Monthly Archives: January 2015

Dying Light: Nightmare Row Novel Announced

Dying Light

Today Techland announced the final touches are being put on a tie-in novel based on the upcoming action survival game Dying Light. Titled Dying Light: Nightmare Row, the novel will be a prequel to the events depicted in the game, taking the reader to the days prior to the outbreak that decimated the city of Harran. Dying Light: Nightmare Row is written by Raymond Benson, the author of over thirty published titles, including the official follow-up James Bond novels commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate.

“Writing the origin story for DYING LIGHT was an exciting adventure for me,” says Benson. “I’d always wanted to try my hand at a zombie-genre tale and this gave me the perfect opportunity. The folks at Techland created a rich and intriguingly bleak setting for the game, so that gave me a wonderful and creepy world in which to play around. All fans of zombie fiction, gamers and readers alike, are in for a real treat.”

Dying Light: Nightmare Row tells the terrifying story of Mel Wyatt, an 18-year-old American athlete who participated in the Harran 2015 Global Athletic Games two weeks earlier. As one of many Americans stranded in Harran as a result of the outbreak, Mel has been surviving with her little brother, Paul, in an isolated hotel – their parents were killed on the first day of the Infected attacks on the stadium. Thus begins a tense and ticking time bomb thriller of survival.

More details about Dying Light: Nightmare Row, including price and release date, will be announced soon.

Dying Light (videogame) is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the PC, and is scheduled for release in 2015 on January 27th in the Americas, January 28th in Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and January 30th in Europe.

For more info, visit dyinglightgame.com/

Medieval Engineers: New Title from “Space Engineers” Creators

Medieval Engineers

Independent developer Keen Software House, today announced Medieval Engineers, the company’s second “engineering” game. The first, Space Engineers, was released in October 2013 and sold over 1 million copies in its first year, and is still keeping its bestseller position. Medieval Engineers is currently in its alpha stage of development and will be soon available on Steam Early Access. More details will be announced at a later date.

Medieval Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction and the maintenance of architectural works and mechanical equipment using medieval technology. Players build cities, castles and fortifications; construct mechanical devices and engines; perform landscaping and underground mining.

Medieval Engineers is inspired by real medieval technology and the way people built architectural and mechanical works in medieval times. Medieval Engineers strives to follow the laws of physics and real history and doesn’t use technologies that were not available in 5th to 15th century.

“We are very curious to see how the Space Engineers community will react to Medieval Engineers and if other communities will also get interested in our new title” said Marek Rosa, CEO and Founder of Keen Software House. “We didn’t want to only keep creating space games. Instead we wanted to have a game where players can interact with life and nature. By creating a second engineering game, we are also leveraging our existing technology and experience.”

An in-game alpha video showing gameplay action and key features (creative mode, castle building, trebuchet construction, realistic destruction and physics) can be watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJBYsv3sGAI
For more information about Medieval Engineers, visit www.MedievalEngineers.com

EVE Online’s Proteus release is out today

Eve Online

CCP has just released a new update for their sandbox sci-fi game “EVE Online” with the new Proteus update. This new update features many new changes, including rebalanced ships, field effects, exploration sites and more.

  • Rebalanced Recon Ships. An entire class of ships has gone back to the design table with a notable change being immunity to detection by Directional Scanners for Combat Recons, making them incredibly deadly ambushers
  • Asteroid field effects bring pulverized rocks, dust particles, light rays and other atmospheric beautifications to the raw materials that help build the EVE universe
  • High end exploration sites offer hazards, traps and lucrative rewards for veteran explorers
  • 10 more groups of modules are streamlined and simplified to maintain the sophistication of EVE without overdone complexity
  • The glorious beta star map gains even more features and improved visualization
  • A redesigned Gallente Exequror hull graces the previously humble logistics ship
  • New player mining locations ensure that there will always be a fresh store of Veldspar for those venturing into the first few days in EVE

For more info, visit http://community.eveonline.com/releases/proteus/?utm_source=ccp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20150113_pr&utm_content=proteus2

SEVENCORE Reveals Content Update with New Class ‘Assassin’

Sevencore

WEBZEN, a global developer and publisher of free-to-play games, is delighted to announce that free-to-play MMORPG SEVENCORE unleashed the latest content update with the brand-new class ‘Assassin’ today.

After the scheduled maintenance on Tuesday, 13 January, the Assassin is now available for both English and Spanish servers.

Assassins are masters of agility who fight using daggers or claws to eliminate their opponents. Assassins specialise in melee combat, dealing swift and deadly blows using Daggers or Claws. Assassins bring both a high critical chance and dodge rate to the table, allowing them to outmanoeuvre foes before landing the finishing blow.

Claw Assassins are powerful melee fighters with access to numerous abilities to boost their critical chance, as well as skills allowing them to deal quick attacks to numerous foes. Claws specialise in striking quickly, dealing a large number of small blows in a short period of time. Claws pierce their enemy’s defence by puncturing their armour, dealing critical damage.

Dagger Assassins rely more heavily on single target damage, with the ability to cloak themselves in order to deal powerful stealth attacks to unsuspecting enemies. Along with a strike from the shadows, exploiting your opponent’s weakness and dealing crippling blows, Daggers allow the Assassin to deal small, quick blow, while being more agile than their warrior counterparts.

With this new content update, SEVENCORE offers an increased level cap for characters in English Server, going from level 60 to level 80. In conjunction with this increase, players with level 80 character will be able to explore a new field, Ancile Islands.

From now until 27 January, the Dungeon Runner Event will be organised by the Sevencore Team. Once players accept an event quest from event NPC at Delos and clear the dungeon, they will get a special prize.

In addition, a brand-new item Mechanical Mount will be available to buy on limited offer until the scheduled maintenance on 27 January 2015 (UTC).

More information about the latest update for SEVENCORE can be found on the official SEVENCORE websites: http://en.sevencore.webzen.com and http://es.sevencore.webzen.com.

Kabam Acquires Games Studios TapZen and Magic Pixel Games

Kabam

Kabam, Inc., today announced it has acquired Los Angeles-based games studios TapZen and Magic Pixel Games. The move will expand Kabam’s global presence directly into the entertainment capital, bolster the company’s AAA console quality development experience and add industry luminary Mike Verdu as a new executive on the Kabam team.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.  TapZen and Magic Pixel will be merged into a new Kabam branded Los Angeles studio near Culver City.

“Welcoming TapZen and Magic Pixel into the Kabam family is another significant milestone for Kabam,” said Co-Founder and CEO Kevin Chou. “The addition of Mike Verdu augments our world-class leadership team, and having a Los Angeles studio will strengthen Kabam’s already-deep relationships with our Hollywood partners.”

Mike Verdu is a standout among game industry veterans with both AAA console and free-to-play experience. Before founding TapZen, he was chief creative officer and co-president of Games at Zynga, where he launched new games like FrontierVille, CastleVille, and Empires & Allies as well as overseeing existing franchises such as Farmville, Zynga Poker, and Mafia Wars during his tenure. Prior to that, Verdu was Vice President and General Manager of Electronic Arts Los Angeles where he oversaw global franchises such as Command & Conquer, Medal of Honor, as well as Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle-earth.

“Joining Kabam was an opportunity we could not pass up,” said Verdu. “I’ve been impressed at how Kabam has quickly become a leader in the free-to-play games space, and I look forward to helping the team drive the evolution of mobile games into the next generation.”

Verdu founded TapZen in 2012 and worked with Magic Pixel Games to create the bombastic mobile strategy game This Means War!.  As part of Kabam, both TapZen and Magic Pixel will continue to build out the company’s strategy game lineup, which already includes such durable franchises as Kingdoms of Camelot, Dragons of Atlantis, and The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth, each of which have generated more than $100 million in revenue.

“Kabam has a proven track record of bringing awesome strategy games to global audiences,” said Michael Seegers, Co-Founder of Magic Pixel. “We are thrilled to become a part of their team and bring our talents to an even bigger stage.”

Verdu is the latest games industry luminary to join Kabam. In November, the company added former Electronic Arts executive Nick Earl as president of Kabam Global Studios.  Prior to that, another Electronic Arts executive, Aaron Loeb, joined as senior vice president.

“This new troika of industry executives gives Kabam unprecedented AAA console quality game development experience and global management firepower that will propel Kabam Studios to the next level,” Chou said.

The addition of a Los Angeles-based studio will strengthen Kabam’s already robust relationships with Hollywood studios, a key driver of the company’s success. Kabam has launched free-to-play mobile hit games based on recognizable worldwide franchises by such studios as Disney, Warner Bros, MGM and Universal.

The acquisition of TapZen and Magic Pixel bring to nine the number of studios Kabam has acquired since 2010.  Earlier acquisitions include of Phoenix Age (2014), Exploding Barrel Games (2013), Gravity Bear, Fearless Studios, Wild Shadow and Balanced World Studio (2012), and Wonderhill (2010)

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

GW2 Living World Finale: ‘Point of No Return’ Now Available

GW2

ArenaNet™, publisher and developer of the acclaimed Guild Wars franchise, is releasing “Point of No Return” for Guild Wars 2’s Living World today. As the conclusion of the Living World’s second season, the episode promises to be a memorable one. Earlier in the season players were warned that ‘the road to war is paved with points of no return’. Now, Tyria stands at that threshold, with the Pact Fleet poised to take the war to the Elder Dragon Mordremoth and his increasingly fierce forces, the Mordrem.

In addition to bringing the Season 2 storyline to its epic conclusion, “Point of No Return” delivers new game play and access to new treasures:

Time is Running Out

The Pact Fleet is poised to launch, and Glint’s egg is still missing. You have one last memory seed to plant, and the search through Caithe’s past has led you to a cave sealed shut with strange magic. The time for truth has come. Find a way to break the seal, enter the cave, and learn what happened all those years ago.

Ancient History

Marjory thinks Ogden Stonehealer might be able to shed some light on the origins of the seal on Wynne’s cave. The old dwarf has lived through events that have since become mere myths. Players must go to the Durmand Priory to seek his aid in understanding the seal’s ancient magic – and how to break it.

Mordrem Vinewrath

Players can take the next step in the war against the Mordrem by fighting the Vinewrath, a lieutenant of Mordremoth that has claimed a portion of the Silverwastes for its own. This fight will take the coordination of many heroes working together with the Pact to force their way down three separate lanes of attack and take out the Vinewrath’s three deadly champions.

Silverwastes Treasures

Players can round out their Carapace and Luminescent armor sets with the addition of the chest and headgear pieces in this episode. Complete the Points of No Return storyline to receive the Carapace headgear, and fight the Mordrem Vinewrath for a chance at the Carapace chest. Bandit Crest collectors now have Mordrem Bladder and Spleen Extraction Devices and a new ascended accessory for players to purchase.

To learn more about “Point of No Return,” check out the ArenaNet Releases tab at www.guildwars2.com