square-enix posts

Much like the previous Deus Ex: Human Revolution trailer, this one shows off multiple paths to the same ending. To be specific, it shows the player approaching a facility in three different ways: aggressive, stealth, and a mix of the two. There's no developer commentary, but the amount of variation is stronger thanks to the trailer showing off the entire complex instead of one specific section. In each case, the player ends up face to face with an enemy with a hostage, and it's left ambiguous what happens. Once again, the developers seem to know exactly what Deus Ex fans want!

Download Deus Ex: Human Revolution 'Three Ways to Play' Trailer
Check out all Deus Ex: Human Revolution downloads

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is due out in August but the PC port of the next game in the acclaimed cyberpunk-themed RPG series from publisher Square Enix won't be handled by the game's primary developer at Eidos Montreal. Shacknews is reporting that the PC version is being handled by little known developer Nixxes Software from the Netherlands.

According to the story, Eidos Montreal doesn't have enough people to handle all three versions of the game at once. However Nixxes Software is no stranger to this kind of work. It also handled the PC port for other previous Square Enix games such as Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days and Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Eidos Montreal's game director Jean-François Dugas states that the main team is still involved in the PC port, saying, "We review the builds. We review and then give comments about what works and what doesn't."

One of the strengths of Deus Ex is its open-ended nature. When given an objective, you can take it in virtually any fashion you please. This trailer for Human Revolution shows off three ways to get around: stealth, combat, and exploration. The same section is played three times, with the player doing something different each time. It's a pretty cool trailer and gives us hope that the developers know what fans want from a Deus Ex game: slick cyberpunk aesthetics and a staggering amount of choice.

Download Deus Ex: Human Revolution 'Sarif Exterior' Trailer
Check out all Deus Ex: Human Revolution downloads

Dungeon Siege 3 is due out on May 31 but before that happens gamers will get to check out a series of comic books based on the fantasy action-RPG. Square Enix announced this week that three web-based comics will be written by Jeremy Barlow and drawn by artists Iban Coello and Sergio Abad.

Produced by Dark Horse Comics the three Dungeon Siege III web comics will be posted on the game's official web site as well as made available for free via digital download on Dark Horse's digital comics system. You may remember that Walmart will have a printed copy of the Dungeon Siege III comic as its pre-order incentive.

[Via email press release]

The massive earthquake that hit Japan on Friday has certainly caused untold amounts of destruction and loss of life. While it's a minor inconvenience compared to what the people of Japan are experiencing right now, players of two MMOs with servers based in Japan, Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV, will be shut down due to the effects of the earthquake.

Square Enix's PlayOnline.com web site reports that starting at 6 pm Eastern time today, the servers of both games will be shut down for at least a week due to the Japanese power companies creating rolling blackouts as a result of the quake. Players won't be billed for the person of downtime for both games.

[Via Massively]

Fans of the Deus Ex sci-fi action-RPG series have been waiting patiently for the third installment Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Today retail web sites like GameStop changed their release dates for the game to show a August 23 ship date for the title. Publisher Square Enix previously announced a few months ago that the game would not make its planned first quarter 2011 release date.

While Square Enix has yet to officially announce a new specific release date this would seem to correlate with other release dates announced for Australia (August 25) and the UK (August 26). We have emailed Square Enix for an official comment.

Update: Eidos Montreal's Twitter page has now confirmed the US and UK released dates.

[Via Joystiq]

The Tomb Raider movie rights now have new owners. The Hollywood Reporter reports today that the film rights to the action-adventure game series have been acquired by GK Films from publisher Square Enix. The movie's producers plan to release a new film in the series by 2013 which will be an origin story for its lead character Lara Croft. Ironically Square Enix is developing the next game in the series as a rebooted origin tale as well.

The two previous Lara Croft Tomb Raider movies, starring Angelina Jolie as the lead character, remain two of the most successful video game-based movies ever made with a combined worldwide box office gross of $432 million.

The OnLive streaming PC game service was first announced two years ago at GDC and officially launched in June 2010 just after E3 ended. Since then the service has expanded to include PCs with WiFi connections and connecting TVs to the service via the OnLive Microconsole. Earlier this year OnLive launched its PlayBack service which game people a chance to stream and play from a library of games for one monthly $9.99 fee.

Today OnLive announced that the PlayBack service has added several new games from publisher Square Enix including games in the Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Mini Ninjas and Hitman series. Also from now until March 4 a number of indie games on the OnLive service are on sale for as much as 80 percent off. It includes The Ball ($5), The Maw ($2), Trine ($5), World of Goo, ($2.50). Shatter ($2.25) Madballs in Babo: Invasion ($2.50), and AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! ($4.99).

Dungeon Siege 3 will have support for up to four players in co-op mode when the fantasy action-RPG is released on May 31. However there's been some chat online about how the game handles co-op experience points for players. Recently there's been talk that if you join in one of Dungeon Siege 3's co-op games online, your character won't be able to get XP from that game match.

As it turns out it's not as cut and dried as the initial reports stated. Destructoid has word from the game's associate producer Nathan Davis of developer Obsidian Entertainment that there is in fact persistant XP for your character. The way the game will handle it is that you will have a separate character for Dungeon Siege 3's single player and create a new character for any multiplayer games you want to participate in. Davis says, "Co-op players can absolutely expect to have the loot and experience they gain in multiplayer games to be saved to their multiplayer characters." There will also be unique multiplayer rewards as well. We will have to see if players will go for having separate character for their single and co-op game experiences.

Thief 4 was announced nearly two years ago but the game's development team at Eidos Montreal hasn't said much and shown nothing of the next game in the "sneaker" shooter series. Now a new photo found on the company's web site seems to show off something that looks like it could be from the new game in the Thief series.

The shot seems to show a person in third person with a bow in his hand. If this really is from Thief 4 it would seem to show that at least part of the game uses the third person perspective. There's still no word on when Thief 4 will be released. Eidos Montreal is still working on Deus Ex Human Revolution which is supposed to come out sometime in 2011.

[Via Strategy Informer]