antic-entertainment posts

In March 2010, Nexon America announced its plans for The Nexon Initiative where the free-to-play game publisher would take submissions from indie game developers and then pick a few to help develop and publish into games. Now Gamasutra reports that Nexon America has picked two Western-based game developers as a result of The Nexon Initiative.

One of the two developers is London Ontario-based Antic Entertainment which was formed by Fredrick Liliegren, the co-founder and former CEO of Digital Illusions. That team has already released a browser-based vehicle combat game called Junk Battles. The other team is Poland-based One2Tribe, which previously developed the browser based duel-themed multiplayer game The Witcher Versus.

Nexon plans to reveal the games themselves in the near future with one of them representing the company's entry into the social gaming scene. Nexon also said that while The Nexon Initiative previously had a budget of just $1 million to develop the games it picked the publisher will in fact spend much more than $1 million on the two game projects it decided to develop.

In June of 2009, an executive at Electronic Arts confirmed that Digital Illusions was indeed working on Battlefield 3 and that it was "a product that is looking very good." Now comes word from another source that the next game in the multiplayer shooter series is not only looking good, but that "it's going to absolutely blow everyone away."

Those words come from former DICE CEO Fredrik Liliegren, who left the developer in 2006 to help form a browser-based PC development studio called Antic Entertainment. However, in a chat with Gaming Union, he states that he still knows what DICE has planned for Battlefield 3, saying, " I can't tell you what it is, but it will blow people away." Strong words, especially from a source that hasn't been a part of DICE for over three years.

[Via VG247.com]

Digital Illusions got their start in Sweden where they released Battlefield 1942, the first in a long line of Battlefield games from the dev studio. Now one of the co-founders of DICE, Fredrik Liljegren, has helped to launch a new Canadian studio that recently launched a free-to-play browser based action game.

The company is called Antic Entertainment which Liljegren formed with the help of two former members of Digital Extremes. Their first game is called Junk: Battles, The post-apocalypse setting gives the game its theme as players create vehicles that they put in action-strategy battles online with other players. While free-to-play, you can also purchase upgradable parts and items for your vehicles (over 220 parts are available). While Antic Entertainment is currently working on web browser-based games they hope to expand to "all viable platforms."