breaking posts

Kings and Castles, the fantasy RTS game that was supposed to be the next project for developer Gas Powered Games, is now on hold, according to an email from Gas Powered's founder and CEO Chris Taylor to Big Download. When we emailed Taylor today asking for an update about the game he replied, "Well... We've put the project on hold for now, but the moment I know more I will let you know..." When we asked for more info he remained vague, telling us, "I can't go into those details just yet... let's call it a 'timing' thing..."

Gas Powered Games first announced Kings and Castles nearly a year ago and the developer did something unusual in order to promote it; it produced a weekly series of video blogs showing the team working on the game during its pre-production stage along with a big heap of comedy as well. In early October, the final video blog was issued with Taylor on camera saying that the videos would be taking a break while Kings and Castles moved into full production.

Battlefield 1943 for the PC has finally been officially cancelled after PC gamers have spent nearly two years waiting for the promised port of the multiplayer shooter. In a post on the Battlefield blog Karl Magnus Troedsson, the general manager of the game's developer Digital Illusions, stated, "I often need to make hard calls regarding where we put the studio's focus. Part of the challenge is to balance work on the new against the already shipped, prioritizing the amount of energy spent on the known franchises and the time spent on developing something entirely new."

Troedsson stated that while they will continue to support its previously released games such as 2010's Battlefield Bad Company 2, he added that DICE had made the decision to move forward with development of its next game Battlefield 3. He stated, "Our goal is crystal clear: we're going to build the best Battlefield game ever, and we'll do whatever it takes to make this the biggest launch in DICE's history." Therefore the decision was made to cancel development of Battlefield 1943's PC port along with a PC version of Battlefield Bad Company 2's Onslaught mode. Troedsson states, "Instead, our talented teams will focus on delivering the greatest possible gaming experience in our next behemoth release. We're confident this will lead to an even better experience in Battlefield 3, not only on PC, but on all platforms."

Battlefield 1943, basically a graphical remake of some of the maps and content of DICE's first game in the series, Battlefield 1942, was released back in July 2009 for the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles via download. The game went on to become a huge sales hit for the developer and its publisher Electronic Arts. DICE promised a number of times in the that a PC version would be released, stating at one point that the delay was to give PC players more features such as DirectX 10 graphics support, 32 player support in multiplayer and more. As recently as last November a DICE team member said the PC version was still in development.

In 2010, Big Download was the first web site to offer up the first teaser trailer and the first interview about its upcoming revival of the classic Atari arcade shooter Yars' Revenge. Today we are glad to offer up yet another exclusive video about the game.

This time the video, narrated by the game's producer Michael Fahrny, goes into the art direction of the game and its anime influences. We also get a brief glimpse of gameplay from the new version of Yars' Revenge. Currently the game is under development by Killspace Entertainment and is scheduled to be released via download for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 later this spring.

Download the Yars' Revenge Art of Yars video at Big Download

In just a few months, the game with perhaps the longest development time in history will finally be released. Game Informer has posted up word that Duke Nukem Forever will be released by developer Gearbox Software and publisher 2K Games on May 3 in North America. Europeans and the rest of the world will be able to get the game on May 6.

The first person shooter started development at 3D Realms way back in 1997 and was in continuous development at that developer until 2009 when a legal dispute between the developer and 2K Games caused 3D Realms to dismiss its internal development staff. The dispute was settled in 2010 and Gearbox Software got the rights to continue the game's development as well as the IP for the Duke Nukem franchise. But will the 14 year wait for this game be worth it?

In 2010 developer Zombie Studios released Blacklight: Tango Down, a downloadable near-future themed first person shooter. Pricing for the game was just $15. At the time of the game's release, Big Download learned from Zombie's CEO Mark Long that a sequel was already in the works. Today Big Download has learned exclusively that the sequel will have an even cheaper price; free.

Yes, the Blacklight: Tango Down sequel (which at the moment is titled "Blacklight" for now) will be released as a free-to-play game. According to what Long told us today, "The full game will be free along with premium content that can be purchased in-game. Blacklight will feature a large number of improvements based on the player feedback we've gotten. And we hope going free-to-play will close that loop so we can respond even faster to player preferences."

So why go with the free-to-play/microtransaction business model? Long told us, "The free-to-play model is something we've been interested in since we first began working with Korean publishers four years ago. Free-to play is the model in Asia. It's exploding in China growing fast in Europe and emerging here in Facebook and iOS games."

The sequel will not reuse any of the content of the original Blacklight: Tango Down, according to Long. It will be an all new game with new weapons, levels, items and more. That includes the previously announced drivable mech vehicles. You can see the mech in the background of the first ever publicly released screenshot above (you can check out a high-res version when you click the above image). Long told us that the sequel will use the latest version of Epic's Unreal Engine 3 tech.

The Blacklight sequel does not yet have a release date and Long would not comment on who might be publishing the sequel (the original Blacklight Tango Down was published by Ignition Entertainment). We hope to have more info on the game in the coming weeks and months.

Minecraft has proven to be the "little indie game that could" as the PC sandbox/adventure game created by Markus "Notch" Persson has continued to see steady sales with almost no marketing and no use of the typical PC download services. Today (in fact just a few minutes ago) Minecraft sold its 1 millionth digital copy, according to its stats page. That number is basically unheard of for a indie-made PC game and would be impressive for any PC exclusive game, period.

The game was first launched in an "alpha" stage in May 2009 which allowed people to buy the game and be assured they would get all of its future updates and expansions for free. Persson continued to update the game with new features but it took over a year for the game to reach 100,000 units sold. That would still be an impressive sales number for an indie PC game. However Minecraft rose rapidly in sales and popularity thanks to some well placed internet postings in the summer of 2010, including a rave review on Valve's Team Fortress 2 web site in July 2010. The game had sold 125,000 units in September but it only took just over four months for Minecraft to reach today's 1 million sales mark. Even when Minecraft moved into its beta stage last December (with a 25 percent raise in its price) sales of the game have yet to slow down.

While Persson was reportedly courted to join major developers like Valve and Bungie over the summer, he decided instead to stay in his native Sweden to launch his own indie game company Mojang Specifications. The company currently has six people, including Persson, on board where they work on improving and adding to Minecraft as well as a second, unnamed game project. In the meantime Minecraft itself is technically still not yet completed. Recently Persson stated that they were looking to finally "complete" the game by the end of 2011.

Two words:, "Holy" and "Crap", come to mind with this news story. Razer, the maker of gaming PC mice and other devices has just announced at CES 2011 an all new concept for a gaming PC device. Its calling it the Switchblade and its a mobile device designed for PC gaming but with a small form factor and 7-inch screen running on an Intel Atom processor.

Razer says that this concept design will replace the traditional mouse and keyboard control scheme with an "ultra-sensitive multi-touch screen, dynamic tactile keyboard, and an intelligent user interface" that, based on a game's content and system requirements, will adjust accordingly.

The product's official web page has more info on the Switchblade, including the fact that it will support the Windows 7 OS, have support for both 3G and WiFi wireless gaming and more. Razer says they have been working on this concept for the past two years in secret. Unfortunately this is just a concept design at this point but Razer states it " ... will be working with selected partners to design and launch products based off the Razer Switchblade concept design." You can check out a video showing the Switchblade in action, including how the keyboard changes with each game, after the jump.

Update: Our sister site Engadget got some hands-on time with the Razer Switchblade prototype and while there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the device (what kind of storage, battery life and of course the price) they seemed impressed, saying, " ... this is what UMPCs and MIDs should've been. Portable devices that are actually powerful enough to get work done, and to engage in games during your downtime." They are guessing that mass production of such a device could happen sometime in 2012.

We've been following the development of UTV True Games' upcoming free-to-play fantasy multiplayer action-RPG Mytheon ever since the game was first announced back in December 2008. Indeed we posted up the first interview about the game the day of it's official reveal. The game was originally developed by Petroglyph and in 2010 it seemed to be getting close to its official launch. In February the game went into its closed beta phase and in April it started its open beta test.

And that's when things got ... interesting. In May 2010 UTV True Games filed a lawsuit against Petroglyph claiming that the developer was holding the source code to the game "hostage". A few weeks later everything seemed to be OK again as the two companies announced that their legal issues had been resolved and that Mytheon would officially launch on July 13. But that wasn't the end of it as it was later revealed that the launch date for the game was pushed back indefinitely. In the end both companies admitted in the summer of 2010 that Petroglyph was no longer involved in the development of Mytheon.

The open beta for the game was shut down in September as UTV True Games announced that the development of Mytheon was now under their own internal development team. Tonight, Big Download can exclusively reveal that Mytheon, under the company's Beijing studio, will restart its closed beta test by the end of January.

The press release, which you can check out after the jump, has more details about the relaunch of Mytheon including word that previous beta testers of the game will be contacted soon via email. Those users will be able to use their old beta accounts in the new closed beta test and will also get "exclusive keys and in-game rewards in the coming weeks" before the beta test begins. The press release does not indicate when Mytheon will officially launch. Big Download also has the first screenshots from the new version of Mytheon which you can check out in the gallery below this post.

In a major hiring coup for Stardock, the developer of the Galactic Civilizations series and more recently Elemental: War of Magic has revealed exclusively to Big Download that it has hired Jon Shafer to its team. Shafer recently left Firaxis Games where he served as the lead designer behind the studio's most recent game Civilization V. In his new role, Shafer will be helping with the design and increasing mod support for Elemental. At some point in the future he will also be leading his own team at Stardock on an unnanounced new stand alone game for the developer.

Big Download also got to speak briefly with Shafer over the phone earlier today. He told us that he departed Firaxis Games on good terms and while he got a few offers from other studios he told us that he went to Stardock for a number of reasons. One is that he has been an admirer of Stardock's games for some time as a fan. Another is that he wanted to work wth a company that that the freedom to make the kinds of games he wanted to make. Shafer told us he could give out any info on what his stand alone project will be for the company as Stardock is still concentrating its efforts on updating Elemental, including the release of at least two expansion packs.

Shafer will be working with Stardock CEO Brad Wardell who will continue to work as Executive Producer of all of Stardock's game titles. As we reported back in October, Stardock hired Derek Paxton, the lead designer behind the well known Civilization IV mod Fall From Heaven, to serve as Senior Producer of Elemental. Shafer told us that Stardock has "lots of awesome stuff" planned for the future of Elemental.

After its rocky launch last August, Stardock has continued to update Elemental, including a massive free 1.1 patch that was officially released last December. More patches are in the works as two expansion packs to the game. Wardell has stated on the game's official message board that sales of Elemental have continued to rise in the last three months of 2010. In another message board post he gives a general idea of where Stardock plans to improve and expand the game, adding, "I approved the necessary budget in December to fund Elemental for both 2011 and 2011." In addition he states, "Stardock has some other game projects that start up this year as well and the publishing group is working on some new things as well. So it's going to be a pretty exciting year for Stardock gamers."

As an early Christmas treat, Blizzard has just released a free demo for its hit sci-fi RTS game StarCraft II. If you have yet to play the game you can download this brief slice of the long awaited title which features the first three single player campaign missions from the full version. It also has two skirmish maps (Blistering Sands and Quicksand) that will let you play as the Terran faction against Terran AI opponents.

The demo comes in both PC and Mac versions and at the moment is only in English. One of the nice things about the demo is that it doesn't require an internet connection or Battle.net account to play. You can get more info on the demo at its own FAQ page.

Download the StarCraft II demo from Big Download (PC and Mac - 1.5 GB)