the-radar-group posts

It's been over two years since Finland-based Recoil Games announced their plans for their Earth invasion-themed action game Earth No More. Since then the developer has been fairly quiet on the game's progress although last May the developer released the first official screenshots from the game.

Now the Finnish-based web site eDome is reporting that the game is in "sleep" mode which we interpret to mean that the title is not on the front burner on Recoil's current activities. According to info supplied by Recoil's studio lead Samuli Syvähuoko the company is working on another unnamed game title that was shown recently at France's Game Connection event. The studio rep seemed pretty optimistic, saying, "You'll hear more in the future. Our future has never looked better." Until we hear something different we will take his word for it.

It's looking like the Prey first person shooter franchise is making yet another transition. After starting as a 3D Realms internal project that got canceledin the 1990s and then revived with developer Human Head (with 3D Realms supervising) in 2006 it now looks like Bethesda Softworks' parent company ZeniMax Media has claimed the rights to the franchise.

Newly discovered trademark documents via trademark super-site superannuation show that the Prey franchise was purchased by ZeniMax from The Radar Group earlier this year. The Radar Group was created by 3D Realms' CEO Scott Miller as a separate company and had Prey 2 as one of their listed games in development. We've contacted both Miller and Zenimax's PR head Pete Hines to get comments on this new development.

Update: Hines responded back to our inquires, saying simply, "We don't have any comment."

Two years ago, Finland-based Recoil Games first revealed their plans for Earth No More, a sci-fi action game about a biological alien invasion of Earth. Originally the game was to be developed in partnership with 3D Realms but in 2008 it was announced that the game was now under the umbrella of The Radar Group (co-founded by 3D Realms CEO Scott Miller). Also in 2008 the parties involved were sued by two men who claimed to have come up with the name and concept for Earth No More.

After over a year of no info on the game Gamasutra managed to contact Recoil Games and got the first two actual screenshots from the Unreal Engine 3 powered title (we have reproduced them here). They also have a brief chat with Recoil Games CEO Samuli Syvahuoko who unfortunately didn't really offer any new info on the game itself. He did say that the recent shutdown of 3D Realms "has no effect on us" but the subject of the Earth No More lawsuit is not mentioned.