robot-entertainment posts

While Dallas, Texas based game developer Robot Entertainment may have had development of its first announced title, Age of Empires Online, moved to Gas Powered Games, That doesn't mean the developer is suddenly looking for work. Last week Robot Entertainment announced its next game project with the awesome title Orcs Must Die.

With such a great name you would think that Orcs Must Die features a lot of dead or dying orcs and you would indeed be correct in that assessment. Your player character will have to defend the kingdoms in this mix of action and strategy with weapons and traps that are designed to, well, make orcs die.

Big Download got a chance to ask some questions to Robot Entertainment's community manager Justin Korthof about Orcs Must Die which should be released via download sometime later in 2011.

In a very suprising development, the official Age of Empires Online web site has announced that Gas Powered Games is now taking over as the developer of the upcoming free-to-play RTS game for publisher Microsoft Games Studios. Gas Powered Games takes over from Robot Entertainment who was announced as the developer for the game back in August 2010.

In a post on the game's official web site, Age of Empires Online's executive producer Danan Davis said that Gas Powered Games has been working on the title for some time to develop add-on packs for the game. He states that the switch over has been in the works for some time and Gas Powered and its leader Chris Taylor "share our long-term commitment to make this a success." The reasons for the switch from Robot Entertainment, which has a number of people who worked on the original Age of Empires RTS games, are pretty vague with Davis saying only, "Our previous development partner, Robot Entertainment, did amazing work on the game, and we wish them the best in their future projects."

You may remember that Taylor recently told us that Gas Powered's previously announced game, Kings and Castles, was now on hold and it's now clear that its takeover of Age of Empires Online's development was the reason. Davis states that even with this switch in developers the game is still scheduled to launch later in 2011.

Update: In a post on Robot Entertainment's message board, the developer's community manager assures fans that this switch was in the works for some time, saying, "This was always in the plan. We've even had some GPG guys down to the studio to get them trained up as far back as last fall. When we opened RE, our goal was to work on our own original games. We announced Orcs Must Die! this morning, and will have more info on future games relatively soon ;) "

Orcs Must Die! No, that's not a chant for your World of Warcraft raiding party. That's the name of a newly revealed single player action-strategy game from developer Robot Entertainment, the same folks that are currently working on Age of Empires Online. In the game the player must defend his fortress against an army of orcs who just want to make a mess of things.

Players will have a wide variety of weapons to chose from to take out the orcs along with being able to set up traps to ruin the orcs army's day. The game will be released later in 2011 via download for the PC and other platforms. The game will make its public debut at PAX East in Boston on March 11-13.

In 2010, Microsoft announced that the company was getting back into publishing PC games after several years of not releasing any PC game titles. One of the titles that Microsoft is planning to publish is Age of Empires Online, a persistent online RTS game that takes the fan favorite game series in a new direction and in several different ways.

The game comes from developer Robot Entertainment (made up largely of former members of Age of Empires' creator Ensemble Studios). It's been in closed beta for some time now but today Microsoft officially announced a couple of major features in the game. One is that the previously announced Greek civilization will be joined by the Egyptian civilization when Age of Empires Online launches later this year. The other announcement is the first details on the business model for the game. Check out the details of that particular part of the game and more about Age of Empires Online after the jump:

After its surprise announcement earlier this summer, the folks at developer Robot Entertainment have started to send out invites to the closed beta test of Age of Empires Online. In fact the developer has been sending waves of invites to the closed beta for a few weeks now, according to the game's official Twitter page.

The site is still accepting sign ups for future beta invites but at the moment there's no word on when the next beta emails will be sent out. There's also no word on when the open beta for Age of Empires Online will launch. The game from publisher Microsoft will be released sometime in 2011.

A development team that was formed by a number of ex-Ensemble Studios team members is now a part of the ever growing Zynga family of dev studios. Dallas-based Bonfire Studios has been acquired by social networking games publisher Zynga and will be renamed Zynga Dallas. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Bonfire Studios was launched due to Microsoft's shut down of Ensemble in 2009. Members of Bonfire previously worked on the Age of Empires RTS series. Zynga plans to publish all new games from its Dallas studio and it's likely they will be Facebook-linked titles. The Age of Empires franchise is currently in the hands of another Ensemble splinter group Robot Entertainment which is currently developing Age of Empires Online.

Perhaps the biggest announcement from Gamescom for PC gamers was for the reveal of Age of Empires Online. The upcoming revival of the RTS game franchise as a free-to-play downloadable online game was in full playable form on the Gamescom exhibit hall in Germany this past week.

The game's developer Robot Entertainment filmed a typical live game presentation from Gamescom this past week. The two part video (you can see the second part after the jump) does have a German man handling the presentation but at least it gives you an idea of how the game looks and plays with its "cartoony" graphics. We should have a ton more to reveal about Age of Empires Online before its planned 2011 launch.

When Microsoft made its announcement this week for Age of Empires Online, many assumed that the upcoming free-to-play online RTS game from developer Robot Entertainment would be one of those games that makes players pay for things like single units or other small microtransaction in-game items. Our sister site Joystiq, reporting from Gamescom, got word from the developer that won't be the case.

Robot Entertainment designer Jerome K. Jones stated that paying for extra content in the game will be like "paying for an expansion pack. ... You won't buy one thing at a time. You might buy an entire civ or another region with a bunch of quests in it." He also states that Age of Empires Online will have a whopping 25 hours of free content which in this day and age is more play time than a lot of games with $50 and $60 price tags. The game is currently in a closed beta and will officially launch sometime in 2011.

In line with Microsoft Game Studios' currently renewed commitment to PC gaming, Age of Empires Online has been announced. It looks like players will find a lot more changes in store for the esteemed franchise than persistent online features. The new game will also have more cartoonish graphics compared to previous games in the series.

Age of Empires Online is currently expected to release sometime in 2011 and will be offered exclusively through Games for Windows Live. The game is currently accepting beta sing-ups.

Download HD Age of Empires Online Announcement Trailer (52 MB)

It's been over a year since Dallas-based Ensemble Studios, the creators of the best selling historical RTS game series Age of Empires, was shut down by its owner Microsoft. Today the company announced plans for the next version of the game franchise with Age of Empires Online, a new title that's being created by Robot Entertainment, the new Dallas-based developed that was co-founded by Tony Goodman who also co-founded Ensemble Studios.

In its official press release Microsoft is describing the gameplay of Age of Empires Online as "a living, growing online world, shared with friends and friendly rivals around the globe." Players will begin by controlling the ancient Greeks and guide the civilization to becoming an empire. Players will be able to play the game solo but Microsoft seems to be putting the emphasis on social gameplay with multiplayer missions with friends. Your capital city in the game will apparently change and grow even if you are not playing the title. From the brief press release it sounds like the game will have a "free-to-play" portion but its currently unclear how far that goes.

Microsoft announced no release date for Age of Empires Online in today's press release. However it did state there will be a beta test of the game at some point. We hope to get screenshots and more media from the game soon.

Update 1: We just got the first screenshots from Age of Empires Online, which shows a more "cartoony" art style than the Age of Empires games developed by Ensemble.

Update 2: The game's official web site is now live and letting folks sign up to be considered for the game's beta test. The site also stated Age of Empires Online will be a digital download-only game and is planned for full release in 2011.