In incredibly bad news, it’s been announced tonight that 38 Studios, and its wholly owned subsidiary Big Huge Games (Age Of Empires III, Rise Of Nations), are laying off their entire workforce. The Curt Schilling-owned enterprise was in a noticeably shaky state earlier this month when it was unable to make a repayment for a massive $75m loan it had taken from Rhode Island state in 2010, despite decent sales of Kingdoms Of Amular, and great promises of an MMO to come. Having just managed to make this repayment, staff began to notice that something was still up as paychecks failed to arrive in bank accounts, and health insurances were running out. And now, in a rather unpleasantly brisk email, they’ve learned that all 379 of them are immediately out of a job.

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Generally, the weekend is life’s pause button. But occasionally, things happen. Strange things. Vile things. Things involving incessant backstabbery and good people falling on impossibly hard times. Oh, wait, I’m just describing yesterday’s Game of Thrones (wasn’t it great?). No, no, the real world weekend actually yielded a bloom-lit bounty of good news. In short, Kingdoms of Amalur developer 38 Studios (and subsidiary Big Huge Games) managed to at least temporarily ward off the Grim Reaper using that $1.125 million it wasn’t able to previously muster. Even so, this is just the beginning, and – somewhat terrifyingly – 38 still plans to plug the gaping wound in its bank account with an MMO. I’ve heard those things aren’t exactly cheap.

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When we last glanced in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning developer 38 Studios’ direction, trouble was afoot – but it was tiptoeing, perhaps while disguised as some form of shrubbery. Now, though, things have taken a whiplash-inducing turn for the worst. In short, Joystiq reports that former baseball star Curt Schilling’s unlikely venture has borrowed a total of $75 million from the state of Rhode Island – with a $1.125 million payment due on May 1. 38 – possibly now named after the amount of money in its bank account – couldn’t pay. Today, however, the company gave it a go anyway. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t end well.

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It’s yet another Kingdoms of Amalur video. There have been so many that I almost skipped straight past this one, continuing on my way through the internets in search of something more succulent. An unfathomable urge caused me to linger, however, and to watch. I’m glad I did because it’s the first time any footage of the game has managed to convince me there’ll be more to do than stabbing, skewering and spellocide. Sneaking, robbing, persuading, charming and exploring. Those are the kinds of things heroes get up to when they’re not committing murders. Take a look-see and then stick around for news of an imminent demo.

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What I presume will be the final 2011 “insider” video for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning focuses on its action-RPGness, which means talking about the combat and the stuff that articulates the combat, the art and animation. It’s quite an interesting angle to take, actually, looking at how the animators have to try and portray the fight ’em up mechanics that the designers are trying to put into it. And it looks good. There’s no doubt that Kingdoms will be quite a light Swords & Conversation sort of a game, and I’m certainly interested to see exactly where they take it, particular in terms of how open their open world actually is.
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