Warp Zoned Presents
All Articles: E3 2014
Bethesda unveils BattleCry, a team-based melee combat game
Many people believe that kings of old used to wage war not with swords and soldiers, but on the battlefield of the chess board. Bethesda’s BattleCry Studios has taken this idea and expanded upon it with their debut project, a 32-player team-based melee combat game also known as BattleCry.
BattleCry’s distinctive visual look was created by Viktor Antonov, the Art Director responsible for Half-Life 2‘s futuristic locales and Dishonored‘s medieval steampunk vibe. For BattleCry, Antonov has created a world where “gunpowder [was] banned following a cataclysmic world war at the dawn of the 20th century.” Like the chess-playing kings, “traditional warfare is now a relic of the past and all conflicts are settled head-on by elite teams of chosen warriors in sanctioned WarZones.” However, unlike the carved chessmen, these battles take place between trained warriors that live for battle.
Be sure to check out some of BattleCry’s characters in the trailer above (and especially be on the lookout for a pair of mustachioed circus strongmen) as well as a stylized look at the game’s melee combat system:
Choose your faction and progress your warrior through the ranks. Each rank unlocks new abilities and effects allowing deep strategic builds for your warrior on every level. Risk life and limb as the powerful Royal Marines or the fearless Cossacks in imaginative WarZones each designed to combine positioning, spacing and verticality to redefine your core combat experience. Fight with transformative melee and ranged weapons that harness iron and energy and eviscerate your opponents with swords that transform into shields, bows that can punch an arrow straight through an armored skull or electrocute your foes with high-powered blades crackling with electro-static energy.
Bethesda will release BattleCry as a free-to-play title for the PC sometime in 2015 and will reveal more details about the game’s world at this year’s E3 Expo.
Internet sleuths discover police-themed Battlefield Hardline on EA’s servers
Battlefield Hardline is rumored to be the next game in the Battlefield series, according to a lot of research performed today by multiple Internet sleuths. Samit Sarkar over at Polygon packaged it all together nicely:
The leak began with the discovery on the Better Battlelog forums of an initialism for a Battlefield game, “BFH,” listed for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The forum poster also discovered four soldier classes: Enforcer, Mechanic, Operator and Professional.
After that, the logo above was posted on web developer Koen Vlaswinkel’s personal website, taken from the Battlelog website. He “and the Battlefield Daily Twitter account also posted artwork and icons that mention the two sides in the game, SWAT and Thieves, and modes such as Blood Money and Heist.” These images, including a riot shield, taser, handcuffs, money, and police vehicles, did nothing to dispel the rumor.
But wait – there’s more. Vlaswinkel also found proof that Visceral Games, the studio behind the Dead Space series, could be the studio developing the game. He “discovered an image of the word ‘visceral,'” which goes along with a report from earlier this year about a cops-and-robbers game codenamed Havana in development at Visceral.
I guess we’ll just have to wait until EA’s E3 press conference at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time) on June 9, and hope that the publisher will clear this up then.
UPDATE: EA has gone ahead and officially announced Battlefield Hardline. And it looks like we will learn more at this year’s E3 Expo.
Sony has pushed the release of The Order: 1886 into 2015
Sony has been positioning Ready At Dawn’s The Order: 1886 as this Fall’s major PS4 exclusive. But after today’s delay, it looks like the consolemaker will have to put together a new battle plan. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Ready At Dawn’s Creative Director, Ru Weerasuriya, confirmed that The Order: 1886’s release has been pushed back to early 2015.
We’ll get our next big taste of The Order: 1886 as this year’s E3 Expo, but until then, Weerasuriya and some of the other developers got together to give fans a behind-the-scenes look at the game’s world in a new developer diary. “Fusing History & Mythology” examines how the Ready At Dawn team has reshaped Victorian London into a retro-futuristic city with advanced weaponry, magic, zeppelins, and werewolf-like creatures known as Half-Breeds. But I think the most interesting thing is how much of the time and the town that went unchanged.
Ready At Dawn also recently released a new gameplay video of The Order: 1886 showcasing Galahad’s Thermite rifle and the “heightened state” and focused abilities of the game’s Blacksight mechanic.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged E3 2014, The Order: 1886
Super Smash Bros. 4 will be playable at more than 100 Best Buy stores next month
As promised, Nintendo has announced further details about the Super Smash Bros. 4 “Smashfest” that will be coming to Best Buy stores across the country next month. More than 100 Best Buy stores will play host to the same Super Smash Bros. 4 demo stations that Nintendo is bringing to this year’s E3 Expo on Wednesday, June 11 (from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM) and Saturday, June 14 (from noon to 5:00 PM). A complete list of every participating store can be found on Best Buy’s website.
In addition to the demo stations, Best Buy also wants to sell you a copy of Super Smash Bros. 4. So the first 70 people who pre-order the game at each store will receive a “rare collectible Super Smash Bros. gold coin.” Each pre-ordered copy of Super Smash Bros. 4 will also include a $5 My Best Buy Rewards Zone gift certificate.
Super Smash Bros. 4 will be available for the 3DS sometime this Summer with the Wii U edition scheduled to launch by the end of the year.
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged E3 2014, Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U
Ubisoft @ E3 14: Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, The Division, The Crew, more
Ubisoft has announced their E3 2014 plans and it includes a lot of games we already knew about including Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Far Cry 4, Tom Clancy’s The Division, The Crew, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War. The megapublisher plans to announce a few additional titles during E3 Media Briefing, which will be held on Monday, June 9 at 6:00 PM (Eastern Time). Once again, Ubisoft’s presentation will be hosted by actress (and professional awesome person) Aisha Tyler and will be broadcast live on their YouTube Channel.
So what else will Ubisoft be announcing at this year’s E3 Expo? I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Blood Dragon 2 or the oft-rumored Assassin’s Creed: Comet, and you know a Watch Dogs sequel is in development somewhere within Ubisoft’s many development houses, but that probably won’t be an E3 2014 announcement.
You can find more information on Ubisoft’s E3 lineup after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Unity, E3 2014, Far Cry 4, The Crew, Tom Clancy's The Division, Valiant Hearts: The Great War
Evolve tracks down an October 21 release date
2K Games has announced that Turtle Rock’s “4v1” shooter, Evolve, will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One on October 21. Evolve will also be on display at this year’s E3 Expo, so we’ll surely hear more about Turtle Rock’s Left 4 Dead followup next month. But if you’d rather not wait that long, Polygon has published a new report four more characters who will challenge the Monsters this October.
Evolve’s previously released promotional material (including the PAX East demo) always featured the same four Hunters: Markov (Assault), Hank (Support), Griffin (Trapper), and Val (Medic). The new set of characters will slot into the same classes, but with different weaponry and personalities…
- Hyde is an Assault character with a minigun, a flamethrower, and an eye patch.
- Bucket is a robotic Support character who can remove his own head and use it as a drone to pinpoint the Monster’s position.
- Maggie is a Trapper who hunts with Daisy, an alien beast that Maggie has tamed as a pet. Daisy can sniff out the Monster and even heal other players like a rescue dog (little barrel not included).
- Finally, Lazarus is a Medic with a sniper rifle and an invisibility cloak.
It’s unknown how many different characters will make the final cut for Evolve, but Turtle Rock has promised that more will be revealed soon.
Microsoft reveals Halo 5: Guardians and confirms Fall 2015 release date
With this year’s E3 Expo just under a month away, Microsoft has officially re-announced the next Halo game. Halo 5: Guardians will be released exclusively for the Xbox One in Fall 2015, alongside the Steven Spielberg-produced Halo: The Television Series. This launch timeframe is technically a delay, as 343’s Bonnie Ross originally promised that our Halo journey would begin in 2014 during last year’s E3 Expo.
Apparently, we all misunderstood her meaning:
Many fans noted that I was very deliberate with my phrasing on stage at E3 last year. I spoke about a “journey,” rather than a destination – and that journey definitely begins in 2014 with a giant leap, rather than one small step. We’ll give you much more information about our plans for this year at the Xbox E3 2014 Media Briefing on June 9, and we’re confident that Halo fans will be pretty excited about the special plans we have in store.
I’m not sure I believe that. But it is good to know we’ll learn more about Halo 5: Guardians, which is being built with a “brand new and more powerful” engine, during E3. Ross also stated that Halo 5 will be a bigger game, in terms of both content and scope, than Halo 4. The 343 team wants to take everything they learned in creating the Master Chief’s previous adventure, “technology, aesthetics, performance and scale,” and expand on it for Guardians.
As for Halo: The Television Series, it will stand alone, but it is also meant to “complement and enrich the game experience” of Halo 5. We may find out a bit more about it during this year’s E3 Expo, but we’ll most likely have to wait until closer to the show’s Fall 2015 debut.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Xbox One
Tagged E3 2014, Halo 5: Guardians
Duke Nukem gets a sex change for Interceptor’s Bombshell
February’s non-announcement of Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction, a top-down action RPG for the PC and PS4, was one of the strangest things I ever saw (or rather, didn’t see). After very publicly selling the rights to the character to Gearbox in 2010, 3D Realms launched a teaser site and countdown for a brand new Duke Nukem game. Understandably, Gearbox sued 3D Realms over this rather blatant breach of contract. The countdown was put on hold and the lawsuit pushed Interceptor Entertainment’s parent company to purchase 3D Realms (Interceptor was previously teased as the developer behind Mass Destruction).
So here we are today staring down at an official announcement for Duke Nukem: Mass Destruction. Except it’s not a Duke Nukem game anymore. Say hello to Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison, the star of Bombshell and a take-no-guff intergalactic bounty hunter. She’s on a mission to save the President from an apocalyptic alien threat in a top-down action RPG for the PC and PS4.
The game’s debut trailer is above and you can practically see the seams where Duke was removed and “Bombshell” was pasted in. A news ticker even includes a dig at Duke’s penchant for chewing bubblegum and kicking ass (“Kick-Ass BubbleGum sales plummet as only customer has ‘too much ass to kick.'”). But she’s got a Skrillex-style haircut and a bionic arm, so she’s clearly an entirely new character.
Bombshell will be on display at this year’s E3 Expo and 3D Realms and Interceptor plan to release it in early 2015.