zombie-studios posts

Earlier this month Konami released Saw, the horror-action game based on the long running movie series, for the PS3 and Xbox 360. However Konami also announced plans for a PC port of the game. Now the Steam web site is showing that the PC version will be coming to Valve's download service sometime later this month.

The game was developed by Zombie Studios and Big Download has learned that Steam will be the only place North American PC gamers will be able to purchase the Saw port as it will not be made available in retail stores. Konami did the same thing last year when it released the PC version of Silent Hill: Homecoming as a Steam download exclusive.

A few months ago we reported that Zombie Studios was working on a new first person shooter called Blacklight (which is also being made as a comic book and movie property at Fox). At the time Zombie's president Mark Long also told us about their Shrapnel comic book that they created and which is being published by Radical Comics. The sci-fi action comic also shares the name of a game that Zombie was developing several years ago but later put on hold.

Today The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that Zombie Studios is once again planning to release a game with the Shrapnel title and like Blacklight a movie version is in the works as well. The movie rights to Shrapnel have been bought by director Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free or Die Hard).

The comic book version of Shrapnel is highly different than Zombie's previously announced game, which took place in the near future. The comic book (and the new game and movie) takes place in the far future where humanity has colonized the solar system but is now under brutal rule. An ex-Space Marine on Venus is trying to fight off the Solar Allliance with their own rebellion. There's no word on when the Shrapnel movie or game will be released.

In the fall of 2006, Bethesda Softworks announced plans to release Rogue Warrior, an Unreal Engine 3 based tactical shooter based loosely on the exploits of real life Navy SEAL Richard Marcinko. The publisher made a big deal of the announcement, bringing in game journalists to a press event in Las Vegas at the time. The game was announced for release in fall 2007.

Since then, however, Bethesda Softworks has put down the cone of silence on Rogue Warrior. It has listed the game as "In Development" for some time on the publisher's official web site but aside from that the company has been quiet about its development (and it has obviously missed that fall 2007 release date). However that might finally be changing. Big Download contacted Bethesda Softworks' PR head Pete Hines who told us that a status report on Rogue Warrior will be made "in the next month or so."

Currently up in the air is whether or not the game's originally announced developer Zombie Studios is still working on the game. Zombie is pretty busy at the moment with two announced titles; the movie based game Saw for publisher Konami and their own game property Blacklight that's also being marketed as a movie and comic book. Bethesda Softworks is also working with developer Splash Damage on an upcoming game but so far details of that title have not been announced.

A couple of months ago Variety posted up rumors that Konami was going to take over as the publisher of the game based on the Saw horror films. Today Variety has now confirmed those rumors, saying that the publisher will release the Zombie Studios-developed game for the PC and other platforms this fall, around the time Saw IV is released to theaters by Lionsgate.

The Variety article also has the first actual screenshots from the game (reproduced here) The game itseld will have an original story and not an adaptation of any of the films. The game has your character trying to solve the nasty torture puzzles put in place by the movie's villain Jigsaw. The game was one of the many titles under the now defunct Brash Entertainment which went under in a rather spectacular fashion lasf fall.

You have read a lot about Blacklight already but Big Download decided to get even more info from Mark Long, the president of the game's developer at Zombie Studios.

Blacklight sounds like a game that's trying to mix sci-fi elements with more realistic shooters. How hard is it for you guys to keep that balance and make the game feel real while at the same time give it a kind of sci-fi "wow" factor?

We made a major design goal of the game and story to be "science fact", rather than science fiction. So we searched for far out weapons research, like in ultrasonic technology, and take it to its realistic limit - a non-lethal "ultrasonic launcher", for example. Which is cool because they're sound waves, so they can be bounced off of hard surfaces. You can bounce a shot off a wall to knock down an enemy you can't get a line of sight on. Or generate a sonic force field that slows down an enemy in an ambush.

By John Gaudiosi

Independent videogame developer Zombie Studios, which has made PC games like America's Army: Special Forces, Shadow Ops and Delta Force: Task Force Dagger, has an answer to the videogame-to-film problem that has plagued movies from Doom to the recent Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Rather than creating a game and then shopping it around Hollywood, Zombie has created a new tactical first-person shooter PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game franchise and partnered with Union Entertainment and Fox Atomic to create a new movie and comic book series around the military action franchise, Blacklight.

Seattle-based Zombie Studios has been fairly silent for a while. The developer's last announced project was the military shooter Rogue Warrior for Bethesda Softworks but it seems like that project is dead (neither Zombie nor Bethesda Softworks have ever officially commented on what happened). Now it seems Zombie is launching an multi-media project called Blacklight, which is being aimed as game, a movie and a comic book series.

The near-future tactical shooter is being developed by Zombie as a game and they are working with Fox Atomic on a movie version and a comic book series. All three projects will feature the same characters but each will have "unique, intersecting storylines that complement each other." So far there's no word on when Blacklight in any form will be released.

Brash Entertainment had one of the biggest flame outs in game publishing history but at least one of the games that was orphaned by the company's collapse may be getting some new life. Variety is reporting via unnamed sources that the long-in-development title based on the Saw films may be going to Konami.

According to the story the Saw game, which was under development at Zombie, went back to the movie's owners at Lionsgate after the collapse of Brash. After considering the possibility of publishing the game themselves, Lionsgate decided to go the more traditional route and give the game to an established publisher. The story claims the Saw game will be released this fall around the time Saw VI is in theaters. So far Konami, Lionsgate and Zombie have not said anything official about this development so treat it as a rumor for now.