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Archived News:
Following the announcement of plans for a
remake of the original 1980 arcade version of Battlezone,
an open letter to Battlezone fans on the Rebellion website announces plans
to also remake the original remake (huh?), saying they are working on a remaster
of the 1998 PC Battlezone, an RTS/FPS hybrid that bears little resemblance to
the arcade game. Details are scant for now, here is all they have to
say: Firstly, thank you so much for all the great feedback we’ve received
following the unveiling of our Battlezone reboot for virtual reality devices.
Having to keep quiet about something we’re crazy excited for has been a
challenge, so to finally showcase it at E3 and see so many people just as
excited for the game was really gratifying.
As our teaser trailer revealed, our VR version of Battlezone is very much a
reboot of Atari’s 1980 arcade classic, a game we’re very fond of at Rebellion.
However, we also know that a number of you are fans of the 1998 and 1999
Battlezone games released by Activision that re-imagined the franchise as a
groundbreaking hybrid of FPS and RTS gameplay. Naturally when we made our
announcement last week some of you asked, “But what about the newer Battlezone
games? What are you doing with them?”
Well, we’ve read your comments, articles, emails and posts and we’ve seen your
love for these games – so we wanted to make another brief announcement:
We’re very pleased to reveal that we’re also working on a remaster of the
1998 Battlezone for PC.
It’s still early days but when we’re ready to show you more you’ll be the first
to know. All we can say for now is that whichever vision of Battlezone you love,
you’ve not been forgotten!
The Scrolls
website announces Mojang's plans to close up their virtual card-based
strategy game, a surprise revelation just a couple of hours after the release
of an Echoes balance update.
The Microsoft-owned Minecraft developer is committing to operate the game
for at least another year, and they are continuing to sell it, saying they will
use all future proceeds to keep it playable for "as long as possible." Here's
word: Hi everyone,
After much deliberation, we’ve come to an important decision that we’d like to
share: Echoes will be the last major content patch for Scrolls. We won’t be
adding features or sets from now on, though we are planning to keep a close eye
on game balance.
Scrolls will still be available to purchase for the time being, and our servers
will run until at least July 1st, 2016. All future proceeds will go towards
keeping Scrolls playable for as long as possible.
The launch of the Scrolls beta was a great success. Tens of thousands of players
battled daily, and many of them remain active today. Unfortunately, the game has
reached a point where it can no longer sustain continuous development.
We’ve had a great time working on Scrolls, and appreciate every last player
who’s downloaded our game. Extra big thanks to the most dedicated members of our
community; some of you have logged in almost every day since release and
dedicated a large portion of your time to dominating the leaderboards and taking
care of new players. We salute you, honourable scrolldiers.
We will do our best to answer any questions you might have on the standard
channels.
Thanks for reading, everybody.
The Scrolls team <3
Funcom now offers the promised relaunch of LEGO Minifigures Online, which is
no longer a free-to-play dealie, and is now a buy-once game for Windows, OS X,
Linux, iOS, and Android. Here's a
launch trailer, and
here's word on the game, which eschews all that building to focus on action
figures: "LEGO® Minifigures Online is designed for LEGO fans of all ages; for those
who love online games, and those who have never played one before," says Funcom
CEO Rui Casais. "To make it even easier for friends to play together, the game
is playable seamlessly on a large number of platforms and devices, and everyone
plays together in the same online world. No matter whether you are playing on a
smartphone, tablet or desktop, you will all be playing the same game --
together."
In LEGO Minifigures Online, players can collect over one hundred Minifigures
and build a team to journey through classic LEGO worlds. To unlock the full
potential of their minifigures, players must collaborate with others, smashing
through aliens, sea monsters, and more, from Pirate World to Space World and
beyond. To ensure a fun and secure online experience for everyone, the game is
KidSafe-certified and fully COPPA compliant.
Continue here to read the full story.
A
Steam Community Group Announcement has word on a major patch for DiRT
Rally on Steam,
adding a bunch of new content in what they call the Tarmac Terrors update for
the Early Access racing game. The post also states they have "a really
exciting summer of content and updates planned." Here's word on what's new:
Month three of DiRT Rally and our next big update is now live. Version
v.0.5 - more commonly known as the Tarmac Terrors update - has now been added to
DiRT Rally; it’s fast paced, technical and is going to require all your focus.
Here’s the full run down of what you can expect in this month’s update.
New
- 12 new rally stages based at Baumholder in Germany
- Owners Club Online Events – A second DiRT Daily
where you compete in your own car
- A second weekly event where we’ll be experimenting
and throwing new challenges at you
- 5 new rally cars featuring new Group B RWD & Kit
Car Classes
- Opel Kadett GT/E 16v
- Opel Manta 400
- Lancia 037 Evo 2
- Seat Ibiza Kitcar
- Peugeot 306 Maxi
- New calibration and options screens in “Advanced
Wheel Settings” (added in v.0.4.5)
Developer MasangSoft and publisher gameXcite are announce the launch of
closed beta testing of World of Fishing for European gamers, saying they will
grant access on a first-come, first-served basis to the upcoming free-to-play
MMORPG through signups on the World of
Fishing website. You can see a peak at the game through their
"Funny Teaser" video,
and here's word on what they're angling to create: "World of Fishing" is
a full-fledged MMO featuring character development, exciting quests and the
addicting hunt for rare fish. Starting out with a small boat and basic
equipment, players will be able to work their way up to the point where they
will catch huge fish like tuna and even sharks. Dynamic real-time battles with
over 360 fish species controlled by a realistic AI provide an entertaining and
challenging gameplay that feels as close to the “real thing” as possible.
Competitive players can match up against each other in tournaments and team
match mode, while casual players will be able to enjoy the relaxing aspect of
fishing in “freestyle” mode while visiting beautiful, exotic fishing spots from
Vancouver to Cape Town.
Continue here to read the full story.
The summer alpha test is now underway for
Albion Online, the upcoming
cross-platform MMORPG. Access is currently only open to those who have
prepurchased the game's $99.95 legendary founder's pack, and access will be
granted tomorrow to owners of the $49.95 epic founder's pack, while those who
prepurchase the veteran's founder pack will not get alpha access, though they
will get into the closed beta. If all this seems fair to you, you can buy a
founder's pack
through this page.
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided on
the Deus Ex Blog. Final concept art for Adam Jensen in trench coat and
combat armor.
Link of the Day:
Sorry Dude, Not Everyone Can Be A Fruit Ninja. Or, you know, smart. Thanks
nin.
Valve announces that the hardware preorders they began accepting
early this month are now all sold out, so
if you were on the fence about being a guinea pig for this, you missed your
window. This first round of hardware is expected to be released on October 16th,
while the official launch date for Steam Machines, Steam Link, and Steam
Controllers is November 10th. They are still accepting preorders for the
November release on the Steam
Hardware page.
inXile Entertainment knows how to crowdfund, and to that end, they announce a
new stretch goal for
their
Kickstarter for The Bard's Tale IV, saying Chris Avellone will design
an area for the game if it passes the $1.9 million funding mark. They also
dangle the promise of an area designed by Colin McComb at the $1.7 million mark,
giving Chris permanent bragging rights. The game is already funded, right now standing at about $1.35 million in community pledges. Here's word:
inXile Entertainment is excited to announce industry veteran Chris
Avellone (Planescape: Torment, Fallout: New Vegas) is set to join The Bard’s
Tale IV team as a writer and designer if the ongoing Kickstarter reaches $1.9
million, designing an entirely new area called the Cairn of Horrors. This all
new dungeon will contain the worst things that live in the imagination of Chris
Avellone.
But inXile is putting more of the Planescape: Torment design team back together,
as Colin McComb (Planescape: Torment, Torment: Tides of Numenera) will also be
joining the team at $1.7 million, designing a new Realm of the Elves area.
Chris Avellone has worked with inXile before on both of their Kickstarted
titles, Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera. Wasteland 2 was released to
critical and popular acclaim last year.
A NeoGAF thread
links to a
domain tool showing Take Two Games has registered four different domains for
Mafia 3, offering another hint that an announcement of a new game in the crime
series nears. They show that on June 25th the following domains were added to
their name server: mafia3thegame.com, mafiaiiithegame.com, mafiathree.com, and
mafiathreethegame.com. Back in January one of
the voice actors in the series made a couple of tweets saying we might hear news
about Mafia 3 soon. Thanks
PSU.com.
A new
Letter from the Chairman on the Roberts Space Industries website fills us in
on the latest on Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium Games' upcoming space game
(thanks
Rock, Paper, Shotgun). The chairman reveals his film directing ambitions did
not die with the Wing Commander movie, saying: "Directing the Squadron 42
shoot has been one of the most fun and creatively rewarding things I’ve done."
The main focus of the post is the status of the game's first-person shooter
module, which was said to be "near"
back in March, but has not yet
materialized. He outlines the obstacles that the FPS team still needs to hurdle
before this is ready to go, and also discusses the impact this has on progress
for the project as a whole, saying they are investigating a release of an
updated build without the FPS stuff just to give backers a look at the latest
changes. If that makes it sound like they don't know when the FPS module will
be ready for prime time, it's because they don't. Here's word: When will we
see Star Marine? Tonight, I don’t have an absolute answer for you. What I will
tell you is that we know exactly what we have to do, and we’re already well on
our way to doing it. With allocation of additional resources and increased
cross-studio focus on the FPS portion of the game we are on our way… we’re just
not there quite yet. I’m confident that with the significant updates and changes
to the backend architecture discussed above that we will have an experience
worthy of the Star Citizen name; it’s just going to take some additional
integration and testing. On the public side, I know that it’s time to open up
our communications on the Star Marine rollout process: starting with this
message and continuing each week, we will provide a high level update on the
challenges just as we did for Arena Commander.
We ended the 2012 pledge campaign with ‘The Pledge,’ in which I outlined our new
company’s goals to be open about our process. Today, I want to rededicate
ourselves to this: I can’t promise you we’ll meet every internal deadline or
that every decision we make is something you’ll agree with. There will be
challenges that we struggle to overcome, and we will never be able to predict
all of these with certainty…but I can promise you we will keep you informed and
that we will not stop working until the game is done right. After all, that’s
why we’re here in the first place. Your support is letting us create the game we
want to make before anything else. Because of you, we have the freedom to make
sure things work the way we want, even if it takes more time and more effort. We
won’t let you down!
A
Steam Community group announcement outlines all the changes in a new version
1.2 update for the Warhammer 40,000: Regicide, the sci-fi strategy game
currently in Early Access on
Steam. This includes a number of significant changes, and they have posted
a new trailer with a
look at them. Here's word: "Warhammer 40,000: Regicide sees the largest update
it's had to Early Access, with the addition of new environments, two new
factions, hotseat, and live Multiplayer features. A series of newly released
imagery depicts a new battlefield - a ruined Imperial monument surrounded by
trees, smoke and motes of ash at the heart of an ancient forest." Here are
the highlights:
- Raven Guard Space Marine Chapter
- Snake Bites Ork Clan
- The Ancient Forrest Environment
- Multiple daytime settings
- Hotseat Mode (two people on the same machine)
- LIVE multiplayer with countdown timers!
- New AI with double the strength of previous
iterations
- Huge audio update
- Significant Updates to Play vs Friends
Continue here to read the full story.
Twitch has an archive of
a stream where Matt Wagner discusses and shows off progress on DCS World 2,
their upcoming flight simulator relaunch. The clip has no description, but
InBlack, our reader who submitted the news, provides one: "The footage stream is
about an hour long, but the flying (read: aeroplane simulation fighter porn)
starts about halfway through. Very realistic flybyes over Area 51, Nellis Air
Force Base, the city of Vegas, and Hoover Dam."
Word is
they plan such streams weekly until the launch of DCS World 2.0.
A
reddit thread offers a link to
another thread which discusses how many players are currently logging in to
EVE Online, CCP's space-based MMORPG, shown in charts
hosted here (thanks
Destructoid). They state that player counts are at their lowest point since
2008, and attempts to summarize what has lead to this point:
- CCP bans the use of ISBoxer, a program that allows input broadcasting to
multiple clients at once. No longer can a single player simultaneously
control 40 mining ships or squads of stealth bombers. These characters are
sold ("legally") to other players and the accounts unsubscribed.
- CCP changes the mechanics through which capital ships can move around
the universe. Alt accounts used to move capitals are no longer greatly
depended upon, and they are unsubscribed. Previously it was important for
any alliance to have a traveling network available to anywhere at a moment's
notice. Nerfs to capital ship movement made this unfeasible, and such vast
networks are no longer needed.
- The new player experience now relies greatly on player-made corps to
teach new players the game. While helpful, drama in these groups seems to
result in tons of new players simply quitting the game rather than finding a
new group to hang out with. New players rely on veteran players to create
content for them, and when that stops happening regularly they are bored and
quit.
- To go hand-in-hand with #3, old players are quitting for reasons that
old players quit games for, but there aren't as many new players sticking
with the game due to the high barrier-to-entry/required skill training times
for many activities.
- CCP is changing how space is conquered and controlled by alliances. Once
the change was announced, many large groups put everything on hold to wait
for the update. Many players in these groups unsubscribed and are waiting to
see if the new system is worth subscribing for.
The new phonebooks are here! GfK Chart-Track is back with their weekly rundown
of the bestselling games in the U.K. Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward is
the number one entry on the
PC games chart for the week ending June 27th, dropping The Sims 4 to
number two. The PC version of Batman: Arkham Knight which
was pulled does not
appear on that chart. On the
all platforms chart the new Batman game debuts at number one, Yoshi's
Wolly World enters at number four, and Heavensward debuts at number 10.
Here's word:
Warner’s ‘Batman Arkham’ series is back with a bang as the fourth
instalment ‘Batman Arkham Knight’ transitions to PS4/Xbox One and becomes the
new No1 (knocking Warner’s No1 from last week ‘Lego Jurassic World’ down to
No2).
‘Batman Arkham Knight’ is also the week 1 best-seller for the franchise
(previously held by 2011’s 2nd instalment Batman Arkham City) and also becomes
the week 1 best-seller this year so far, comfortably beating previous week 1
best-seller ‘The Witcher 3’. Batman AK dev duty was handed back to Rocksteady in
the UK, the lead developer for all Arkham games except the third instalment
(2013’s Batman Arkham Origins) and this is also the first Arkham game to get a
Tuesday ‘event’ day launch in the UK.
This is Warner’s 4th No1 this year (Dying Light, MK X, Lego Jurassic World,
Batman AK) - the last time a publisher had at least 4 No1 hits in the first half
of the year was back in 2012 (EA with FIFA12, Kingdoms of Amalur, SSX, Mass
Effect 3 and Fifa Street). The first half of 2015 closes with a few other new
releases: Nintendo’s Wii U ‘Yoshi’s Woolly World’ gets off to a great start at
No4, Square Enix debut at No10 with ‘Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward’ for PS4 &
PC, PQube and Milestone debut at No13 with multi-format ‘MotoGP 15’ and Bandai
Namco complete the Top 40 new entries at No18 with ‘J-Stars Victory VS+’ for
Sony formats.
Took advantage of the rainy weekend to start a movie watching project I'm
surprised I've never gotten to before now. Calling it project will probably
sound less odd when I explain that this is the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which
I have never actually seen. To make up for the omission, I watched the extended
edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, which was not short to begin with. I was
still surprised that this spanned two discs, but it was so lengthy an
intermission was welcome, so this wasn't as bad as I thought at first. Now I'm
surprised that I was surprised at how good the first movie was (maybe because I
found the books so slow)... It certainly doesn't seem logical for a movie with a
92 metacritic rating and a best picture nomination. Now I have to clear time for
the other two... and of course each is longer than the last.
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