Monthly Archives: June 2016
WB Games President on If Other DC Characters Could Get the Batman: Arkham Treatment
Batman has starred in four Arkham games in recent years while a host of DC Comics heroes and villains have recently come to blows in Injustice: Gods Among Us and its upcoming sequel, but is there room for more DC Comics characters to take the spotlight in their own games?
"DC is an enormous priority for our entire company, and we're thrilled that games can really support franchise building at almost the same level as movies and television can," WB Games President David Haddad said in an interview with IGN.
So while WB Games has nothing to announce at this time, DC's importance to all facets of WB is evident outside of games in the DC Comics cinematic universe kicking off with this year's Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad. But don't expect WB Games to necessarily choose which characters could be suited to future titles because of that film slate.
Fallout 4’s Dialogue ‘Didn’t Work as Well,’ Says Director
Despite the shooting in Fallout 4 being "really good," some players thought Bethesda could have improved on a few things, including the dialogue system.
Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard spoke to GameSpot about the studio's tendency to "try new things" and how the team's efforts don't always pan out. "Obviously, the way we did some dialogue stuff, that didn't work as well," he said.
Fallout 4 voice actors spent two years recording over 13,000 lines of dialogue for the game, and Howard said the team intended to use the system to create "nice interactive dialogue," though it ended up being "less successful than other things in the game."
Rhythm Heaven Megamix Is Out Now
Rhythm Heaven Megamix is out right now, Nintendo revealed. The game costs $30 USD and can be downloaded from the Nintendo eShop.
The game features over 100 rhythm game challenges, with 70 pulled from previous games in the Rhythm Heaven series, up to and including the Game Boy Advance entry in the series. Nintendo first revealed Rhythm Heaven Megamix during a Nintendo Direct back in March.
Nintendo showed off the game during its Treehouse Live event during E3 today. It was the final game to be featured during a stream which included a new role-playing IP called Ever Oasis, a look at the western release of Dragon Quest VII, and of course, lots of Zelda gameplay.
Xbox Boss Talks Scorpio Specs and Console Upgrade Cycle
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer shed light on Microsoft's vision for the future of its console business, saying the company isn't planning to upgrade its hardware on an annual basis.
"We’re not on a hardware tick-tock that says I need to put out a console every two years or every one year to get people to upgrade. That’s not the console model," Spencer told WIRED in an interview at E3. Instead, the company is "trying to think beyond generations" with a console model that allows users to carry all of the content they purchased for their older hardware forward.
Next year, Microsoft will release an upgraded version of Xbox One, codenamed Project Scorpio, which Spencer likened to a PC with a GeForce GTX 980 graphics card. In addition to being designed specifically for 4K televisions, the console will be capable of handling software built for virtual reality.
How EA Plans to Discover the Next Rocket League
EA won't make a dime on EA Originals -- its initiative to publish and market indie titles -- but according to EA's Executive VP Patrick Söderlund, that's not really the point.
"Would I want to be the guy that found Rocket League?" asked Söderlund. "Yes. Would I want that to be an EA property? Of course I would like to. That’s
. For us to be able to find these people and help understand what they’re building and help push it to market. For us to find something else."
The latest game to be revealed as part of EA's Originals program was Fe, a game from Zoink Studios about exploration and discovery.
"I was essentially a small indie developer myself," Söderlund continued. "Battlefield 1942 was made by 14 people. It was, in today’s means, an indie game. Had I not had the proper support and funding for it, I wouldn’t be in this industry. So, for me it’s about finding not necessarily the next Battlefield, but finding the talent out there... That’s essentially
Conjuring 2 Villain Getting Spinoff Film
Following the success of New Line's sequel to The Conjuring, James Wan and Peter Safran are returning to produce a spinoff film.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Conjuring 2 co-writer David Leslie Johnson is on board the pen the script.
Some spoilers for The Conjuring 2 follow.
The movie, which will be called The Nun, will center around Bonnie Aarons' demon nun character. The nun was added to The Conjuring 2 during reshoots just three months before the film opened, interestingly enough. As THR relates, the antagonist of the film was originally a demonic figure with horns, but director Wan brainstormed the new character in the eleventh hour and reshoots were conducted to add the nun to the story.
Former Assasin’s Creed Producer on EA’s Approach to Star Wars Games
EA offered an update on its suite of Star Wars games in development from various studios at E3, and the publisher is investigating how to make each title a unique approach to Star Wars lore and the gameplay fans may be seeking from a galaxy far, far away.
"Star Wars is a huge franchise, probably the biggest, and because it's a universe it also has a huge scope of different types of characters, different types of player fantasies that you can have within that
," Jade Raymond said in an interview with IGN.
EA is exploring how to make each of its projects, whether it be the Star Wars Battlefront sequel Raymond's EA Motive is working on in association with DICE or Amy Hennig's project at Visceral Games, evoke a different "player fantasy" in terms of gameplay and story.
In Days Gone, The Environment Is Your Friend
Let’s get it out of the way up front: Days Gone is another zombie game. They’re called Freakers and they’re technically still alive, but the end result is the same: they want to kill you.
The thing that separates Freakers from the zombies in The Walking Dead or Resident Evil is the sheer volume of them. Even if you had infinite ammo, you’d never be able to wipe out the horde that surrounds you at every turn. Instead, you need to outrun them. You need to use the environment around you to slow them down and buy every second you can. Your life depends on it.
In a demo shown at E3, Deacon (the bounty hunter and ex-biker gang member you play as) is searching an abandoned sawmill for a man named Two Dog. Unfortunately, Two Dog gets taken down pretty quickly (R.I.P. Two Dog), leaving Deacon to fend off the horde.
God of War Could Have Been Set in Egypt
Sony unveiled a new God of War during its E3 2016 press conference. And as rumored, the game draws inspiration from Norse mythology. However, Sony Santa Monica once considered a focus on Egyptian mythology for the game.
"Half the team was way into that," Sony Santa Monica creative director Cory Barlog said during a round-table interview, as reported by Eurogamer. "Egyptian mythology is about the pharaohs as embodiment of the gods on earth and there's a lot more about civilization."
He continued: "It's less isolated, less barren." Because of that, the team chose to move away from that idea and towards the Norse setting, as they wanted the focus to stay on Kratos. "Having too much around distracts from that central theme of a stranger in a strange place," Barlog said.
Criterion’s ‘Action Sports’ Game Is Still in Development
Since it was announced at E3 2014, we've heard essentially nothing about Criterion's "action sports" game, unofficially referred to as "Beyond Cars." According to EA the game is still alive, though it has changed a bit.
Speaking about the project with IGN, Executive VP at EA Patrick Söderlund said "We talked about
building something. They are building something. That’s true. But as with any game, whenever you build something new and you go after a new IP, you learn things during the way that may change the course of action."