City Interactive has launched a teaser trailer for their new shooter Alien Rage.
Alien Rage is to be an intense arcade-style FPS worth a hardcore sci-fi theme for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
It promises loads of guns with their own unique firing modes, 21 different enemies and 8 tough-as-nails bosses.
Alien Rage will be on show at this year’s E3 and is due out on download services for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC later this year.
Kazunori Yamauchi, head of Polyphony Digital, has revealed that they are definitely thinking about a PS4 version of Gran Turismo 6.
It appears that releasing GT6 on the PS3 might be a commercial decision with the hope that a PS4 version of the game would be a natural extension of that down the road according to comments made by Yamauchi.
He said, "We actually do have a PlayStation 4 version in mind but for this holiday season, we thought it would be best for users to release on PS3 for now.”
"I thought the best scenario would be to have the game come out, then to have new scenarios, new DLC and other updates,” Yamauchi-san added. "Once the players have thoroughly played out the system, if the PlayStation 4 version came out naturally, as part of that process, I think that would be the best scenario."
Gran Turismo 6 is due out on PS3 towards the end of 2013.
Thanks IGN.
It appears that, at least for now DICE’s new LA studio will be focusing on Battlefield 4.
When the studio was announced it was explained that it would be focusing on Star Wars titles but it appears that DICE LA will be operating more as an extension of DICE Stockholm.
EA PR director Pete Nguyen explained, “With regards to DICE L.A., they are an extension of DICE Sweden and are working on the same projects across both locations. Both teams are 100 percent focused on Battlefield 4. We recently announced that with our Star Wars license agreement, DICE and Visceral will join BioWare in developing future Star Wars games using our Frostbite engine. As DICE in Sweden works on Star Wars so too will DICE in L.A.”
Karl Magnus Troedsson, DICE boss, had stressed the amount of talent in LA as a reason for setting up shop there , hinting at Infinity Ward in particular, could EA be hoping to lure away some of Call Of Duty’s leading lights to work on the Battlefield series?
Thanks GamesBeat.
Naughty Dog has revealed that they will be using The Last Of Us to demonstrate Sony’s new ‘playable while downloading’ feature.
The ‘playable while downloading’ feature is a cornerstone of Sony’s online offering for the PS4 but it appears the PS3 might be able to handle it too.
According to Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann the digital version of The Last Of Us will be playable after downloading is around 50 percent complete.
While this is some way off the instant playability that Sony boasts will come with the PS4 it is an interesting development nonetheless.
The Last Of Us arrives on PS3 on June 14th.
Thanks Game Informer.
Turbine has released a profile video for Gaslight Joker in Infinite Crisis.
Gaslight Joker is the Age Of Invention’s most infamous serial killer and his weapons of choice are a cleaver and a ham.
He also has a handy swarm of ravenous starving rats to call upon to aid him in combat.
Infinite Crisis is currently in closed beta which you can sign up for over on the game’s official website.
It appears that EA has stepped back from the Wii U completely for the moment.
The publishing and development giant has confirmed that they currently have no games in development on the Wii U.
EA’s Jeff Brown said simply, "We have no games in development for the Wii U currently."
This is not a good sign, especially given that EA had committed quite healthily to the Wii U launch line-up with Mass Effect 3, FIFA 13 and later Need For Speed: Most Wanted and even teased the appearance of Battlefield 3 on the console.
Thanks Kotaku.
Blizzard has been talking about how players will control the action in Diablo III on the PS4.
In a new video, Jose Mosquiera, Diablo III’s lead console designer stressed that it is “super-important” for them that the players feel that they are the character and that the game doesn’t lose any of its complexity in translation over to the PS3 and PS4 versions.
”What we didn’t want to do is to simplify the experience because, at the end of the day, Diablo III is awesome because of all the different you can get and all the different powers that they can have. So we didn’t want sacrifice that,” Mosquiera explained.
”What we wanted to do is streamline the experience so that players can decide when and how they wanted that level of information,” he added. “So we really built the inventory and all our UI screens from the ground up. These are screens that are specifically designed to feel great with a Dualshock in your hands in the way you navigate them.”
Diablo III is due out towards the end of the year on PS3 and PS4. Alternatively you can join the 12 million players already playing it on PC and Mac.
Crytek and Nexon have teamed up to bring Crytek’s free-to-play shooter Warface to the Japanese audience.
Warface is the only free-to-play browser-based shooter to use Crytek’s visually astounding CryEngine 3 which is quite an acheievement.
“Expanding Warface to Japan is a very important step for us,” said Crytek boss, Cervat Yerli. “Since it’s a global IP, this move perfectly underlines our strategy in sharing the game’s unique action with gamers around the world. Nexon is a very trusted partner; they have shown us tremendous results in South Korea, where Warface just entered Open Beta after receiving highly positive feedback from gamers during Closed Beta, and we are sure that they will play a key role in ensuring Warface’s success in Japan as well.”
Warface is already intensely popular in Russia with some 10 million gamers playing it regularly. It has also seen successful closed beta phases in Europe, North America and South Korea.
Mode 7’s hit PC strategy game Frozen Synapse finally arrives for the touch generation today as it debuts on iPad.
The iPad version boasts all of the same single and multiplayer options that PC gamers have available to them all wrapped up in an interface especially optimised for touch screen control.
Frozen Synapse also offers full cross-platform multiplayer between PC and iPad gamers and even allows players start a game and continue it on their iPad.
Frozen Synapse is available on the iTunes App Store for 4.99 GBP, 5.99 EUR or 6.99 USD. An Android version of the game is also on its way.
City Interactive has announced a brand new RPG destined for PC and next-gen consoles.
Lords Of The Fallen is a hardcore RPG from Tomasz Gop who was senior producer on The Witcher 2. It promises some “demanding and strategic gameplay” according to the press release.
Gop said, “Our team is building Lords of the Fallen specifically for players who enjoy taking on huge challenges, where the odds are stacked against them. From the very beginning, Lords of the Fallen will intrigue and satisfy players’ hunger to explore each corner of a brand new world, freely customize and build their own character and take down some of the most epic enemies ever seen.”
RPG fans will be able to get a first proper look at the game this June as City Interactive will be showing it off for the first time at E3.
It seems that Ubisoft has stopped working on Patrice Desilets’ 1666 project.
Desilets was fired from Ubisoft after his THQ team were re-acquired by Ubisoft in the sale of THQ’s assets along with all the IPs that THQ Montreal were working on which included the 1666 project.
Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft explained the situation in their latest financial conference call to investors saying, "After more than two months of discussions with [Patrice], we couldn't align our vision both on the project development and the team management. So, consequently, our collaboration has ended, and we have suspended 1666 for an undisclosed period of time."
This a sad end to what has become a very troubled relationship between Ubisoft and the former Assassin’s Creed creative director, Patrice Desilets.
Thanks Joystiq.
It seems that Microsoft Points may not have much life left in them according to new reports.
The latest indications seem to be that Microsoft will ditch their proprietary currency when the new Xbox arrives in favour of real currency values.
It is definitely not outside the realms of possibility given that all of their new stores on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 have both ditched MS Points for cash values.
Microsoft are expected to announce the change officially at E3 with MS Points bowing out when the new Xbox is released, which looks likely to be some time in November.
Thanks The Verge.
EA has revealed that they will be discontinuing their Online Pass programme.
The Online Pass programme was originally intended to allow EA to make money from the second hand sales of their games and has featured on almost every release since Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11. The practice has since adopted by publishers like Codemasters, THQ and Sony.
John Reseburg, SVP of corporate communications at EA said, “Yes, we’re discontinuing Online Pass. None of our new EA titles will include that feature. Initially launched as an effort to package a full menu of online content and services, many players didn’t respond to the format. We’ve listened to the feedback and decided to do away with it moving forward.”.
This is an interesting move from EA which could have some curious implications for pre-owned games given how close this announcement comes to Microsoft unveiling the new Xbox.
Thanks GamesBeat.
The former president of THQ, Jason Rubin has paid tribute to the work of Ukranian dev 4A Games in creating Metro: Last Light under some pretty harsh conditions.
He described the 4A Game’s working conditions as cramped stating the whole studio was squeezed into a room roughly the same size as the gym at EA’s luxurious LA offices as well as the need to ‘smuggle’ development kits and high-end PCs past the crooked Ukranian customs.
Rubin drew comparison’s to the Jamaican bobsleigh team saying, “4A is to developers what the Jamaican Bobsledding team is to Olympic sport. The Jamaicans may not have won the gold in 1994, but they beat the Americans who had far more going for them... like winter coats and bobsledding tracks to train on.”
Metro: Last Light is due out in PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 in the UK on May the 17th.
Thanks GamesIndustry.biz.
EA has announced that they’ve opened a satellite studio of DICE to work on new Star Wars titles.
The studio will house 60 staff with staff members moving over from Danger Close along with a fresh recruiting push from EA.
DICE boss Karl Magnus Troedsson explained that the rich talent pool in LA made it a great location to open a studio. He said, "There is an extreme talent pool over that we want a part of. It's no secret that our main competitor is there.”
EA recently secured a deal with Disney to build games based on the Star Wars franchise and DICE will be building the games along with Visceral (based in Redwood Shores).
Thanks Wall Street Journal.
Guerilla has been talking about the hardware behind the PS4 and what they can believe they can do with it.
Their goal for the PS4 launch event was to get the demo of Killzone: Shadows Fall running at 1080p at 30 fps and they feel that they achieved that.
In fact, Guerilla’s Michal Valient revealed that the demo only used 3GB of the PS4’s 8GB of GDDR5 RAM with a further 1.5gb used for system operations meaning that the PS4 has plenty of headroom to go further still than what we will see at launch.
He also revealed that the polygon count for characters in Shadowfall in around 40,000 the highest LOD which is around four times that of Killzone 3’s 10,000 polygons.
Thanks Develop Online.
Codmasters has released yet another trailer for their upcoming racer sequel Grid 2.
The new video details the game’s Asian cars, tracks and events including the Drift-racing elements of the game.
The location spans from Dubai and the unmistakeable Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi to Touge events in Hong Kong and Drift racing in Japan.
Grid 2 is due to pull up to the starting line on May the 31st for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
Sony has officially unveiled Gran Turismo 6 at a celebration event at Silverstone today.
The event was held to celebrate 15 years of the Gran Turismo series and unveil the latest game in the series.
The new game promises a new engine that pushes the PS3 to its very limits. I also features a new physics engine with sharper and more accurate modelling of tyres, suspension, kinematics and aerodynamics developed in partnership with Yokohama Tyres and KW Automotive.
Polyphony Digital says the game will include 1200 cars and an abundance of car parts and 71 track layouts spread across 33 locations to race the cars on.
There’s also a promise of ongoing DLC and a Commmunity/Club/Race organiser for Gran Turismo fans to arrange competitions and cross-compatibility with smartphones, tablets and PC.
More details are due at E3.
Thanks VG247.
MercurySteam boss Dave Cox has been talking about how they managed to turn around Konami’s gothic franchise into a top seller.
Cox explained that it was by taking risks that allowed them to produce a top title like Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow and see enough success for it to warrant them making a sequel(or two if the 3DS release Mirror Of Fate is take into consideration). Of course it took the word of Hideo Kojima for Konami to stand by releasing Lords Of Shadow as a Castlevania game and MercurySteam feel vindicated on the choices they have made.
“We needed to make a change, so we did,” Cox said. “The Castlevania series wasn’t going anywhere, sales were dwindling and it was appealing to only a very small hardcore base of fans. That’s how franchises die. The success of Lords of Shadow proved to everyone that there’s life in the series yet and that people could accept us going in a new direction, and we can do that again. We have to take these risks if Castlevania is to survive, otherwise it’s just going to be like Mega Man.”
MercurySteam will be showing off Lords Of Shadow 2 at E3 this Summer and the game is due out later on this year.
Thanks Edge Online.
505 Games and Overkil have revealed that they will be releasing Payday 2 as a retail release as well as a digital one.
Overkill, the studio behind the series explained that they have so much packed into Payday 2 that they needed to release it at retail.
“We have a bit of a problem here at Overkill – there are just too many great ideas and none that we were really happy to throw out - so Payday 2 has become just too big to reserve release on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network alone,” said the game’s director, David Goldfarb.
Payday 2 is due out on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC via Steam this coming August.
Konami has announced details of this year’s pre-E3 press conference and it’s looking rather good so far.
This year they will be bringing more information on Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and MercurySteam will be showing off the latest on Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow 2.
They will also be giving gamers a first taste of the next edition of Pro Evolution Soccer.
The press conference is scheduled for 6pm (BST) on June the 6th and will be streamed live on Konami’s website.
Ubisoft has revealed that they have been working with tech security specialists Kaspersky Labs to bring a touch of realism to Watch Dogs.
In Watch Dogs players use their smartphones to hack devices around them on the fly providing tactical advantages in sticky situations as well as harvesting information and gaining access to key locations.
The game’s senior producer Dominic Guay said, "We're working with Kaspersky Lab, a big security firm. They have really hardcore experts there on hacking. We send them some of our designs and we ask them feedback on it, and it's interesting to see what gets back. Sometimes they say 'yeah, that's possible, but change that word' or 'that's not the way it works’."
Watch Dogs is due out on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on November the 22nd. Versions for the next Xbox and PS4 are also in development.
Thanks Joystiq.
CCP’s grand cross-platform free-to-play experiment Dust 514 comes out of beta today.
Their PS3 online shooter that offers cross-platform play and interconnectivity with EVE Online is finally fully live.
To celebrate CCP has launched three new booster packs for players to enhance their skills and gear. The Mercenary pack provides 40,000 Aurum, a 30-day skill booster and some exclusive gear for 15.99 GBP.
The Veteran pack includes dropsuits, boosters, 100,000 Aurum, a permanent Blood Raider Acolyte vehicle, a deadly sniper rifle and more for 39.99 GBP.
Finally the Elite pack offers 200,000 Aurum, boosters, four dropsuits, multiple weapons, a permanent light attack vehicle and a collection of heavy assault vehicles for 84.99 GBP.
Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO of CCP said, “Dust 514 has been forged by the willpower and skills of the players who have joined us on the journey to launch, and the talent and determination of our development teams around the world. We are now poised for the next phase of development of Dust 514 and the EVE Universe. We are off to a fantastic start, and ahead is the opportunity to expand even further what games can become. After a decade of preparing for this moment, we will at last see the emerging society of DUST players begin to fight gun-and-grenade for planetary dominance, alongside their EVE Online brethren. For all we have done so far, our best moments are yet to come.”
Max Payne 3 has proven to be a bit of a slow burning hit for Rockstar selling 4 million copies since it was released last Summer.
Rockstar’s parent company Take-Two revealed that Max Payne was one of the major contributors to their income for the at financial year (ending the 31st March 2013).
The game had shipped 3 million copies within a month and it seems to have kept on growing steadily since its launch on May 15th on PS3 and Xbox 360 and June 1st on PC.
Max Payne 3’s performance has been similar to that of stablemate BioShock Infinite which Take-Two revealed has shipped 3.7 million in its first month.
Thanks CVG.
Irrational Games boss and creator of the BioShock series, Ken Levine, has revealed that he is writing something new.