Ex-Relic, Bioware, Riot & Volition devs form Hinterland Studio, debut title The Long Dark coming to Kickstarter

The Long Dark is the first title from Hinterland Studio, a new developer formed by ex-Relic Entertainment, BioWare, Riot Games and Volition Inc members. It’s an episodic, open world survival game coming to PC, Mac, and Linux.

The project is coming to Kickstarter on September 16, and it’s a first-person sandbox survival experience set in a North America after a disaster has destroyed the nation’s technology infrastructure. You can get an overview on what the game’s about over at Hinterland’s page.

Hinterland’s first episode casts players as bush pilot William Mackenzie who finds himself stranded in the Northern wilderness along with other survivors. As players roam the new frontier, they’ll have to gather resources and knowledge to survive, while overcoming some difficult moral choices that will impact the fate of the game world at large.

Heading up Hinterland Studio is creative director Raphael van Lierop, who has 13 years industry experience across such projects as Far Cry 3, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.

The Lost Dark will also span other media, but details are thin at the moment.

In a statement, van Lierop said of the project, “We want to be part of the incredible crowdfunding revolution, and create a direct relationship with our players. This new model allows us directly engage our community, to expand on our existing resources to help achieve our ultimate vision for the game. Through this additional support, we can add richness to the experience in line with our backer’s expectations, while also maintaining the creative independence that is core to our identity.”

http://www.vg247.com/2013/09/09/ex-relic-bioware-riot-volition-devs-form-hinterland-studio-debut-title-the-long-dark-coming-to-kickstarter/

How Project Phoenix hopes to disrupt the JRPG genre – Interview

Project Phoenix is the new tactical RPG from Creative Intelligence Arts. VG247′s Dave Cook learns more about the studio’s blend of Eastern and Western philosophies, as well as Nobou Uematsu’s involvement.

We’ve seen a wave of Kickstarter success stories out of Japan recently. Just last week Keiji Inafune managed to raise over a million dollars for his Mega Man successor Mighty No. 9 in under two days, and before that we saw indie RPG Project Phoenix raise $826,075 when all it needed was $100,000 to succeed.

The latter is serious business. Project Phoenix is a triple-a, tactical, squad-based JRPG developed by new studio Creative Intelligence Arts. It’s a team of talented developers from both the East and West that boasts a combined work history spanning Skyrim, Valkyria Chronicles, L.A. Noire, Diablo 3, Halo 4 and Crysis 3, as well as the Final Fantasy series at large.

Stewarded by director and producer Hiroaki Yura, the game blends JRPG sensibilities with StarCraft-inspired RTS combat that results in an intriguing hybrid. I recently managed to speak with Yura over email and I opened by asking him for some background on the project, given the scale of its global development.

continued http://www.vg247.com/2013/09/09/we-want-fantasy-to-be-believable-how-project-phoenix-aims-to-shake-up-the-jrpg-genre/

was just going to post this.

btw for comparison the bf3 requirements:

Minimum System Requirements
 • OS: Windows Vista (Service Pack 2) 32-Bit
 • Processor: 2 GHz dual-core (Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Athlon X2 2.7 GHz)
 • Memory: 2 GB
 • Hard Drive: 20 GB
 • GPU (AMD): DirectX 10.1 compatible with 512 MB RAM (ATI Radeon 3000, 4000, 5000 or 6000 series, with ATI Radeon 3870 or higher performance)
 • GPU (Nvidia): DirectX 10.1 compatible with 512 MB RAM (Nvidia GeForce 8, 9, 200, 300, 400 or 500 series with Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or higher performance)
 • Sound Card: DirectX compatible
 • Keyboard and mouse
 • DVD-ROM drive

Recommended System Requirements:
 • OS: Windows 7 64-bit
 • Processor: Quad-core CPU
 • Memory: 4 GB
 • Hard Drive: 20 GB
 • GPU: DirectX 11 compatible with 1024 MB RAM (Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 or ATI Radeon 6950)
 • Sound Card: DirectX compatible
 • Keyboard and mouse
 • DVD-ROM drive

Hmm...

Why do they put the 7870/660 cards as the recomended cards and then put 3GB of graphics memory? None of those cards have 3 GB.

The Stanley Parable will release on Steam next month

First person meta-narrative ‘em up The Stanley Parable is set to launch on Steam sometime next month, creator Davey Wreden has announced. Check after the jump for lovely new screenshots of the almost finished revision of the game.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/09/10/the-stanley-parable-will-release-on-steam-next-month/

Stardock promotes former Civilisation IV modder Derek Paxton to Vice President

As the company’s 20th anniversary looms next month, Stardock has announced the promotion of Fall from Heaven modder Derek Paxton to the vice presidency of the company’s games division and overseer of all games development at the strategy and software company.

While Stardock used to be renowned for their 4x franchise Galactic Civilisations, the company hit a bit of a slump towards the end of the last decade, releasing a 4x fantasy game named Elemental: War of Magic to broad critical disappointment and choosing to publish Gas Powered Games’ ultimately unsuccessful MOBA Demigod.

However, the company also hired a bright Civilisation IV modder Derek Paxton in 2010, which has turned out to be one of the best decisions the company ever made. Under his guidance as lead Fallen Enchantress and its expansion Legendary heroes have been met with great critical acclaim within the strategy space, doubly impressive considering that Fallen Enchantress was for all intents and purposes an expansion of the much reviled Elemental: War of Magic.

Brad Wardell, Stardock’s outspoken CEO is vacating his previous role as head of games to make space for Paxton. However, he doesn’t want you to think he’s retiring:

“I’m not retiring or anything. We’re just in the process of expanding in a big way. Derek has really transformed the game studio. His experience at managing multiple projects combined with his amazing design skills has resulted in not just better games but a better working environment for our teams.”

As part of the announcment, Stardock also mentioned that they’ll be announcing new games “and more” as part of their 20th anniversary celebrations next month, so look out for that if you’re a strategy fan.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/09/10/stardock-promotes-former-civilisation-iv-modder-derek-paxton-to-vice-president/

Eldritch is a first person roguelike to the tune of HP Lovecraft

Eldritch, currently on Steam Greenlight, is a first person shooter with roguelike sensibilities and a deep reverence for the modern Lovecraftian style. That might sound like a jumble of modern PC indie buzzwords, but you owe it to yourself to check out the trailer below the jump, it’s a fun time.

What jaunty music for something that takes inspiration from the horror of HP Lovecraft. What that style has come to represent these days is weirdly disconnected from anything Lovecraft ever wrote.

Anyways, Eldritch is being made by two former AAA first person shooter developers: David Pittman who worked on Bioshock 2 and XCOM Declassified’s AI and J. Kyle Pittman, his twin brother, who was a programmer on Borderlands 1 and 2. The brothers describe Eldritch as being inspired by immersive sims like Bioshock and Deus Ex, which manifests in the ability to both fight and sneak your way through the game’s procedurally generated levels.

Additionally they seem to have taken inspiration from another immersive sim, Dishonored, in the game’s robust movement system augmented by various magics and general pace of place, which seems much faster than most immersive sims.

Eldritch is available from its official website for $15, which includes Beta access at the end of the month and a Steam key if the Greenlight campaign is successful. For the moment the game is only targeting a PC release on October 21.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/09/10/eldritch-is-a-first-person-roguelike-to-the-tune-of-hp-lovecraft/

AMD to drop GPU prices in Australia, include Saints Row 4 with high end cards

AMD are set to drop the prices of their high end graphics cards in Australia, including the HD 7990, HD 7970 and HD 7950. Additionally, they’ll be rolling the Orbtastic Saints Row 4 into their “Never settle” program, which essentially means it’ll be bundled in with the GPUs above. Prices after the break.

The HD 7990 will now retail for a mere $949, while the 7970 Ghz Edition will set you back $479. A 7970 without an overclock will cost just $419 while the weaker 7950 is down to $319 RRP. Obviously most vendors don’t sell at retail anyways, but this drop will probably be reflected in most prices across the country.

If you already own Saints Row 4 but want to pick up one of these games, don’t worry, because AMD are now including a generic “Never Settle” code in with these GPUs which can be redeemed as late as December 31st, so if they decide to bundle in a better game by then, you can get that instead of SR4.

http://www.vg247.com/2013/09/10/amd-to-drop-gpu-prices-in-australia-include-saints-row-4-with-high-end-cards/

Space Engineers because in space no one can hear you secure a hull breach

While Gary wasn't looking the other three plotted to pin him down and fart in his air supply

It’s certainly an ambitious game. This is how developer Keen Software House describe it “Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction and maintenance of space works. Players build space ships and space stations of various sizes and utilization (civil and military), pilot ships and perform asteroid mining.

“Space Engineers utilizes a realistic volumetric-based physics engine: all objects can be assembled, disassembled, damaged and destroyed.”

We’ve seen so little of the game that we can’t say exactly how it will all work. The video seems to suggest that there are big floating scaffolds that you hop about welding the gaps shut. If that’s the case then it doesn’t look like the most exciting game in the world. Though if you’re able to design and expand on these scaffolds then we may be onto something a little more compelling.

Certainly, the developer suggests you’ll be able to do more: “Space Engineers concentrates on construction aspects, but can be played as a tactical shooter as well. We expect players to avoid engaging in direct man-to-man combat and instead use their creativity and engineering skills to build war machines and fortifications. Space Engineers shouldn’t be about troops; it should be about the machinery you build.”

Space Engineers will be coming to Steam Early Access in the near future.

http://www.pcgamesn.com/indie/space-engineers-because-space-no-one-can-hear-you-secure-hull-breach

And for you point and click fans

^ You mean, for the ONE point and click fan on VGC? Yeah, very nice visuals, but I bet it will be designed with iPads in mind.

This is the latest great release for the few point and click fans out there: http://memoria.daedalic.de/en/mediacontent/screens/

I know that I'm actually not the only one, I was just kidding. I'm probably the only VGC member left though who does not only consider visual novels and interactive movies as point and click games these days and the only one who follows ALL p&c games currently worldwide in development, if possible.

And of course I know about Cognition, I've backed the game development almost 2 years ago via Kickstarter (i.e. I already bought it back then) and I played the first episode when it came out. A very intense thriller, it was well received by critics and p&c fans alike, but mystery/crime thriller is not my most favorite adventure topic. I really liked what I saw in Cognition episode 1 though, maybe I'll finish the game some day. I also added the game to ioi's new baby gamewise (where it magically appeared much to spurgeonryan's surprise, who's always stunned by all those wondrous game-related topics outside of his endless Nintendo doom threads and the 2 Nintendo games he buys each year).

Star Citizen is such a phenomenon. Incredible numbers for a crowd funded game.

I'm a bit sceptical of what the final outcome will be but I was impressed by the hangar demo.