zenimax-online-studios posts

In 2006 Zenimax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, launched the Maryland-based Zenimax Online Studios and started making a still unannounced MMO game. While that game still hasn't been announced it sounds like the developer is prepping up for for the game to launch with today's announcement that it will open new offices in Galway, Ireland.

According to today's press release the new offices will be to "provide customer support for players of their future massively multiplayer online games." Zenimax Media says that the customer support center could end with the "creation of hundreds of jobs over the next several years" in Galway. If Zenimax Online Studios is starting to think about customer support we might actually be close to a game announcement.

There are PC games on the immediate horizon that are close to being released. Then there are games that have been officially announced but will take years to find their way to our hard drive (BioShock Infinite is due out in 2012, for example) And then there are the games that are completely under the radar. These are titles that developers are working on very hard but haven't been officially announced or in some cases even admitted as being in production.

Big Download has covered these games over the years. In the past we have called them "Black Ops" games but since Call of Duty Black Ops has become so well known we didn't want to confuse you when we decided to do our yearly look at these games. So from now on we are calling these super-secret titles "Code Black" games.

The last time we did an article like this we mentioned several games that have since been fully revealed such as BioShock Infinite, FireFall, Bulletstorm and others. But there are still tons of games that we know are currently being made that haven't seen the light of the public eye yet? Which titles are we talking about? Check out the first part of our current list of Code Black games for yourself.

With 2011 still pretty fresh in everyone's mind, it's time to see into Big Download's crystal ball for what's going to happen in the PC game industry in 2011. Looking back at our predictions for what we thought would happen in 2010, we got about 50 percent of our predictions correct. Not bad but not all that great either.

However that track record isn't going to stop us from making our predictions for what might happen in the next 12 months. As we see it, the PC game industry is looking pretty darn good, concerning all of its competition (console games, iPhone and iPad gaming, social network games, etc) and the fact that the overall economy, while better than it was at the beginning of 2010, still isn't the greatest. But will there be any unexpected left field surprises? Read on for what we think might happen:

ZeniMax Media, the parent company of game publisher Bethesda Softworks, has been on a spending spree lately. The company announced its acquisition of Arkane Studios last August and in October it announced it acquired the Japan-based Tango Gameworks. Now there's word that ZeniMax has bought yet another developer.

While the company has yet to reveal it officially, Develop has posted up word that business documents seem to confirm that Zenimax has bought Machinegames, a new developer formed last year by former members of Starbreeze Studios, the makers of the acclaimed first person action game The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. If this is indeed true the privately owned ZemiMax now owns six game development studios (Bethesda Game Studios, ZeniMax Online Studios, and id Software are the other three dev studios).

The company who runs both a game development company and a game engine division is reorganizing. Nope we are not talking about Epic Games, Valve, or Crytek but Simutronics, the makers of the MMO-themed HeroEngine. Today Simultronics announced they will now have two truly separate divisions, HeroEngine and Simutronics Games.

While Simutronics Games is moving on to making games for social networks and the iPhone, HeroEngine will continue to expand and develop its engine for use by third parties, mainly for MMO game projects. It's highest profile game is BioWare's upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's also being used by ZeniMax Online Studios for the basis of their still unannounced MMO game project. Simultronics states it has secured even more HeroEngine license deals for a variety of unnamed projects including "a multi-title deal with a US publisher" and "stealth-mode projects from startups and major studios in China, Europe and the US."

It's not a secret that Zenimax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, has been working on some kind of MMO project since late 2006 when it first announced their plans to open Zenimax Online Studios. Details about the MMO have been kept close to their vest ever since. Now it appears that Zenimax wants to keep a few details of their MMO project out of their current court fight with Interplay concerning the Fallout IP rights.

Fallout fan site Duck and Cover claims through unnamed sources that Zenimax has indeed tried to keep info about the MMO game out of the court documents "so their competitors can't find out about it." However it sounds like the info they want to keep quiet is pretty basic stuff. They claims the info shows that Zenimax has been working on the game since 2007 (duh), and that the company has spent "tens and tens of millions of dollars" on development (standard for a AAA MMO title). The info also says it is employing "close to a hundred people" to work on the game (again, standard for a AAA MMO title). Some have said the game is an Elder Scrolls-based MMO which again has been speculated on before.

So in other words we are no closer to finding out details on the game that we were before. Nothing to see here..move along.

It's been an interesting last 12 months for games on our "Black Ops" list. These are the games that we know are under development but officially unannounced. A few months ago we talked about the Black Ops games that were finally brought out into the light in 2009.

But there are still a ton of games that are being made under a cloak of darkness (or at least under a very grey coat). We decided to go back and remind you of at least some of these games that will hopefully get their day in the sun . .. somday.

Click on the image above to continue reading Black Ops PC Games for 2010

In the PC game industry there are really only two types of games; those that are announced and those that are being developed currently in secret. These titles are what we are calling "black ops games". These are the titles that we know are in development but at the moment there's very little info on what these titles are even like, much less any word on a release date.

We have seen an example of this type of game earlier this week when it was revealed that Ensemble Studios was working on a planned MMO based on the Halo franchise. That game was canceled before the title was even announced and history is full of similar games that were being worked on but were canceled before they were officially revealed (of course there's also been a ton of games that were fully revealed but then canceled before their planned release...but that's another feature story)

So are there such black ops titles currently being made right now? You betcha. They are being created by the top developers in the business and range from first person shooter titles to RTS games to MMO projects. In this feature article, Big Download will take a look at a number of these games, some of which you may note even be aware of. However this is only the tip of the iceberg as many other PC games that we know nothing about are currently being developed as we speak...unannounced and still in the dark.