Open season: Sir, You Are Being Hunted hits v1.0 on May 1st
Procedurally-generated stealth and survival romp, Sir, You Are Being Hunted is getting close to a major milestone: v1.0. Come May 1st, the game will escape the shackles of the 0.Xs, and that’s not far away at all.
Just a dash over two weeks, and you’ll be able to sneak around moors, industrial towns and woods while being hunted by gentlemen robots and metallic poachers. Of course, you could be doing that right now, as it’s been in Early Access for a while.
World of Darkness MMO gets a stake driven through its heart
Put away your bloodsucking dentures, because as of today, CCP’s World of Darkness MMO is no more. CCP’s Atlanta studio has been hit hard by the cancellation, with 56 employees losing their jobs. Some have been offered positions in other parts of the company, while the remaining staff will focus on developing games in the EVE universe.
“The decision to end the World of Darkness MMO project is one of the hardest I’ve ever had to make,” said CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson. “I have always loved and valued the idea of a sandbox experience set in that universe, and over the years I’ve watched the team passionately strive to make that possible.”
Subnautica screenshots rise up out of the depths
I went snorkeling once, in Australia. I was scared I’d be eaten by a shark, but that fear soon revealed itself to be silly when compared to the real dangers of the sea. When I surfaced and swam back to our gently bobbing platform, I watched as a man tried to stem the blood pouring out of his leg. He’d brushed up against the reef and now had a big hole where flesh should be.
So it is with nervous, almost fearful anticipation that Iap up these Subnautica screenshots. Unknown World’s new game - in a new genre, they say - is all about exploring alien, underwater realms. They are places to build in, navigate through and encounter life within. They are also strikingly pretty.
Oculus Rift officially a big deal: David Attenborough's making a nature documentary for it
There are a lot of animals I don’t care about. For instance, I couldn’t give two hoots about ants. Or lemurs. But show me some footage of them with David Attenborough’s soothing but authoritative voice narrating their antics, and I’m suddenly hooked.
The nature boffin and documentary maker’s latest project, Conquest of the Skies, is being filmed for the Oculus Rift. Viewers will be able to witness panoramic scenes from the jungles of Borneo, filmed using a special 360° camera setup that utilises eight different cameras.
Get your nanomachine fix while you still can: Crysis and Crysis 2 multiplayer shutting down
If you still dabble in the occasional spot of Crysis and Crysis 2 multiplayer, you only have until May 31st to get all of your kicks. Both games will lose online functionality when GameSpy officially shuts down at the end of next month.
Some developers and publishers are seeking alternatives; some by migrating to Steam, others by creating their own online support. This will not be the case with Crysis and Crysis 2.
The Elder Scrolls Online fansite creates a trading system because ZeniMax Online won't
ZeniMax Online decided not to create an auction house or any serious trading system into The Elder Scrolls Online. I’d say commerce in TESO is very Dark Ages, but the early medieval era actually had markets, traders and some form of organisation.
So it’s come down to players creating a system. A marketplace that doesn’t exist in-game, but in the TESO Elite fansite, devised by players. The official TESO Twitter account has endorsed the system, probably so the developers can get back to squashing all the bugs that have been plaguing the game since launch. It's an odd endorsement, though, as ZeniMax previously defended its no auction house stance by saying such things ruin game economies and trivialise getting good gear.
Anti-insurgent detergent: Soap MacTavish to return in Call of Duty: Ghosts, somehow
The improbably named Soap, lesser known as John, MacTavish was the protagonist of the Modern Warfare series - when the protagonist wasn’t some poor blighter about to be shot in the head in first-person so we could all share a big gasp.
He was forcibly retired at the close of the trilogy - but creators Infinity Ward have hinted at his return to active doody in upcoming DLC for Call of Duty: Ghosts.
Why X-COM creator Julian Gollop left handheld gaming behind and came back to the PC
Before the (hopefully) imminently Kickstarted Chaos Reborn, X-Com creator Julian Gollop hadn’t made a PC game in over a decade. As an independent developer and as a producer at Ubisoft Sofia, he’d made games mainly for Nintendo handhelds - the platforms which for some time he considered the “last refuge” of turn-based strategy.
But now he’s back, building a PC-first tactics game. Something - a couple of things, actually - changed his mind.
Pitch perfect: here's some match footage from Blood Bowl 2
Back when Dawn of War was the only real prospect of PC gaming in a war-only future, we used to moan. We used to hanker after the one-to-one adaptations of Games Workshop’s more accomplished tabletop games they weren’t commissioning.
Well: be careful what you wish for. Space Hulk happened, and it wasn’t so hot. Cyanide’s Blood Bowl had a buggy beginning, but fared better - by the time of its Legendary Edition, it’d built up a committed amateur league following.
With Blood Bowl 2, Cyanide plan to deliver on that initial promise that kept players fighting through the bugs with a more accessible, feature-heavier revision of the formula. Here’s what it looks like.
Caffeine Tech Interview – FOV Slider, Global Illumination, Tessellation, Dynamic Shadows & More
This weekend, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dylan Browne of Incandescent Imaging who shared with us some interesting new tech details about his upcoming sci-fi horror title, Caffeine. We talked with Dylan about the tech features behind Caffeine, the inclusion of a FOV slider and options to toggle on/off mouse acceleration, whether the game will include a fully dynamic shadowing system and whether Global Illumination is being utilized. Enjoy the interview after the jump! Continue reading
Interceptor Launches New Countdown Page For Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction
Interceptor Entertainment has launched a new countdown page for its latest Duke Nukem title, Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction. According to the source code, the countdown will most probably end next month (2014-05-15), though that’s not confirmed as of yet. Continue reading
NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM Revolution Is Coming To PC This September
Our readers ‘Gianluca Manocchio’ and ‘Noctis Caelum’ have informed us about NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM Revolution; the latest installment of the NARUTO SHIPPUDEN: Ultimate Ninja STORM series that will hit our platform this September. Continue reading
MechRunner Announced – New High-octane Action Game – Coming This Summer
Spark Plug Games unveiled today its newest game - MechRunner - that will launch this Summer on PC, PS4 and PSVita. MechRunner is a high-octane endless action game that casts you as a powerful mode-changing mech. Blast your way through decimated urban landscapes at incredible speeds while switching between robot and tank modes to rain punishment on endless waves of mechanical foes. Continue reading
Child of Light – Lemuria Trailer
Ubisoft has released a new trailer for its upcoming JRPG, Child of Light, that welcomes us to the world of Lemuria. Child of Light is described as an RPG inspired by fairy tales, created by the talented team at Ubisoft Montreal using the UbiArt Framework. The game is currently scheduled for an April 30th release. Enjoy! Continue reading
Outcast Reboot HD – New In-Engine Video Shows The Tech Behind This Remake
Fresh3D has released a new video for the upcoming remake of Outcast, showing the tech powering it. As its description reads, this is a WIP video of our current prototype map of Shamazaar, meaning that it does not reflect the quality of the final product. This reworked version of Shamazaar looks sweet and is packed with full dynamic shadows. Enjoy! Continue reading
StarCraft & Conquer: One-Man RTS Meridian Now On Steam
By Nathan Grayson on April 15th, 2014 at 2:00 pm.
Here it is: the moment of truth. Meridian: New World, the RTS that should still still be impossible, can now be played by the masses. The shiny new space-base base-race is largely the work of one man, which is the sort of information that makes my mind both boggle and Super Puzzle-Bobble All-Stars. It’s now available on Steam Early Access, so probably get on that because it looks kinda great.
Deus Next: Technolust Is Cyberpunk VR
By Nathan Grayson on April 15th, 2014 at 11:00 am.
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo,” lamented Juliet’s disembodied cyber-spine from her mechanized gelatinous vat while wistfully tearing the arms from a cleaning droid the way one might pick petals from a flower. That is what the name Technolust makes me think of. The game is not at all about that, but it is about as cyberpunk as cyberpunk gets. It’s got monolithic, neon-glistening structures, drone-eclipsed skies, and copious references to the likes of Blade Runner and Neuromancer. The twist? It’s a made-for-VR experience, and it looks mighty attractive despite its somewhat generic leanings.
Spitfire Spit Take: Cult Of The Wind Has Human Dogfights
By Graham Smith on April 15th, 2014 at 9:00 am.
If you can look beyond their booger-noses and barely masked sociopathy, children make excellent game designers. They do this stuff for free all the time, just to amuse themselves. Every weekend is crunch time. Developers North of Earth are wise to look to them for inspiration, making a multiplayer shooter about human dogfights. “In Cult of the Wind, players compete and cooperate in ritualistic multi-player human dogfights, complete with imaginary weapons, pretend explosions, and airplane noises made with their mouths.” It looks delightful, it’s on Greenlight, and there’s a trailer below.
Found: S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Lost Alpha Mod Coming This Month
By Alice O'Connor on April 15th, 2014 at 8:00 am.
Like old Stalker tales told around the campfire, a lot of strange and wonderful things were once said to be in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, from naked green dwarves to driveable vehicles and a whole extra city. Several mods have restored various bits of cut content, based on leftover files and leaked dev builds, but Lost Alpha is one of the more ambitious. What began as a project to remake and reintegrate these leftovers has blown up into a new parallel story which includes (new) old content and a bits of the creators’ own design too.
In response to some ruffian leaking a scrappy old build from November, developers Dezowave Group have decided to release Lost Alpha earlier than planned then keep working on it. It’ll arrive on April 26, the 28th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster which started all this.
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