The first round of DLC for Metro Last Light will be next week’s Faction Pack. This consists of three missions, one from each of the game’s factions, which is a pretty cool angle for further exploring Metro’s post-apocalyptic subway expression of the Russian national identity.
As a Special Detachment Sniper of the Redline, players must infiltrate a heavily guarded Reich Outpost at night, under the cover of a deadly radioactive storm…before defending the Frontline as a Reich ‘Heavy’, armed with some of the most devastating weaponry found in the Metro. Lastly, players take the role of a Polis Ranger in training, tasked with exploring the vast Library complex for artifacts and relics. Salvage can be exchanged for ammunition, filters and hazard suits allowing ever deeper exploration into the Library. Rangers are advised to ignite torches and leave a trail of lights, so they can find their way back to the base before their precious oxygen runs out.
Publisher Deep Silver also announced details for the rest of the announced DLC.
The ‘Tower Pack’ presents a unique experience for seasoned Metro gunslingers – a challenge based game mode, with online Leaderboard support, as players fight their way up the combat simulator known as The Tower
The ‘Developer Pack’ boasts a fully stocked Shooting Gallery, the AI Arena and Metro Museum… And a bonus solo mission — The Spiders’ Nest — offers some new tools for dealing with an infestation of the skittering Spider mutants
Lastly the Chronicles Pack will feature original single player missions that cast the player as three of the game’s standout characters — Pavel, Khan and Anna — and explore their side-stories away from Artyom’s adventure.
Each pack will be $5, or available as part of a $15 season pass. Meanwhile, Bioshock DLC is a no-show and Square/Enix is selling multiplayer maps for Tomb Raider.
Linden Lab, developers of Second Life and Patterns, has acquired Desura, the PC game delivery service best known for offering a lot of indie titles. Gamasutra posted the official announcement from Linden Lab regarding the purchase.
“Desura’s talented team, thriving business, and impressive technology are a great fit for Linden Lab,” said Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab. “This acquisition gives us a global platform for serving creative developers of all kinds, and we’re looking forward to growing both Desura’s global community of gamers and its fantastic portfolio of thousands of games, mods, and other content. Our aim is to invest and support the Desura team in making it the most open and developer-friendly platform in the world.”
Linden Lab said that Desura service would continue uninterrupted for customers during the acquisition period.
Sega has joined the ranks of people suing THQ for money. In a Delaware court filing, Sega claims that THQ was paid over $941k for preorders of Company of Heroes 2 through Steam, which Sega says should be paid to them since they now publish the game. Sega also claims that $508,877.85 has priority of debt due to Valve paying that amount to THQ after THQ filed for bankruptcy in December 2012.
Sega purchased developer Relic Entertainment along with the Company of Heroes series rights for $26.6 million during the THQ asset auction in January of this year. THQ currently owes more than $200 million to various creditors.
One of the neatest things about Saints Row 3 is the ability to “acquire” almost any vehicle in the game and customize it so that it looks like a cartoon version of a car in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Nothing is cooler than my golf cart with huge wheels, bling rims, and gold trim. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V promises to have an extensive car customization feature which makes my Xzibit senses tingle. Game Informer has details of the options that will be available to pimp your rides in the new “LS Customs” locations.
In addition to the many cosmetic customization alterations such as body kits, paint jobs/finishes, wheels, exhaust tips, window tints, tire smoke color, bull-bars, extra lights, and lots of other extra accessories, we have modifications that will affect gameplay and vehicle performance. Some of the modifications that affect gameplay include brakes, engine tuning, suspension, horns, bulletproof tires, panel armor, and of course, a general repair! There are more than 1,000 modifications in total. And when you’re done customizing your car, you can take a picture of it using the in-game cell phone and upload them to the Social Club.
This make-it-yours customization gameplay extends to your guns as well! Extended clips, ammo types, grips, scopes, and paints are just some of the weapon options GTA V will offer. My inner Saint wants to play in Los Santos!
Dota 2 is finally launching. Valve’s take on the eSport competitive MOBA genre is officially out of beta. If you’re one of the few people that wanted to play Dota 2 during the beta but somehow didn’t get an invite or wanted to wait for the full game, then your wait is over. There is a catch, however. Valve, in their almighty wisdom, has chosen to make the game available in waves to preserve bandwidth and keep the servers from being overloaded.
Like we mentioned before, the launch of Dota 2 is going to take on a different shape than products we’ve shipped in the past. Our thinking is that we want the existing audience to have uninterrupted access during the launch, in addition to bringing new players into Dota 2 in a way that isn’t frustrating. Simply put, we want to smooth out the traditional launch spike, but at the same time allow anyone to come in and try out Dota 2.
New players will be added in batches in the order of the sign-up queue, according to Valve. Even as a beta, Dota 2 has the largest user base of any game Valve has released.
I just got an official collections notice for my house in Lord of the Rings Online, a game I haven’t really played since it went free-to-play three years ago. “Dear occupant,” the email read, “We love having you as a neighbor, but you must pay your housing upkeep! Foreclosure deadline is July 26th.” July 26th is underlined.
The email links to this update from two months ago about player housing, which pretends that real estate in a virtual world is a limited commodity so they’re gonna need the space back. That’s what I call RPing.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will be coming to the PC, PS3, and PS4, but not the Xbox 360 or Xbox One. Contrary to some rumors, the MMORPG isn’t skipping Microsoft’s consoles because of an exclusivity deal with Sony. Producer and director Naoki Yoshida told RPG Site that he doesn’t think Microsoft’s policy of not allowing cross-platform play is right for his game.
The main reason from our side is that I don’t want the community to be divided; to be split into two or more. For example, one player might be on the PC version, another might be on the PS4 version, and I’m playing the Xbox version – but we’re not able to join the same game servers. That is just… I just don’t like the idea. I disagree with it.
If it was a P2P or an MO, then it would be fine – but for FF14, if that frustration happens, maybe one of those players says ‘OK, I will give up my PS4 character and start out for scratch, making a new account from scratch on another machine. I don’t think that’s fair.
I really want the community to stick together and not be split into two or be divided because of that reason. That’s one of the reasons that means that unless the policy chances, Xbox just doesn’t make sense to us.
All five Final Fantasy fans that don’t own a Sony console will be devasted. Fans of the series that only have a Xbox will just have to suck it up and get a Sony PS3, PS4, or PC if they want to take part in a Realm Reborn. They’ll still be able to play Final Fantasy XV on the Xbox One someday.
In Marvel Heroes, my level 16 Wolverine just found a pet jawa. For some reason, he looks peeved. The jawa, not Wolverine. Wolverine just looks sullen. Now Wolverine bloodlessly eviscerates bad guys while a fretting jawa tags along behind him.
When Disney bought Marvel, I expected crossover gimmicks. But this? I just thank the maker I didn’t find an Ewok.
A few days ago, Blizzard acknowledged that they were experimenting with adding an in-game store to World of Warcraft, but stopped short of saying which regions would get the feature and the kinds of items that might be for sale. Blizzard’s Micah Whipple posted some news that should really excite all the players in Asia looking to spend more money on WoW.
For players who are already interested in the in-game items we offer, such as Pet Store pets and mounts, the benefits of an in-game store are pretty clear. We think everyone would appreciate the convenience of being able to make such purchases without having to leave the game, and ultimately that’s our long-term goal for the system, though there’s quite a bit of work involved in retrofitting those existing items into the new system.
First, we’ll be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items we’re looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback: specifically, an experience buff to assist with the leveling process, as well as an alternate way to acquire Lesser Charms of Good Fortune. We’ve had a lot of requests from players in different regions for convenience-oriented items such as these, and as with other new ideas we’ve introduced as WoW has evolved – including Pet Store pets, mounts, and more – your feedback plays a hugely important part in determining what we add to the game.
The in-game store will be rolled out to the public test server for everyone to check out soon.
Fallen London, one of the best games of last year, is mostly a text adventure. But now the developers at Failbetter Games are experimenting with pictures. They’ve just launched a Fallen London comic book, but they’re only releasing two pages a day. It’s an odd way to read a comic book, but I guess it recreates the experience of playing Fallen London, where you only get a certain number of turns a day. And like the short snippets of narrative in the game, this comic book is only six pages long.
It starts here, but if you wait until Wednesday, you can read it all at once.
The Writers’ Group Film Corp. has announced, that they have purchased Amiga Games Inc. including the licensing rights to the full library of over 300 classic video games. The content distribution company paid $500k for the acquisition and plans to continue making the games available through other publishers and developers.
Eric Mitchell, Chairman and CEO of Writers’ Group commented, “We are pleased to be working with this well-managed game developer and distributor, and we are excited that we are participating in their growth story through this acquisition. We believe Amiga Games has an established value proposition that can enhance both revenues and returns to our bottom line.”
Many Amiga titles are already available on iOS, Android, and PC digital stores.
If you watch Defiance, the Syfy sci-fi show, you might see a wanted poster in the background. If you peer closely, you might see the image of the character model of a player who won a contest in the online game. That’s not really much of a prize. By my count, that contest winner still has 14 minutes and 58 seconds of fame coming to him. If you want that coveted spot in season two, what are you doing reading this post? You’ve got your work cut out for you:
The ten Ark Hunters who complete the most Major Arkfall events between July 8 (10am PDT) and July 30 (10am PDT) will compete for a chance to have their character written onto the show. These ten semifinalists will be fleshed out with a backstory written by the show’s writing staff, which will be featured on Facebook, where Defiance fans will choose their five favorites. From this pool of five finalists, a member of the Defiance team will select the final winner to appear in season two of Defiance.
Never mind that the writers of the show are going to come up with the backstory for someone else’s character, and that it’s going to be consigned to Facebook. And never mind that appearing on a wanted poster is a pretty poor excuse for crossover. I certainly didn’t believe any of the transmedia bill of goods we were sold about the game affecting the show in any meaningful way. That’s just not how TV works.
What bothers me about this whole thing is the actual contest. There is no way on God’s green earth that you or I stand a chance to be among the top ten players who do the most major arkfalls before the end of the month. I simply don’t have that kind of time and I seriously doubt you do either. This contest is only for hardcore fans with hardcore catass levels of commitment. Major arkfalls are time-consuming exercises that involve standing in a mob of swarming players all shooting at a massive bag of hit points until it pops, at which point you get not much of a reward. It’s one of the least interesting ways to play Defiance.
If Trion had instead framed the contest as a drawing among people who completed major arkfalls, I could see myself popping online to do arkfalls a few times in the next month. More importantly, the committed but not quite hardcore enough fans might actually care about the contest, because they would have a chance of winning. There’s a reason people play lotteries, buy raffle tickets, and enter drawings. Whereas the best contests sell hope, Trion simply demands grinding.
Fans of smashing undead bobbies with cricket bats won’t be doing it again on the Wii U anytime soon. Ubisoft’s ZombiU was not profitable enough to warrant a sequel according to CEO Yves Guillemot. Speaking to GamesIndustry International about the Wii U console, Guillemot revealed that the innovative title featuring a zombie apocalypse set in London performed below expectations.
ZombiU, one of the most popular launch titles for the system with players, was not profitable, he says. Not even close. As such, he says, there are no plans (or even desire) for a sequel.
It was, in fact, because of that game’s performance that Ubisoft decided to make Rayman Legends a multiplatform game.
ZombiU was favorably reviewed on Quarter to Three.
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto told shareholders during an annual meeting that the company underestimated the amount of work needed to create HD visuals in games for the Wii U console. In the translated text of the 73rd Annual General Meeting of Shareholders Q&A posted by Nintendo, Miyamoto offers this explanation for the delays in shipping new software like Pikmin 3.
When it comes to the scale of software development, Wii U with HD graphics requires about twice the human resources than before. Please allow me to explain that we may have underestimated the scale of this change and as a result, the overall software development took more time than originally anticipated just as we tried to polish the software at the completion phase of development.
Miyamoto went on to say that the company was building a “Nintendo Web Framework” to facilitate development. The network will allow teams to share resources and use open web technologies to assist in creating assets for Wii U software production.
Hold on to your ironic John Deere hats. Farming Simulator is coming to the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles and Giants Software is adding the Stars & Stripes to the mix!
An entirely new American backdrop has now been added to the extensive European environment familiar to PC players, which will double the size of the gameplay area in Farming Simulator. Inspired by typical American farms, this new and monumental terrain represents a total change of scene, with new locations, fresh development opportunities for your farm and even bigger fields suitable for the largest agricultural machinery available in the game.
Farming Simulator for consoles is releasing in early September.
