It’s that time of the week again. Bethesda teases us with a new multiplayer game, the walking dead and wolf among us are finally going all next-gen and Microsoft’s CEO says no to selling the Xbox Division. I mean, who started that rumor anyway? Read the summaries or click on over the full stories. Let us know which story you thought was top of the crop this week and leave feedback below in the comments.
Number 5
Bethesda Announces New Multiplayer Arena – Battlecry
Bethesda are finally dipping their toes into the free to play market with a surprise announcement of Battlecry, a third-person multiplayer battle arena aimed at a competitive player versus player experience.
The trailer provides a flavor of what to expect on launch, pitting two highly stylized groups; the Royal Marines and the Cossack Empire, against each other in a bloody brawl to the death; fists, swords, bows and what can be best described as mechanical guns are all used to bring the pain. All this is housed in a post-World War setting that aesthetically resembles Dishonored.
Battlecry hosts a 32-player team-based combat, featuring class-based gameplay along with a deep progression system ‘allowing deep strategic builds for your Warrior on every Level.’ Whilst this doesn’t sound like a revelation in formula for a game of this ilk, Battlecry looks to be setting itself apart with unique and visceral combat that focuses on utilizing vertical map progression and emergence of gameplay, where ‘highly-stylized environments change depending on whether you are winning or losing in the arena.’
Official site Battlecrythegame.com also boasts that ‘Responsive, smooth controls unleash violent, high-impact, and stunning combo attacks previously reserved for modern brawlers. Dynamic movement allows you to seamlessly grapple, evade and mantle to quickly cover distances and evade the other team.’ Executive Producer Rich Vogel cites combat from games such as Devil May Cry and God Of War as inspirations in the creation of their combat engine, which would certainly make for an interesting experience when paired with the competitive edge that is being emphasized.
Number 4
The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us Coming to PS4 & Xbox One
Telltale has announced that The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us will be releasing for PS4 and Xbox One later this year. This news comes to us from a blog post on Telltale’s official site. Telltale also announced that The second season of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us will be released later this year for Xbox 360 and PS3 as retail disks.
“Today, we can confirm that The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series – Season One, The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series – Season Two and The Wolf Among Us: A Telltale Games Series will be coming to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 later this year. Furthermore, The Walking Dead – Season Two and The Wolf Among Us will be released as retail discs for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 following their continuing success as digital downloads.”
As of now there is still two more episodes to go for The Walking Dead and one more episode for The Wolf Among Us. We don’t have a release date for any of them just yet. Telltale is also working on a Game of Thrones series and a series based on the Gearbox franchise Borderlands, sadly there are no release dates for those just yet either.
Number 3
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham to release this Fall
In what was a busy day for release trailers, Warner Bros. and TT Games jointly announced Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham will be released this Fall.
In this installment of the Lego Batman franchise, Batman, Robin and other DC characters will go to outer space to prevent Brainiac from destroying planet Earth.
“There’s a lot more variety than we’ve previously had with the Lego Batman games,” said game director Arthur Parsons. “We are doing space combat, races, virtual reality missions, platforming, RPG elements. Characters are always going to be changing and upgrading. It just keeps kids engaged.”
Lego Batman 3 will be available on Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Windows PC this coming Fall.
Number 2
Red Dead Redemption Sequel Will Come
The CEO of Take-Two Strauss Zelnick had a lot to say this week about certain games of the past. Zelnick spoke this week at the Cowen and Company analyst conference, he went on to express that the Red Dead Redemption brand can be a “permanent franchise” that can follow with other franchises such as Grand Theft Auto.
This came up from a question that was asked about why Take-Two was apparently so “selective” about their releases rather than crowding the market.
The risk of just [releasing more games] is that you end up just bulking up your release schedule and that isn’t really what consumers want. Consumers want better, not more,” Zelnick said. “So our selective approach, which we’ve taken since ’07 I think has paid off. Now, we have gotten more by taking that approach; we’ve launched one new successful franchise every year and I would like to keep doing that particularly because I talk about permanent franchises, but not everything is going to be a permanent franchise. Some of our great franchises eventually will lose their luster and some will hopefully be permanent.” – Strauss Zelnick, Take-Two CEO
[Update]: Red Dead Redemption has been confirmed.
Number 1
CEO of Microsoft Has No Plans to Sell Xbox Division
Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella told interviewers Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, that he has no intention of selling off the Xbox division.
“I have no intent to do anything different with Xbox than we are doing today.” – Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO
There has been rumors and speculation since August of last year when an activist investor who has a 1% stake in the company wanted to fire Steve Ballmer and sell off the Xbox Division. Earlier this month Bill Gates said on The Fox Business Network that he would “absolutely support” selling off the Xbox Division.
Recently Phill Spencer was appointed the new head of Xbox. Since then we have seen a price drop for the Xbox One and changes made to Xbox Live Gold.