as I can get it) if a little bit chunky, in the way PSP graphics always manage to look a little fatter than they would on other consoles. Still, it looks nice and I’m confident that Sony Bend can pull it off, it’s it’s not like they’re inexperienced in developing for the third-person shooter genre. In the same way that Killzone derived from its usual path in creating Killzone: Liberation, it’s nice to see another big Sony franchise changing its ways to suit the other consoles. I’ll probably be picking this up when it’s released.

Resistance: Retribution is set for a Spring 2009 release exclusively for the PSP.