firefly posts

It's been a while since developer Firefly Studios has released an all-new retail commercial game in its multi-million unit selling Stronghold series of historical RTS game. But 2011 will feature the return of the series with Stronghold 3 which once again will blend the gameplay of a sim title as you build your castle and village with RTS elements as you have to defend your creation against outside forces.

Big Download got Firefly's lead designer on Stronghold 3, Simon Bradbury, to tell us more about the game. He also updates us on other projects like its recently launched free-to-play browser game Stronghold Kingdoms and a tiny update on their long-in-development fantasy action-RPG Dungeon Hero.

We haven't had much news lately about Stronghold 3, the upcoming medieval castle sim-RTS game from developer Firefly Studios. However the developer launched a new poll on its Facebook page asking its fans for their opinions on dead animals.

Before you run screaming to PETA, this is a poll for picking which dead animal will be used for the in-game trebuchets. The dead animal ammo was used in those times in the hopes of generating disease among the enemy and in the game the ammo will "cause a cloud of disease that seeps through castles, killing anyone in its path." The four choices in the poll are a Senile donkey, a cage of rabid otters,a retired dancing bear, and a aack of diseased badgers. We don't think you can go wrong with any of those picks.

It's taken a long time but this week developer Firefly Studios has launched its open beta test for Stronghold Kingdoms, its free-to-play strategy MMO game based on its long running Stronghold game franchise. First announced over a year ago the browser based game has the player building and controlling his castle and village while also interacting and battling with other online players.

Stronghold Kingdoms is not the only game Firefly Studios is working on. As announced earlier this year the studio plans to release Stronghold 3, the next version of its more traditional retail castle sim-RTS game series, sometime in 2011.

A few months ago developer Firefly Studios announced it would be making Stronghold 3, the next game in its long running historical strategy-sim series. Today comes word that Southpeak Games will be the publisher for Stronghold 3 and the game is scheduled to ship sometime in the first quarter of 2011.

Along with the publisher announcement comes some more info and the first (very early) screenshots from the title. The game itself will feature improvements in castle construction, the addition of night sieges in the game, two seperate single player campaigns (one with combat, the other with economic goals) and ways to play through real historical castle sieges from history. Multiplayer support will also be added.

After working for the past couple of years on a game that later went on hold, developer Firefly Studios is going back to basics. The UK-based developer has now confirmed that it is developing Stronghold 3, the latest game in their long running historical RTS-sim game series.

Little info on the game itself has been released so far other than the fact that Southpeak Games will publish the title for release in spring 2011. Firefly's last major game project was supposed to be Dungeon Hero, a fantasy action-RPG. The game got a publishing deal with GameCock but Southpeak did not bring that game along to its lineup when it purchased GameCock in late 2008. A teaser web site for Stronghold 3 has launched with a simple yet effective animation.

2K Games won't just be releasing Borderlands for the PC the week of October 26. The publisher announced today plans to release The Stronghold Collection, a retail bundle of all of the games in developer Firefly Studios' castle sim-RTS game series. The collection will ship to stores on October 27 in the US for $29.95 with a worldwide release in 2010.

The collection will contain Stronghold, Stronghold 2, Stronghold Crusader and its recent revamp Stronghold Crusader Extreme and finally the more fantasy oriented Stronghold Legends. Firefly Studios announced earlier this year plans to launch a MMO-themed game called Stronghold Legends that is scheduled for launch in 2010.

Earlier this week we reported that the MMO company Multiverse had announced plans to develop a game based on the Buffy The Vampire Slayer TV series. They also revealed that a previously announced MMO based on another Joss Whedon created TV series, Firefly, has been put on the back burner. We wondered at the time about Multiverse's motives since they announced the Firefly MMO nearly two years ago and had revealed nothing since.

Well our sister site Massively managed to chat with Multiverse's marketing director Corey Bridges and while he dodged a lot of their questions he did say that development of the Buffy MMO was indeed underway with a 2D Flash client planned for release around the end of the year (he declined to give any gameplay details). He also said that there had been some actual development work done on the Firefly MMO but declined to say what happened with that game, saying only, "There are just some issues that need to be worked through. Hopefully things will get back on track before too long." We still will believe it when we see it.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer is easily one of the best TV shows ever created but let's face it; the two console games based on the show were no great shakes. Now comes word that the MMO technology company Multiverse is aiming to make a Buffy-based MMO. The announcement came this week during the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo being held in Los Angeles.

Game Daily News reports that the Buffy game will enter beta testing later this year and can be played as either a 3D virtual world or a 2D Flash style game. Quite frankly, the Multiverse Network has yet to prove it can fullfill these kinds of promises. Nearly two years ago they announced plans to make an MMO out of another Joss Whedon created TV series Firefly. Game Daily News reports that project is now on the back burner to focus on the Buffy project. We will see how that goes . . . .

[Via Blue's News]

As we mentioned earlier, Universal Studios has directly commissioned a game based on their recent hit action movie Wanted. It's the first time that the movie studio has made such a movie rather than work with a third party publisher who licensed the rights. Certainly Universal has a ton of properties (both in movies and on TV) that could also get the same treatment.

One such property that immediately pops to mind is Serenity, the movie version of the cult hit sci-fi TV series Firefly. We talked with a Universal Pictures Digital Platform Group rep who attended the Wanted demo and asked if that was a possibility. "It's something we have talked about," he admitted. He said the main thing was to get the involvement of Serenity and Firefly's creator Joss Whedon before proceeding with any plans. However, the fact that the studio has indeed talked about such a project certainly puts a Serenity game in the firm "maybe" column. Some of you may remember that in late 2006 the MMO game development engine studio Multiverse announced they had gotten the MMO rights to the Firefly TV series but since then no news of that game has been revealed.