It’s that time of week again when we take a fond look back at the top five news stories from the week. Welcome to the Weekly Wrap-Up. Below you’ll find a brief summary of the stories, but for the full articles, click on the hyperlink. Feel free to let us know if you agree or disagree with our choices; if you have suggestions for future entries, feel free to email me at jeremy.tyler@bagogames.com.
Enjoy!
Number 5
Flower Coming to Vita
The game, Flower, appeared on IndieCade’s list of games that would make an appearance at E3 in June. Another game also on the list that will be at the PlayStation Vita booth will be Hohokum, which is a 2D sandbox adventure title from the collaborative efforts of artist Richard Hogg and developer Honeyslug.
The Vita port for Flower was thought to be handled by the original team that developed the game but a spokesperson for thatgamecompany said otherwise.
Number 4
Next-Gen Splinter Cell is Already Being Planned
Splinter Cell: Blacklist, which will be the most recent entry into the long running franchise, may be coming to current-gen systems in a couple of months, but that doesn’t mean Ubisoft can settle down and take some time off before the next one. In fact, Splinter Cell is such a successful series for the company that they already have plans in the making for Splinter Cell on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Speaking to Arabic Gamers, Blacklist art director Scott Lee confirmed that Sam Fisher will be returning when those fancy next-gen consoles are out and about.
Number 3
The Last of Us Will Have Three DLC packs and Season Pass
The Last of Us, developed by Naughty Dog, will have three DLC packs along with a detailed Season Pass. One pack will be a single-player story while the other two will bring additional multiplayer content and maps. All three packs can be bought in a Season Pass for only $20 which gives you 30% savings on each single pack by itself.
Number 2
Limbo Gets a PlayStation Vita Release Date of June 4th
Playdead’s Limbo, which originally saw a release on XBLA in 2010, has now been given a release date of June 4th (June 5th in Europe) for its PS Vita release. The game will have a price of $14.99 / €12.99 / £9.99 when it comes to PSN and will be the exact same game we all initially fell in love with, as Playdead worked with Double Eleven to ensure that nothing was changed.
Number 1
Xbox One Will Have an ‘Independent Creator Program’
Microsoft seems to have some plan in store to get indie developers on board with the Xbox One in the form of an ‘independent creator program.’
Don Mattrick, the head guy in charge of the Xbox right now, revealed to Kotaku that they want to support indie devs and are going to give them the proper tools to work with.
“We’re going to have an independent creator program,” he said. “We’re going to sponsor it. We’re going to give people tools. We’re going to give more information.”
Of course, as Microsoft seems to be doing lately, they won’t elaborate on the matter until later. Kotaku noted that Mattrick also neglected to bring up the topic of self-publishing, something that the Xbox One was confirmed to not support.
Honorable Mentions
This week had a lot of big news and the news staff and I found it hard to narrow it down to the usual five stories:
- Sony Wants ‘Notch’ to Be Their E3 Golden Boy
- Rayman Legends Coming to PlayStation Vita
- Xbox One to be Region Locked
If you missed out on the big news items this week, you can check out our weekly podcast and get an audio update of this week’s madness from our podcasting team. Listen to us as we talk about some things seriously and a few other things not so much. We guarantee this episode will make you shake your fist at times and nod your head at others.