It’s time to play catch-up on a few key games that are releasing later this year and share some fun news bits for some of our recent favorites. We’re going to look at the Xbox One covers of Quantum Break & Forza 5, the Gran Turismo release schedule, the next Minecraft console update, the future of Diablo 3, two cool trailers, some next-gen stuff, some new (old) games, and more!
Read on for the details and a more stories.
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Quantum Break Xbox One Cover
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The only new game unveiled during Microsoft's Xbox One presentation last week was the next game from Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment. We saw no gameplay but we do know it blends in gameplay with live-action. We've seen the Xbox One covers for Battlefield 4 and Forza 5 one (below), but now we have our first look at the game cover a for a new IP. click here for the full-size Quantum Break cover, featuring its protagonist: a white dude with a gun.
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Gran Turismo 6 Delays
Gran Turismo games take a long time to make, super long, in fact. With GT6 oddly only getting recently announced, but not for the next-gen consoles coming this fall (although you can count it coming to PS4 eventually), some longtime fans are justifiably worried about it being delayed even further. Don't be. It's following the formula as product manager Josh Walker tells MCV:
"There is no reason to think the proposed release window for GT6 will not be achieved... We feel it is important to continue to support our loyal PS3 users, and those from many parts of the world who are new to PS3, with a new title. And [series producer] Kazuori Yamauchi was keen to develop the Gran Turismo platform further on PS3. Gran Turismo has a huge following among current PS3 gamers. The release also follows a pattern for Gran Turismo — GT and GT2 for PS, GT3 and GT4 for PS2, and now GT5 and GT6 on PS3."
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Minecraft (Xbox 360) Title Update #12
4J Studios, developers of the super popular Xbox 360 version of Minecraft dropped a few hints and confirmations for what's going into the undated 12th title update. First is the screenshot above, featuring an Ocelot (you can tame them!), the jungle biome and Redstone blocks. On Twitter they also confirmed that the maximum build height of the game is going to be raised.
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Diablo 3: Ladders & Books
Planning ahead for the long-term future of Diablo 3, Blizzard devs - speaking during a one-year anniversary livestream - are looking to implement ranking, a ladder of sorts. Such a feature would keep players encouraged of starting new characters and playing longer, well giving them unique rewards for doing so. Wyatt Cheng and Travis Day:
“Sometimes we all want to [start fresh] and we can choose to do it, but sometimes it's nice to do it together, as a global community. Or have a recognized badge of honor, for having done it. We wouldn't take away anything from what people have accomplished. People have a lot of investment in their current characters, so you'd still keep those."
"Five years from now, you're probably not going to see us making huge content patches, or class updates. At some point we'll set the game aside, sort of leave it as a work that we've completed, and move on to like Diablo 4, or whatever, right? Ladders is absolutely one of the things that helps the game stay fresh for people 5 years from now, or 3 years, or 2 years, or whatever."
So long as the servers are still online, right gentlemen? Hardcore D3 fans have another companion book to look forward to, this one titled Book of Tyrael that explores the character of Archangel Tyrael. It releases this October for $40.
Source: PCgamesN
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League of Legends: A Twist of Fate
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League of Legends is one of the world's most played PC games. Developer Riot Games released a new epic cinematic trailer, running over four minutes long, that features champions including Ryze, Annie and Garen battling it out. It took a year to create and was made simply because Riot loves cinematics. Read about how it was made here.
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Wii U Game From Creator of Conker's Bad Fur Day
Developer Rare's final game for the N64 was Conker's Bad Fur Day and while Rare has been working on a big Xbox One game to be announced at E3 in just over a week, the lead behind that great game - and its remake Live & Reloaded - revealed that he's working on a Wii U game.
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 Check out our list of 5 games Rare could be developing for Xbox One!
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From The Team That Brought You Homeworld...
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After THQ went bankrupt, Gearbox Software won the Homeworld property in an auction. While we don't know the future of that long-silent franchise, we do have another similarly cool looking game from some of the devs that worked on Homeworld. Hardware: Shipbreakers is an upcoming free-to-play RTS game by Canadian developer Blackbird Interactive where players explore and fight over the derelict starships of planet LM-27. The Hardware: Shipbreakers gameplay trailer released this week, appropriately titled "First Contact," offering a first look at the gameplay, units and a large crashed starship. The game hits open beta Q4 2013.
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'Massive' Ubisoft MMO
Ubisoft acquired Swedish developer Massive (Ground Control, World in Conflict) in late 2008 and outside of their help on certain elements Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Far Cry 3, we don't know what they've been working on for all those years. But we expect to very soon. According to the research of Superannuation, looking at developer resumes, official Ubisoft announcements at investor calls and job postings, we know that Massive is working on a large-scale MMO for one of their biggest IPs. The clues hint that it could be Tom Clancy related, it could be an online RPG involving PvP, it could be third-person action game (Assassin's Creed MMO?), but we do know that it'll have companion mobile apps, something Ubisoft has grown fond of with their support of such things for Ghost Recon and the upcoming Watch Dogs.
We're hoping its one of the major new announcements Ubisoft will have at E3 2013.
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NHL 94 Survival Rate
Kotaku shared the mind-blowing statistic that of all the players featured in the amazing NHL 94, only three remain active in the NHL. Teemu Selanne, Roman Hamrlik and Jaromir Jagr are the only remaining players who who featured in the 1993 release and all three played in this year's playoffs.
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Mountainous Delays
The popular ARMA II zombie mod known as DayZ is still in development towards becoming a standalone release at Bohemia Interactive and even though the game is months and months behind, DayZ creator Dean Hall took some time to climb Mount Everest. Not an easy task. Now back to that other task which is still scheduled for an increasingly unlikely public Alpha test in June.
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Next-Gen Mad Catz
If you haven't heard, the Xbox One is not only not backwards compatible with its retail or digital games, but its controllers and accessories. That means your expensive headsets, collections of controllers and third party peripherals will all be obsolete this holiday season thanks to that new pot on the Xbox One controller. Prepare for the new - Mad Catz has, and they've just confirmed their support of a new product line for the Xbox One. Darren Richardson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc.:
"The launch of the Xbox One adds a new revenue stream and the enhanced performance of the Xbox One opens up additional scope for innovation. Today’s announcement demonstrates our continued support of Microsoft’s console and entertainment business and is part of our long-term strategy to bring innovative products to passionate gamers."
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(Re)Rise of the Triad
Interceptor Entertainment and original developer Apogee Software are gearing up for the release of their (DRM free) Rise of the Triad reboot and they've released key details about the game. First, compare the cover art above. Talk about honoring the original! They've confrimed that Rise of the Triad will be available on your favorite digital distributors, Steam, GOG.com and Green Man Gaming and released the PC system requirements:
Minimum:
OS:Windows XP 32-bit
Processor:2.4 GHz Dual Core Processor or Better
Memory:2 GB RAM
Graphics:ATI Radeon HD 3870 / NVIDIA 8800 GT
DirectX®:9.0
Hard Drive:5 GB HD space
Sound:DirectX Compatible
Recommended:
OS:Windows 7 64-bit
Processor:2.4 GHz Quad Core Processor or Better
Memory:4 GB RAM
Graphics:AMD Radeon HD 6950 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560
DirectX®:9.0
Hard Drive:5 GB HD space
Sound:DirectX Compatible
Rise of the Triad releases this summer for $14.99.
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Follow Rob on Twitter @rob_keyes.