I’m flying home from DICE today but JetBlue kindly decided to delay my flight nearly three hours, so that means I’ve got plenty of time to assemble the week’s most important gaming news for your convenience.
This week: Lots of Just Cause 3, SOE drops the S, and Mario finds himself murdering zombies.
Call of Duty XII
I’m shocked—shocked! On Thursday, Activision announced we’re getting a Call of Duty game this fall. Most likely in November. This will be the first time we get a Call of Duty game since November 2014, and prior to that we had to endure an interminable wait of a whole year since Call of Duty: Ghosts in November of 2013.
Call of Duty fans are understandably overjoyed to hear that this long-awaited sequel is coming. “Wow, it’s like there hasn’t even been a Call of Duty game in so long. Just really inspiring to hear that Activision plans to finally release another one this year,” said one fan.
We tried to interview another fan but he couldn’t even speak, he was so in shock. Just truly shocking and amazing news, here.
Just.
Cause.
3.
SOE becomes OE
Sony Online Entertainment a.k.a. SOE a.k.a. developer of EverQuest, Planetside 2, and H1Z1 has broken away from Sony and gone independent, entirely intact. Investment firm Columbus Nova bought out the company for an undisclosed amount. While the studio has focused primarily on PC it’ll now branch out to PS4 and even Xbox One games.
They’re obviously rebranding also, to Daybreak Games.
Keep those revivals coming
New Toejam and Earl? Check.
New Ultima Underworld successor? Check.
The former is light on details, considering it’s not even officially announced yet. However, the latter has an entire Kickstarter campaign you can dig through at your leisure. Original creator Paul Neurath is involved, and they’re asking for $600,000.
Condemned no more
In less-solid revival news, Condemned creator Jason Hall is asking whether we’d like to play a new game in the acclaimed horror series.
“I am contemplating finding an interested and proven Indie development team AND PROVIDING IT TO THEM, so that they can take over the franchise and move it forward,” Hall wrote on Facebook. “Should I explore this idea further? What say you all?”
Yes. Please.
Just.
Cause.
3.
Leaked Just Cause 3 screenshots via NeoGAF.
Exclusives
Here’s where I was going to cover news about that new Tomb Raider game, but then I remembered it’s not even coming to PC until some unspecified date thanks to a garbage timed-exclusivity deal with Microsoft.
Then I got so annoyed I didn’t even want to report on Tomb Raider.
More exclusives
Another timed exclusivity deal, that weird B-tier game Assassin’s Creed: Rogue, got its PC release date this week: March 10. I’ve heard it’s basically Black Flag Pt. Deux, so I’m actually fairly interested in this one. More interested than I was in Unity, anyway.
Some weirder news: The game is partnering with Tobii Tech and the SteelSeries Sentry to support eye-tracking. There are a couple of features, but the creepiest is that characters will try and make eye-contact with the player. Fahrenheit 451, here we come.
I’ve got a meeting set up with Tobii at GDC, so I’ll let you know how the technology works once I’ve got my eyes on it.
Fatality!
Mortal Kombat X ‘s system requirements are refreshingly low after months of pushed boundaries. Like, really low.
Minimum: OS: 64-bit: Vista, Win 7, Win 8 Processor: Intel Core i5-750, 2.67 GHz | AMD Phenom II X4 965, 3.4 GHz. Memory: 3 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 | AMD Radeon HD 5850 Hard Drive: 25 GB available space
Recommended: OS: 64-bit: Win 7, Win 8 Processor: Intel Core i7-3770, 3.4 GHz | AMD FX-8350, 4.0 GHz Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 | AMD Radeon HD 7950 Hard Drive: 40 GB available space
Goomba killer
YouTube user Alex Noon discovered and/or documented the existence of a hidden Super Mario tribute in Dying Light. Watch the video below to see how you can enter the game’s first-person remake of Mario World 1-1.
There’s also a Last of Us reference floating around, and I found what I’m pretty sure is a Doctor Who Weeping Angels reference too. The game is packed full of easter eggs, apparently.
More reading
- Both Razer and Raptr had some trouble this week—one with bogus software imitations, and the other with hacking.
- The graphics race is heating up again! At GDC we’ll hear the first news on a successor to open-source graphics API OpenGL.
- Obsidian already greenlit a sequel to Pillars of Eternity, and the game’s not even out for another month.
- Blizzard added Warcraft III assets into the StarCraft II level editor.
- Humble Bundle is running an amazing deal on classic Star Wars games this week and next week.
- The DICE Awards (gaming’s sort-of Oscars) took place Thursday night.
- Two previews this week—Battlefield: Hardline and Mortal Kombat X. I like one a lot more than the other!
- And one, single review for Dying Light.