Dungeons & Dragons Online druid trailer is beastly
Dungeons and Dragons Online will get the first full expansion of its six year history late next month, which will add new lands and new foes to thwart. You could do this with one of the existing DDO classes of course, but where are the rabid animals in that? The druid’s mastery of nature will let them have pets, summon additional companions and charm creatures in the wild to trample the invading dark elf forces using the deadly power of MAMMALS. Their spellbooks are full of more showy elemental magic and some healing tricks if you prefer a more varied approach. Find out more in our D&D Online: Menace of the Underdark preview. It’s out on June 25.
Just Cause 4 domains registered by Square Enix
Wait, have we woken up several of years in the future? The little Windows clock in the corner says no, and yet Fusible report that Square Enix have registered a number of international domain names for Just Cause 4. Just Cause 3 isn’t out yet.
Perhaps they’ve decided to forgo the third game, like a band just skipping the difficult second album, though it’s more likely that this is a routine bit of IP protection from Square. Avalanche have been quiet about a follow up to the wonderfully silly Just Cause 2. This, at least, is a sign that the Just Cause series is still on the radar. Perhaps we’ll hear more when E3 rolls around in a few weeks.
Call of Duty creators’ claim against Activision grows to $1bn
Earlier this week, as reported by Bloomberg, EA settled with Activision over accusations that EA attempted to poach Call of Duty creators, West and Zampella before Activision fired the pair for breach of contract and insubordination in 2010. The West/Zampella vs. Activision case is still alive and kicking, however. Now Develop note that their damages claim for unfair dismissal has grown to ONE BILLION dollars.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown dev diary discusses modernising a classic, has spooky music
With a backing track that makes Firaxis studios feel a bit like that hotel from The Shining, lead programmer Casey O’Toole talks about the joys and difficulties of birthing a new XCOM game into the world. The combat will still be entirely turn based, but with some actions your soldiers will still exchange fire with the alien invaders between turns to keep the battlefield feeling lively. You can get a sense of what that’ll look like in this XCOM: Enemy Unknown trailer. Firaxis will be out on consoles and PC, but Firaxis have assured us that the PC will get a standalone tactical UI and be moddable.
Torchlight 2 beta stress test this weekend
If you’ve been wrestling with error 37 in Diablo 3 this week and want to help a different company stress test their servers, there’s a Torchlight 2 test session happening this weekend. It could be a good opportunity to get in on the last leg of the beta if you haven’t received an invite yet. You can sign up for a chance of grabbing a slot on the Torchlight 2 site.
Before Diablo 3 arrived, Tom had the chance to jump into the beta and take some videos of Torchlight 2′s. The Embermage is above, but you might want to check out the Outlander, the Engineer and the Beserker as well. They look insanely powerful. It’s available to pre-purchase now on Steam for £14.99 / $19.99, and comes with a bonus copy of Torchlight 1, which was quite excellent.
Call of Duty: Modern Wafare 3 Face Off trailer has pistols at spawn
Infinity Ward have released more footage of the new Face Off mode that’ll be added in content collection 2. Sadly, it doesn’t have Nic Cage and John Travolta swapping faces and trying to out-ham each other to death in tribute to John Woo’s 1997 flick, it’s a fast 1v1/2v2 mode set in a series of tight arenas.
It looks perfect for a bit of split screen on the consoles, but the more focused approach could also fix that feeling of constantly being caught with your pants down on those busier CoD maps. Content collection 2 will arrive imminently on the Xbox, but will arrive quite a bit late on PC. There’s not solid date just yet. The pack will also contain three multiplayer maps, two co-op spec ops maps and two new Face Off arenas.
Unreal Engine 4 screenshots feature fire demon and snowy landscapes
Epic have been showing off the next iteration of the Unreal Engine to developers for a short while. Wired got a look recently, and have posted their impressions alongside a few new shots showing a fiery demon, some busy wireframe scenes and a lovely vista.
Epic haven’t released the demo video yet, but Wired describe plenty of new tech, including an advanced particle rendering systems and a lighting program that models the way light bounces around rooms entirely in real time, bypassing the typical level design techniques that “bake” light and shadow into the textures of a scene. The days of designers hand-placing individual light shafts in a scene may well be over.
Kingdoms of Amalur devs in difficulty after missing state loan payment
38 Studios appear to be having some problems paying back hefty loans owed to the state of Rhode Island. Blue’s News highlight a report from the Boston Herald saying that the studio missed a $1.1m payment at the start of the month and are now requesting more money.
Studio founder and former baseball star Curt Schilling held a private meeting with state officials earlier today to discuss the state of the company. Afterwards, officials responded by deciding to not decide anything for a short while. With taxpayer money on the line, the studio could face hard times ahead.
Borderlands 2 collector’s editions announced
There are two types of Collector’s Edition for Borderlands 2. There’s the $99.99 Deluxe Vault Hunter’s Collector’s Edition for those who really like Borderlands, and the $149.99 Ultimate Loot Chest Limited Edition set for fans who really, really REALLY like Borderlands.
The cheaper box comes with a Marcus Kincaid bobblehead, a map of pandora, a download code for the digital comic, an art book and some stickers. The ultra-box is modelled in the style of a red Borderlands loot chest (minus the randomised megaguns), and comes with a set of lithograph postcards, some Sir Hammerlock field notes, a “steel book case” and big ID chart that lists all of the creatures you’ll encounter in Pandora. Also, most importantly, there’s a cloth map. In case you’ve never held a cloth map, it is the best sort of map a map could hope to be.
Indie Royale All Charity Lightning Pack is live, £10k already raised for charity
Adding the word “lightning” to things tends to make them instantly exciting, and adding the word “charity” makes them nice, so the Indie Royale team have hit on a good thing with their “All Charity Lightning Pack.” It’ll let you pay a small amount for a bundle that includes floaty gobble ‘em up, Osmos, violent but awesome party game, BUTTON, Rabbi-tastic adventure The Shivah and the surreal, serene explorathon that is Blueberry Garden.
ALL profits are divided between four charities, including Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, act!onaid and Unicef. The minimum price for the pack fluctuates. If more buyers pay over the required minimum, the price will drop. Otherwise, it’ll rise gradually. Right now it’s set at a pleasantly low £2.57 and the total donations figure just ticked over the ten thousand mark. WELL DONE EVERYONE. The deal will close in 79 hours at the time of writing.
Rift three faction PvP hits test servers today
A new three-way PvP faction war mode will land on Rift’s test servers later on today. From 4pm PDT / 11pm players will have the chance to and jump into a new PvP warzone in a new version of Stillmoor to do battle for a cluster of control points (or Sourcestone Extractors, as they’re called).
As a member of one of three new factions, Ascended must seize a certain number of these areas to win. “The match ends when a single team has claimed 40% of the control points or 5,000 players are killed” explain Trion on the Rift site, “once this happens a 10 minute timer will start, this is your chance to make a last grab for control.”
Crysis 3 screenshots break out the flamethrower
Man, it’s tough being Prophet. Today I fought an alien with a flamethrower built into his face. He was trying to kill a tree. It’s weird, ever since we built a giant dome over New York and accelerated the plant growth the alien population have gotten really serious about gardening. I took a picture of myself using the remote nano cam and waited for them to pass. You’re my only friend now, nano cam.
Star Wars: The Old Republic free trial starts tomorrow
If you’re looking for something new to play this weekend, why not waggle a lightsaber in Star Wars: The Old Republic? A four day free trial kicks off tomorrow for those who haven’t sampled one of the other free trial events that Bioware have been running recently.
As with those previous free weekend events, you won’t need to feed your credit card details to Bioware’s hungry Treasury Rancor (Bankor?) to get in, and you’ll be able to get to level 15 and participate in PvP and flashpoints. Full details on the Star Wars: The Old Republic site.
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion beta live for pre-order players
The Rebellion expansion for the splendid Sins of a Solar Empire is due out in a few weeks, but first there’s another beta phase to go first. As the above trailer mentions, it’s live now for pre-order customers on Steam, which will give fans an early look at Rebellion’s visual updates, new factions and Titan class battleships. It’s due out on June 12, find out more on the official Sins of a Solar Empire site and see those Titans tearing it up in deep space in these Rebellion screenshots.
