Here Be Monsters, the MMO for iPad from Gamesys, launched worldwide today after a successful beta period in the UK and Canada.

Here Be Monsters combines the real with the mythical – players travel the globe trapping over 100 mythical monsters drawn from the legends of different cultures. They start their adventure in London where they join the Ministry of Monsters as a new recruit and are quickly caught up in the plots of an evil dragon and the lives of the local inhabitants.

As they travel the world, players discover hundreds of local resources from different countries which they can use to build ingenious traps and baits. Thousands of in game items have been painstakingly researched and hand illustrated. Exotic items such as fruit trees, wildflowers, fish, gems and butterflies are all correctly located in the regions they originate from. Players build ever more elaborate traps to capture the local monsters, while the baits required for each monster are influenced by both legend and local cuisine.

Players also create, manage and upgrade a Homestead which they can place anywhere in the world. This forms their base of operations and here they’ll farm other resources and optimize their crafting production lines. It’s also a great place to show off souvenirs from their travels around the world.

New quests are developed episodically, with hundreds available at worldwide launch and the team continuing to release new content every month. The first season is based in London and Europe, with the action then moving to Nanjing for season two. A further 4 seasons based on other continents around the world will follow.

The global launch also marks the release of the first localized version of the game – Portuguese Brazilian – with more languages to come.

For more info, visit https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/here-be-monsters-hd/id794447258?mt=8&dm_t=0,0,0,0,0

Nival, an independent game developer renowned for its strategy titles, has today released its cross-platform Tower Defense game Prime World: Defenders on two new platforms – Facebook and Android. Players will be able to switch seamlessly between iOS, Android devices and Facebook, keeping their game progress intact. The game is featured in NVIDIA TegraZone with enhancements for devices with NVIDIA Tegra mobile processors. Prime World: Defenders is free of charge on Facebook and Android, and $4.99/€4.99/£2.99 on iOS.

Prime World: Defenders is an innovative combination of Tower Defense and Collectible Card Game (CCG), implementing the best attributes from each genre. To secure victory, players will have to develop their hero’s talents, collect and upgrade towers and magic cards, destroy hostile totems and utilize the places of force that give additional power.

“Nival have been great advocates, users and friends of Unity over the last few years and the list of stunning games they have produced with our tools such as King’s Bounty, Prime World and other upcoming projects show what happens when amazing teams work with amazing technology. We’re proud to have such a close partnership with Nival and we’re hugely excited to be working with them on all their future cross-platform productions,” said Antony Douglas, Vice President EMEA of Unity Technologies.

Also commenting on their partnership, Bob Slinn, Head of Gaming Partnerships at Facebook Europe, Middle East and Africa, added, ‘’We are focused on helping game developers succeed on all platforms and are excited to work with Nival to bring their new game, Prime World: Defenders, to Facebook. Nival is a great example of how developers can use tools like the Facebook for Unity SDK and Parse Push to get their game up and running quickly, reach millions of people and keep players engaged no matter what device or platform they use.”

“Nival has done a wonderful job developing Prime World: Defenders to be an engaging experience across multiple platforms. Tegra-powered device owners are in for a visual treat with added enhancements and full HD capabilities on SHIELD,” said Keita Iida, Senior Director of Global Content Management at NVIDIA.

For more info, visit http://playdefenders.com/

On June 5, 2014, Wargaming.net announced its participation in Wicksteed At War – a military history show for the whole family which will be held on June 14 and 15, 2014 . This is the event’s fourth year and there are plans to entertain thousands of visitors with an even bigger and better day out!

Wicksteed At War is one of the most established British, annual, military-history shows and is a must-see event that brings the story of tanks and soldiers to life. Wargaming.net’s presence at Wicksteed is partly down to the company’s award winning MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) pc games, World of Tanks and World of Warplanes, as well as World of Tanks XBOX 360 Edition.

“We at Wargaming are really excited to be attending this show for the first time. We have something special to be unveiled which will form the backbone of all the events that we will be attending in 2014”said Markus Schill, Director of Customer Relations at Wargaming.

“Events like this bring us a lot closer to a likeminded audience who like tanks and military history. With over 40,000 people being thrilled by the WWII battle re-enactments and vehicle displays, it will be great to meet up and chat with fans of the game, and make some new ones along the way, at this truly special event.”

World of Tanks is a team-based, massively multiplayer online action game dedicated to armoured warfare. Throw yourself into the epic tank battles of World War II with fans of steel machines from all over the world. Your arsenal includes over 300 armoured vehicles from Great Britain, the United States, Germany, the Soviet Union, France, Japan and China, carefully detailed with historical accuracy.

Wicksteed At War is a show that seeks to educate visitors in the realities of war through its dedication to displaying military vehicles and providing a space for realistic re-enactments by military re-enactment groups. Combined with the family attractions of Wicksteed Park it is a great weekend for visitors young and old.

Among the attractions planned for this year are Battle of Britain memorial fly overs by a Lancaster Bomber (Saturday) and a Spitfire (Sunday), a Fire engine display, a tank display team, World War II battle re-enactments and vehicle displays.

There will also be a 1940s Blitz-era Ball in the park’s Pavilion on the Saturday, as well as a beer festival. For the first time, the event will also include a firepower demonstration, showing the crowd the difference in noise between a pistol and a tank gun and everything in between.

For further information, go to www.wicksteedatwar.co.uk.The event is held at Wicksteed Park, Kettering, Northamptonshire, England

Independent UK developer Rebellion has announced that Sniper Elite V2 has been downloaded 2.2M times in less than 24 hours after Steam made the game free on Wednesday.

At its peak over 50,000 gamers were playing the game simultaneously on the platform, comparing favourably with some of Steam’s most popular games.

The studio hopes to hit 2 million by the time the promotion ends today at 6pm BST / 10am PST today.

For more info, visit http://www.rebellion.co.uk/

Blood Bowl 2, the sequel to Blood Bowl, the video game developed by Cyanide studios based on the venerable board game created by Games Workshop, that combines American football with the fantasy world of Warhammer, today unveils a brand new series of screenshots, presenting the Dwarf teams and their stadium! Blood Bowl 2 will also be presented next week at E3 in Los Angeles, at Focus Home Interactive’s booth (West Hall Booth 5512).

While Humans and Orcs have been joyfully tearing each other apart for a few weeks now, it’s time for the 3rd of the 8 races of Blood Bowl 2 to make – despite a modest size – a triumphal entry. Their beards freshly trimmed and their Bugman’s Beer mug locked to their belt, the Dwarfs finally enter the pitch of their newly inaugurated stadium! One thing is for sure: they’re definitely not here to play the ball, and the Human team who have the honour (or misfortune) to face them first will certainly testify to that.

Blood Bowl 2 is even more ambitious than its predecessor in all aspects of the game, with numerous extra features and the highest production values. Its brand new graphic engine has been specifically developed for this sequel and displays the game’s high-quality visuals and superb graphics and sound effects that raise the license to the next level. The animations, the dynamic cameras enhancing the brutal atmosphere of the matches, the “Cabalvision” identity and the commentator duo of Jim Johnson and Bob Bifford faithfully convey the thrills and fury so typical of the intense clashes in Blood Bowl.

Blood Bowl 2 includes a host of new features in both Solo and Multiplayer mode that also make the game more accessible. The ambitious Solo campaign puts players in charge of one the most famous teams in the world of Blood Bowl to compete in some unconventional and truly unique matches to take their team to the top, while “League” mode allows you to manage your own team, club and even stadium! Finally, the game achieves a greater tactical depth in Multiplayer mode with fabulous innovations that we will release very soon and which guarantee to drive the players wild!

For more info, visit http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/

InnoGames just released the long-awaited iPad version of its award-winning online game Forge of Empires. From now on, Forge of Empires is available for download on the App store – players can login on the iPad with their browser account, switch back and forth between devices or create an entirely new account on the tablet. The user interface has been optimized for touchscreen and supports multitouch-gestures. Additionally, the game’s reworked graphics fully utilize the iPads high-resolution retina-tablets. InnoGames has released a new video with the launch, introducing the iPad app and announcing an iPad fan contest via Forge of Empire’s Facebook page.

The optimized touch controls, visuals and direct play support allow for a true mobile gaming experience – also sporting full cross-platform functionality, the app enables players with a browser account to log in via the iPad, continue playing and then switch back to the browser at any time, without ever losing progress. Accounts that are created on the iPad can also be used to access the browser version. The recently released Postmodern Era can be played on the iPad as well. The iPad release is part of InnoGames’ ongoing cross-platform strategy. The team is already working on the iPhone- and Android-Versions for Forge of Empires, which will follow at a later date.

For more info, visit https://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/forge-of-empires/id711455226?mt=8

After months of community support and feedback, Nether Productions announced today that first-person survival game Nether has exited Steam Early Access and is now available as a full release for $14.99. GBP- £10.99 , EUR €13.99. To celebrate the milestone, all players logging in after June 5th will receive a potion that grants the ability to play as a Nether and golden chest keys to open rare loot boxes that contain valuable survival items. Additionally all guest keys have been replenished and players will earn one Gold coin for each key that is redeemed.

Nether’s Main Features Include:

An Unforgiving City – Players must scavenge their way through post-apocalyptic Chicago while avoiding Nether, poor mutated souls that roam the city in search of human flesh. While searching for food through the city’s buildings and blocks, players can gather supplies to craft makeshift weapons for protection or trade at various markets. Survivalists must always be aware of other players who may be only one moment away from death, and see killing them and looting their possessions as their only salvation.

Tribes – Players can find safety in numbers by joining a tribe, and only tribes can capture and own territory. Compete with rival tribes in territory wars for control of the city by seizing strategic landmarks to reap resources and experience; proving dominance over other tribes. Tribes change the survival experience by establishing a true social construct, with all the consequences of behavior that players would expect in the real world.
Missions – Players can complete an assortment of individual or group missions to earn money, experience and reputation. Perform vital supply runs between the markets, work with others to take down the swarms of Nether led by the vicious boss Reaper that sporadically surge to attack neighborhoods, or keep the creatures out of the Safezones by working in groups to repair the anti-Nether devices when they fail.

“Since launching early access, we’ve continually worked with our rabid community to drive development of all the features that make Nether a survival gaming experience unlike any other,” said Chip Sineni, Creative Director at Phosphor Games. “We never knew what Nether would look like at full release and we have been constantly amazed at the player enthusiasm to help create a solid game.”

For more info, visit https://www.playnether.com/

HiRez Studios and Level Up, a premiere online game publisher in Brazil and Spanish-speaking Latin America, today announced a strategic partnership to publish SMITE throughout Latin America.

“We are thrilled to bring SMITE’s unique action gameplay to this growing and vibrant market,” said Todd Harris, Chief Operating Officer of HiRez Studios. “And we are especially excited to partner with Level Up, whose local presence and expertise in Latin America allow us to offer the best possible experience to our players in these countries.”

In addition, HiRez and Level Up revealed that the top team from Brazil and the top team from Spanish-speaking Latin America will join teams from Europe, North America and China at the SMITE World Championship. The finals will be held in Atlanta in early January, 2015 and regional qualifiers are set to begin later this year. Once a localized version of SMITE is released in Latin America and Brazil, SMITE players currently using the North American or European SMITE servers will have an opportunity to transfer their accounts to the Level Up servers, including gods, skins, XP, favor, gems and mastery levels.

“The Latin American players are extremely competitive, and SMITE brings such a thrilling and refined level of competitiveness that fits our tastes. That’s why the game has already proven very popular within our market” said Julio Vieitez, CEO of Level Up. “With local, dedicated servers and support in both Spanish-speaking Latin America and Brazil, we believe SMITE will be a leading game, for professional gamers and casual players both, in Latin America.”

For more info, visit http://www.hirezstudios.com/smite