Team17 posts

The co-founder of the long running UK-based game developer Team17, Martyn Brown, has decided to leave the company he helped to create over 20 years ago. Brown first announced his departure on his Facebook page, VG247.com later chatted with Brown who was vague on his reasons for leaving Team17, saying only that it was "time" for him to depart. He added that he had a good idea of what he would do next but he "can't talk about it yet".

Brown helped develop the long running Worms series of turn-based strategy games for Team17 which started in 1995 and have had countless entries across tons of different platforms, including the PC. It also developed the Alien Breed series of top down sci-fi shooters. In 2010 Team17 announced that it was abandoning traditional retail game publishing to work exclusively on digital download-based games. So far it has released Worms Reloaded and the Alien Breed trilogy of games for the PC via Steam.

Developer Team17's recent release of its turn-based strategy game Worms Reloaded via Steam seemed to be pretty popular among fans of the long running series. Now Steam has put the game on its weekend sales list, cutting the price of the title from now until Monday to just $9.99, a 50 percent reduction.

But that's not all. The game also got a new and free update on Steam that adds some new in-game items. Namely, the game now has forts, hats and gravestones that are "inspired" by the characters in Valve's multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2. The update also comes with a speech bank editor as well.

The Alien Breed reboot series, while not particularly incredible, is still a solid and entertaining series that has its share of loyal fans. This trailer for the newest addition, Alien Breed 3, continues the adventures of the main character as he fights against angry aliens out for his blood. There's nothing new or revolutionary about these trailers, but if you are looking for a topd-won action game fix, you'll probably get a kick out of it. Those that aren't fans of the series, however, will not be swayed by the cheesy quality.

Download HD Alien Breed 3: Descent Trailer
Check out all Alien Breed 3: Descent downloads

On Thursday we had reported that the MajorNelson.com web site had outed developer Team17's Alien Breed 3: Descent as coming to the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade on Wednesday, November 17. Today Team17 made it official and confirmed that the third game in the top down sci-fi shooter series revival would also be released for the PC on the same day.

This third and final installment of this series, which will be released on Steam for $9.99, will let your main character Conrad fight not just in the corridors of the wrecked space ship but also outside on the ship's hull. He has to deal with a number of new alien monsters but also gets his hands on new weapons like the Electro-Link gun and the mysterious Project X weapon.

After a slow start it looks like developer Team17 is cranking out the next installments in its revival of the Alien Breed top-down shooter pretty quickly. Over at the Xbox 360 blog MajorNelson.com Alien Breed 3 Descent was officially revealed and is due for a downloadable release on that console on November 17.

The revival started in 2009 with the Xbox 360 release of Alien Breed Evolution but in June 2010 Team17 re-released the game for the PC in a revamped form as Alien Breed Impact. In September Alien Breed 2 Assault got a simultaneous release for the Xbox 360 and PC. So far there's no word yet if Alien Breed 3 Descent will get a similar treatment for PC owners.

Picking up directly from where the first game leaves off, Alien Breed 2: Assault puts players on a new ship but with the same mission. The main character, Conrad, must to find his way through an unending horde of hostile life forms to repair the broken vital systems and dislodge his own ship, the Leopold, and escape. In doing so, players must make their way through darkened corridors and blast away the creatures before being overwhelmed, which is a challenge because ammunition is in very limited supply.

As promised earlier this week, developer Team17 has released Alien Breed 2 Assault, the second title in a planned trilogy for the top down sci-fi shooter franchise. The game is now available to purchase and download on Steam for just $9.99 (which is $5 cheaper than the first game in the series, Alien Breed Impact, that was released just three months ago.

In addition to the full game, there's word on Steam's web site that a demo for Alien Breed 2 Assault will be released "shortly". That demo will contain a prologue section from the main game as well as a time-limited version of a map that was made for the game's new Survivor mode.

The second game in developer Team17's revival of its top down sci-fi shooter series has been officially announced and its coming on Wednesday. Alien Breed 2: Assault, which was revealed by title only in an ESRB listing a few months ago, will be released via Steam for PC owners (it's also coming to Xbox Live Arcade on the same day).

Continuing from last summer's release of Alien Breed: Impact, the second game will still have both a single player campaign and the ability to play in a seperate two-player co-op mode. Look for new weapons to shoot with, new aliens to shoot at and a new Survivor mode that lets players fight against waves of attacking aliens. Also new are what's being called "set pieces" which lets players fight the aliens "through stunningly choreographed action sequences." Pricing has yet to be announced. You can check out a new trailer for the game after the jump

[Via email press release]

If the Worms series proves anything, it's that simplicity can go a long way. Like all games in the long standing series, the point is straightforward. Using a handful of worm soldiers and an arsenal of over-the-top weaponry, eliminate the other team while keeping your own losses to a minimum. Weapons include rocket launchers, grenades and airstrikes along with signature devices like the Holy Hand Grenade, banana bomb and the sheep bomb that runs across the screen before exploding. Half the challenge comes from using the game's physics, like wind, to your advantage in order to take out all the enemy soldiers. The part is in trying not to blow up your own troops in the process. Worms: Reloaded doesn't mess with the classic gameplay and builds out content and features around it.

Check out all Worms: Reloaded downloads

While UK-based Team17 has had its games published in retail stores from a variety of companies over the years it looks like the game developer has now decided to move on to have its games published via digital download exclusively. MCV reports that the company has recently restructured its own management team in order to become a digital games publisher, not just for its own games but for other independent game developers.

Team17 has released two PC games for digital download this year exclusively via Steam. One is the top down sci-fi shooter Alien Breed Impact. The other game, released just last week, is Worms Reloaded which is the latest PC game in Team17's longest running series.