The recent rumors were that Rocksteady, makers of Batman: Arkham Asylum and City, were possibly working on a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game. Now we’ve got a poster popping up at the 2012 Toy Fair (courtesy of toyark.com) that indicates the brand will be cross-promoting with IDW, current publisher of the comic, and Activision. Does this negate the Rocksteady rumors? Not necessarily. Activision is primarily a publishing house so it could mean they’re publishing a Rocksteady produced game. This could be good or bad news. If the game succeeds in any way, you can count on Activision to be rolling out annual sequels from whoever they can get to develop them as long as the license holds. On the other hand, those annual iterations will quickly suffer from oversaturation in the market and the lack of innovation caused by the high turnover.
Just in case that reference to Activision’s habit of over-releasing games went over your head, here’s a more blatant example. A listing for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 recently surfaced momentarily on Amazon’s French site. It was immediately taken down, but not before someone caught a screen shot. I’m not sure why they bothered to de-list it. It’s not like anyone actually thought this game wouldn’t be released this year.
As many players are winding up their 1,000+ hour Skyrim campaigns the talk of DLC is just getting started. Bethesda had what they call an “aggressive path” for Fallout 3‘s DLC, releasing five additional pieces at $10 each. For Skyrim they want to go in a different direction. According to Todd Howard, the “plan now is to take more time, to have more meat on them. They’ll feel closer to an expansion pack.” To fill the low times between add-ons they plan to release smaller, free content to keep you in the game. However, they’re still “trying to figure out what those things are.” Bethesda did show off a bunch of stuff recently at DICE that their developers came up with just for fun. Some of that may be included in one of these releases. So, dragon mounts?
If you’re in the market for DLC sooner rather than later, look to expand Assassin’s Creed: Revelations later this month. The “Lost Archives” expansion is scheduled for a February release at $14.99. The actual content hasn’t been revealed yet, but an achievement list was recently leaked indicating there will be at least one more Desmond mission. This is expected to be additional story content, not just a multiplayer add-on. Personally, I’d like to see them expand the ending. No story spoilers, but the final two missions are just about the worst possible way to end the Ezio trilogy.
Saints’ Row: The Third is also getting some DLC, starting today. “Gangstas in Space” is exactly what it sounds like, ridiculous. Then again, the whole game is ridiculous fun. You can enjoy this latest adventure for $6.99, or free if you’e got the Season Pass.
Another job posting may be another indication of an as-yet-unannounced game. This time Crytek has an ad through EA for someone to get game footage and other duties for the German “partner studio.” This is clearly not an official announcement, but the smart money is on Crysis 3. The developers have indicated that they would make a third if the second game did well. It did.
2K Games is joining the “free upgrade with preorder crowd” with Spec Ops: The Line. They’ve recently announced a June 26th release date, and if you preorder now you’ll get the FUBAR upgrade for free. Focusing on the squad-based multiplayer mode, this pack will get you double experience points in the first week of release, unlock the AK-47 weapon and Officer class at “rank one,” and give you plenty more accessories to customize your online character.
Despite continued denials about the imminent announcement of next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony, CD Project RED are clearly talking about their two new games for the systems. One of the two is a new IP, while the other is expected to be The Witcher 3. They are reportedly looking at a 2014/15 simultaneous release on multiple platforms. This seems to hold with the expectation of next-gen consoles coming sometime between late 2013 and late 2014. Despite assurances from Kaz Hirai that it won’t happen, I expect there will be some sort of announcement at E3 this year.
Then again, if Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo aren’t prepared to make the move yet (WiiU is catch up, not next-gen, sorry), maybe Valve will. According to Gabe Newell they may have to enter the console market to save the industry. Huh? He’s not saying they want to make consoles, or even that they could do it well, “it’s more we think that we need to continue to have innovation, and if the only way to get these kind of projects started is by us going and developing and selling the hardware directly then that’s what we’ll do.” The failure of the big three, according to Newell, is an outdated approach: “Internally developed proprietary graphics solutions on the consoles, they’re all gone – everything in the console space is coming from the PC now, and I think that we really need to see the same thing in terms of just general attitudes about platforms.” If anyone is qualified to talk about how gaming works in the PC world it’s Valve, the creators of Steam. This raises some interesting questions. Nobody expected Sony to compete with Nintendo when the first Playstation launched in 1995. We all thought Microsoft had lost its mind trying to challenge Sony’s dominance when they released the first XBox. So why shouldn’t we expect a Valve SteamEngine to come out in a couple of years with a completely redesigned distribution model? Make it a top shelf platform for indie developers and release Half-Life 3 as an exclusive and we could see an industry dominated by four home consoles. Especially if they can lower the retail cost of games in the process. Something to think about anyway.
If PS4, neXtBox, SteamEngine, and WiiU all came out this fall, how many consoles would you buy? Which ones would you get? Comment below!