syfy-channel posts

Trion Worlds launched its first MMO game, Rift, just a few weeks ago but the developer-publisher has at least two more titles in the worlds. One is the RTS MMO End of Nations with Petroglyph. The other is the long-in-development sci-fi MMO being made in collaboration with the Syfy cable TV network.

This week Syfy announced that the actual title of the Trion Worlds game will be Defiance and that the game is scheduled to launch sometime in 2011. The plan is still to launch a prime time TV series that will link to the game in some way. However specific gameplay details, beyond the fact that it will be a third person action shooter game, have still not been announced.

While plans for a TV movie based on Volition's Red Faction game franchise were first revealed a few months ago, today publisher THQ made it official today with its press release announcing Red Faction: Origins. The movie, made for the Syfy Channel cable TV network, is currently scheduled to air on the network in March 2011.

The story for the movie will take place before the events in the upcoming third person shooter Red Faction Armageddon which is also currently scheduled for release in March 2011. The movie, which will also serve as a pilot for a possible Red Faction TV series, will have the character of Red Faction Militia member Jake Mason who has found out that his long lost sister is a member of a group that is out to destroy the Red Faction. Bummer.

Those goofy Saturday night movies on the Syfy cable TV network (ah, Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus; we miss you) will be joined at some point by a Red Faction film. The Broadcast and Cable web site has announced that THQ's sci-fi shooter franchise will be the basis for a two hour movie on the cable network that will also serve as a back-door pilot for a potential TV series.

Syfy is getting more serious about cross-pollinating its programming with games. It already has a deal with Trion Worlds to co-develop a MMO game that will also link to a TV series. Similiarly, Syfy will have some kind of influence over the next Red Faction game by THQ.

Will one of the best sci-fi TV series of all time finally get a good game tie-in? German-based game publisher BigPoint hopes to do just that with the announcement today at GDC 2010 of plans to release Battlestar Galactica Online, a browser-based MMO based on the the "reimagined" TV show that had a five year run on the Syfy Channel before shutting down.

The game itself is being developed by BigPoint which operates a lot of free-to-play browser based games. The company is opening up a US office in San Fransisco this year. Battlestar Galactica Online is expect to launch sometime in the fall of 2010 on the Syfy.com web site for a 30 day exclusive period. A teaser site for the game is already online. The final version will use the Unity engine and will allow players to pick between the human and Cylon races in a game that will combine space combat, missions and exploration. We just hope there will be missions with sexy lady robots. That's all we are saying.

MMO game developer Trion World Network announced some time ago that it was going to team up with the cable TV network Syfy on a joint MMO game that would also be developed as a TV show. Now Syfy parent company General Electric has apparently sneaked in the game's title, One Earth, on their GE Reports web site.

There's actually little info on the game or the TV show itself in the web site's article or in the video that you can see above. There's a lot of general talk about how both the MMO and the TV series will link together. Events in one medium will be reflected in the other, according to reps from both Trion and Syfy. One interesting tidbit is that GE has invested in Trion World Networks via their Peacock Equity fund. However it will will be interesting to see if this project continues if Syfy and all of NBC Universal's properties will be sold off to Comcast as planned.

[Via MMORPG]