ea-maxis posts

As promised earlier this month, Electronic Arts has now launched an open beta for Darkspore, the upcoming sci-fi action-RPG that's based loosely on 2009's alien evolution sim Spore. The open beta is available for anyone to download and play for free via Steam and will run through this Friday, April 1. The beta will include support for four player co-op along with 1v1 and 2v2 Player vs Player matches

People can also pre-order the game via Steam as well as a Darkspore four-pack that includes four downloadable copies of the game you can give to friends for the price of three copies. While the game was previously announced as being released this week, Darkspore is now scheduled to be released on April 26.

After spotting some changes to Darkspore's release date on several retail web sites Thursday, we emailed publisher Electronic Arts to find out if the upcoming sci-fi action-RPG's March 29 release date would be delayed. While we never heard back from EA, the game's official message board has now confirmed that Darkspore's release date will indeed be pushed back a few weeks.

According to the message the new release date will be April 26 for the US with Europe getting the game on April 28. According to the post the delay was decided after receiving feedback from gamers from the recent closed beta tests. More closed beta events will be coming and sometime before the game's release there will be an open beta for anyone to play.

If retailer web sites are to be believed, the upcoming sci-fi action RPG Darkspore from Electronic Arts could miss its scheduled March 29 release date to sometime in May. The Gamestop.com web site now shows a May 3 release date for the game while Amazon.com has moved the release date to May 31. Finally Steam's pre-order page for the game now shows a generic May 2011 release date.

The action-RPG based loosely on EA Maxis' 2009 life simulator Spore recently held a series of beta test weekends ahead of its planned March 29 launch. It's possible that EA felt that Darkspore needed more development time after seeing the results of the beta. If it has been delayed to May that means it will be entering an already crowded month full of major PC game releases. We have contacted the game's PR reps for confirmation of a new release date.

The Sims Medieval is fast approaching its March release date. But this upcoming spinoff of Electronic Arts' people sim series will still have a lot of features that fans of the previously titles will recognize. This latest trailer for the game gives more info on how the team at studio EA Maxis developed the title.

While the game's locations may have been highly influenced by real places and buildings in Europe this game is not a dry history lesson on the Middle Ages. The game will still retain the humor of previous Sims games, even if your character is getting sucked by leeches or being thrown into a monster pit.

Download The Sims Medieval Webisode 2 at Big Download

The Sims Medieval, due out sometime in March 2011, is a big departure from the regular Sims franchise from Electronic Arts. The newest trailer for the game gives a very basic overall look at the title which, as you might guess from the title, takes the Sims out of the modern day and sends them back into the Middle Ages.

There's lots of kings, queens, knights and squires in the game and the trailer shows that the Sims humor is still in place. There also appears to be some fantasy elements in the game (a creature's tentacle comes out of a hole, for example). Will the quirkiness of the Sims truly translate to this new setting? We don't have much longer to find out.

Download The Sims Medieval Trailer 2 at Big Download

The latest game in the people simulation series The Sims will be getting some extra content if you purchase the title early. Today publisher Electronic Arts announced plans to release The Sims Medieval Limited Edition which will be available when the game comes out for the PC and Mac this March.

The Limited Edition will let players access three exclusive throne rooms for your Middle Age character, including Barbarian, Dark Magic and Princess rooms. In addition you will get two exclusive outfits set for your Sims Medieval character. One is the Monarch set where you can dress up your Sims to look like royalty. The other is a bit darker; its the Executioner set where you get to wear, among other things, a black hood.

Earlier this week we reported that the Darkspore web site has started taking sign-ups to beta test the upcoming action-RPG game from Electronic Arts. Today EA sent over word that the Spore spin-off game will have some bonuses for people who pre-order the title.

The pre-order bonuses for the game will include getting early access to a special character and an armor pack. There will apparently be other bonus items in the game for pre-orders but details have yet to be announced. Also EA has released the final box cover for Darkspore which you can see to the right of this news post. The game itself is still due for released in February 2011.

[via email press release]

If you have been waiting to see if there would be a beta test for Darkspore, your wait is over. The official web site for publisher Electronic Arts' sci-fi action-RPG spin-off of the Spore franchise is now taking sign-ups for the beta. There's no word yet on when the beta will begin but Darkspore itself is still schedule for a first quarter 2011 release.

Just a quick reminder: Darkspore uses elements of the Creature Creator made for 2008's Spore as a way to customize and update your hero character as he tries to fight against an alien invasion. Co-op for up to four players as well as other multiplayer modes will be available.

In 2008, Electronic Arts and its Maxis development studio under Will Wright released the highly anticipated Spore, which used an innovative Creator Creator to allow players to create a near infinite amount of creatures and units for use in the game. While the final product perhaps didn't live up to its high expectations, Spore still managed to sell millions of units.

In 2009 Wright left EA but that's wasn't the end for Spore. The Maxis studio decided to take the franchise in a new direction with a sci-fi themed action RPG called Darkspore that's due out in the first quarter of 2011. Big Download got the game's executive producer Mike Perry to give us some more info on the title.

The announcement that Electronic Arts was taking its Spore game franchise to a new direction with the upcoming action-RPG title Darkspore took some people by surprise. Now it looks like the development team at EA Maxis is giving us yet another surprise with a new viral marketing site.

The site's URL, www.helpedna.com, was discovered in the source code for Darkspore's offcial web site. As you can see from the above screenshot the site goes into an old school text adventure game mode where you have to input commands to discover its secrets. If you want some help, there's a message board post on the game's official forums that has some hints. Meanwhile the game itself it set for release in 2011.

[Via Voodoo Extreme]