By Alec Meer on April 17th, 2012.
Possibly the game we’re most excited about in 2012, Arkane’s immersive sim has just broken cover after a few months of silence. This first full-length trailer is, alas, entirely pre-rendered, but it does show off the rather tasty world-design, the parkour element, the plot set-up and some of protagonist Corvo’s primary abilities. Killing me won’t solve anything, so have a watch of this instead.
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By Jim Rossignol on March 24th, 2012.
A NeoGAF poster has spotted that an announcement about the cancellation of Prey 2 seems to be in the pipeline. No official word from Bethesda yet, but tweets from a Human Head employee seem to back it up. I’m honestly really surprised by this. After Dishonored this seemed like Bethesda’s most promising title, as evidenced by our interview from late last year. It’s hard to tell what’s happening behind the NDA’d doors of a developer, of course, but this will be a terrible thing if it turns out to be true.
The Other Stuff
By Craig Pearson on March 24th, 2012.
Previously: Part One and Two of our Skyrim modding guide.
My other posts sort of circle-strafe around the crazier ideas that modders have had with Skyrim. Instead we very calmly patched a few holes, and then we respectfully accepted their help to rework the world a bit. It’s taken me a while to have the courage to look at those majestic mountains, curls of cloud hanging off like cotton on the breeze, and say to myself: we need some My Little Pony weapons. I am sorry, Bethesda. Some of the things here are silly, but I can’t help myself. You’ve made such a serious world that, well, there needs to be some fun. Now it’s not going to be a pile of garish nonsense, although one or two will be a bit odd. I’m really just looking at mods that make the world or playing in it a bit more interesting and fun. This collection in a little bit different: fun is not a theme that’s easily quantified, and as such they’re somewhat all over the place and a bit more personalised.
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By Craig Pearson on March 19th, 2012.
Arkane’s Dishonored is very exciting and feels like it’s getting nearer, but that might be an evil, supernatural trick being played on us. While we haven’t had a release date for the amazing sounding immersive sim, Bethesda have started to open up more about the setting, the world, what you do. More importantly in this crazy world of ocular pleasure, they’re releasing screenshots and video of the supernatural assassin’s redemptive bloodletting. If I cared about PR buzzwords, I’d call what follows a ‘media blast’, but I’m a loose cannon. Hit the jump for the *checks thesaurus* ‘cable peal’.
By Jim Rossignol on March 16th, 2012.
Tom’s Guide are reporting that Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls MMO will be announced in May. Here’s the claim: “An industry source that wishes to remain anonymous revealed the name of the new MMO to us, and confirmed that the game would take place a full millennium before The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Using the Elder Scrolls Wiki timeline as a guide, Elder Scrolls Online will likely take place during the “Second Era,” or several hundred years before any of the other Elder Scrolls games. This information was corroborated by two additional sources before publication.” Elderscrollsonline.com has been registered by the company since 2007, and the rumours seem corroborated by ZeniMax and Bethesda hiring for MMO development positions over the last couple of years. It’s a big old maybe.
By Alec Meer on March 13th, 2012.
Initially reports suggested the turf war between Minecraft-makers the Mojangs and Skyrim-makers the Bethesdas over the former’s forthcoming online card game Scrolls had been settled broadly reasonably. However, Bethesda’s own statement on the matter yesterday revealed that it isn’t as simple as Mojang getting to make Scrolls unhindered and Bethesda ending up with the trademark for a common English word.
Here’s a new kicker: “The terms of the settlement bar Mojang from using the Scrolls mark for any sequel to the current card game, or any other video game.”
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By Craig Pearson on March 12th, 2012.
I was this close to falling asleep there, but then Dishonored footage landed and my heart-rate spiked. Just a couple of minutes of non-action footage interspersed with Harvey Smith and Raphael Colantino talking about their amazing sounding immersive sim. It’s kind of not saying anything new: you’re a supernatural assassin, a sandbox game that enables the player to explore how they want to play with the magnificent tools, the possession, teleporting, stopping time. But this is the first I’ve heard about the eavesdropping component, where you listen for clues and the game changes your goals. It’s starting to look and sound like a combo of the best bits of BioShock and Hitman. Watch, watch now you fools!
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By John Walker on March 10th, 2012.
Because we, as a species, have allowed our reality to become so ridiculous that people can own the rights to a noun, there has been an ongoing battle between Bethesda and Mojang over the right to use the word “Scrolls” in a game name. Bethesda’s very long running The Elder Scrolls first-person RPG is utterly indistinguishable from Mojang’s card-collecting Scrolls. Wait, is it the other way around? I’m so confused! But the good news is, their lawyers have finished spending each other’s money and there’s an agreement!
By Richard Cobbett on February 13th, 2012.
Yes, yes, Oblivion has long stepped aside and given Skyrim the spotlight, and Prequel – also known as Making A Cat Cry: The Adventure – has been around for a while. It’s been brought to my attention that not everyone knows about it though, so here’s why you should check it out.
By Richard Cobbett on February 10th, 2012.
You may not know Adam Adamowicz’s name, but if you’ve played either Fallout 3 or Skyrim, you’ll have seen masses of his work. His job was to produce the vast and imaginative collections of concept art that made their worlds so exciting to explore, from characters to weapons, to the jaunty hats your hero could opt to wear while slaughtering deathclaws and daedra alike. Very sadly, Adam passed away on February 8.
Find out exactly what he contributed to your adventures with this fantastic eulogy and collection of his works from a fellow concept artist over at Awesome Robo.
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By Craig Pearson on February 9th, 2012.
Fus Ro My! This is the second Skyrim video of the day that’s had me all wibbly. Bethesda‘s Todd Howard was on stage at the Dice Summit yesterday, and talked about an internal, company-wide gamejam Bethesda held: the Skyrim team took a week off from carving out individual fork tines and working out the perfect cloud wisp equation to make whatever they wanted for Skyrim. There’s no guarantee we’ll get to play with the results, but the buildable houses with skeletal butlers, Thief-style water arrows, combination spells, mahoosive Mudcrabs, and much more all look amazing. I’m considering starting a Kickstarter that’ll fund my trip to sit outside Bethesda for a month holding a sign that just reads: “Do It!”. Video is, you know, down there.
