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THQ Nordic buy the studios behind Wreckfest and Goat Simulator
THQ Nordic have gobbled up yet more studios, today announcing they've bought Bugbear Entertainment and Coffee Stain Studios. Bugbear are the smash-happy Finnish studio behind racing games including Wreckfest and the first three FlatOuts, while Coffee Stain made FPS tower defence series Sanctum and wack 'em up Goat Simulator as well as publishing games including Deep Rock Galatic. It sounds like they broadly plan to…
Feature: Smashing
I am not one who subscribes to the school of games criticism where each game is compared to others in its field. Firstly, because you may as well just plot the game on a graph for all the lack of detail and nuance this provides, and secondly because to be meaningful it really depends upon the reader's having a working knowledge of every other game.…
After four years of crashing, smashing, bashing, and dashing around early access, Wreckfest today finally launches in full. It's the new (well... new-ish now, I suppose) racer from FlatOut creators Bugbear, who previously called it just Next Car Game, and it certainly has pretty destruction effects. Wreckfest is crossing the finish line with an update including a new destruction derby arena, new parts and paint…
Smash-happy racer Wreckfest will finally leave early access after 1611 days and launch in full this month, publishers THQ Nordic announced today. It's been a long journey for developers Bugbear Entertainment (who also created FlatOut) and the game they once called Next Car Game, from a failed crowdfunding campaign in 2013, through early access, picking up a publisher, and being delayed so many times. It's…
Feature: From the devs of FlatOut
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time. A take on Ridge Racer by the developers of FlatOut, Ridge Racer Unbounded ditched blue skies and smooth racing line for muddy browns and a driving system that rewarded you for destroying things.
After three years (and counting) in early access, smashbash racing game Wreckfest should finally launch in full this year. Publishers THQ Nordic today announced their "cooperation" with developers Bugbear Entertainment, joining forces to help give the game a shove across the finish line later this year. Wreckfest, to refresh your memory, is the new smash-o-racer from the creators of Flatout, who Kickstarted it in 2013…
Feature: Destructive driving bliss
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. FlatOut [Steam page] is one of my favourite games about cars wot go fast. It's like the twisted metal wreckage of a collision between Carmageddon, Burnout and Destruction Derby, and manages to succeed as a vehicular combat physics playground and a competitive racing…
Anything is possible in Wreckfest developers Bugbear Entertainment's latest, Stuntfest [official site]. Its main purpose is to build things so you can blow them up. It is an excellent opportunity to observe the ways your car and the scrap metal creations you build can implode, explode, topple, or even sail into the sun. Who knows? While Stuntfest holds to the law of physics pretty faithfully, Bugbear…
All I know about sit-on lawnmowers comes from David Lynch's The Straight Story and Hank Hill. They seem sedate, pleasant things. I do not consider them high-speed deathracers. Well, I didn't, until I saw Wreckfest [official site] developers Bugbear added lawnmowers to their smashtastic racer in the latest big Early Access update, along with ragdoll physics for riders flung from their mowers in the carnage.…
Bugbear are the modern masters of vehicular carnage, as exemplified by their efforts in the FlatOut series, which fell flat on its carface when development duties were handed to a new studio. Their latest title, currently in Early Access, has been known simply as Next Car Game, but it has a proper title now - Wreckfest. That's almost exactly how describe the sort of greasy…
Hey, remember that free-to-play - sorry, "free-to-drift" - Ridge Racer game, Ridge Racer: Driftopia? It went into Early Access beta late last year, and now it's finally about to not be in beta anymore. Normally, that'd mean it's crossing the finish line, champagne and confetti raining down as other car culture imagery looks on. Unfortunately, the future is not so certain for Driftopia, whose perfectly…
Feature: Chewing the FlatOut
It's been a long time since the FlatOut series last left a good impression. When development duties moved away from Bugbear, the franchise played a game of chicken with an eighteen-wheeler and turned into an unhappy metal pancake. Now, the originators of the smashing racing spectacle are back with the thrillingly titled Next Car Game. Having pulled into the pitstop of Steam Early Access yesterday,…
FlatOut creator Bugbear's next car game, Next Car Game, crashes and burns like nobody's business - in a good way. Unfortunately, its Kickstarter crashed and burned because nobody offered it their business - in a bad way - so Bugbear's elected to pull the plug. Fear not, however, for your fantasies of mangled metal and tires soaring like majestic rubber eagles haven't gone up in…
First thing: is FlatOut developer Bugbear's vaunted (and expertly titled) Next Car Game still drop-dead, go-careening-off-a-cliff-and-explode beautiful? Yes? OK, then, moving on. Videogame cars are weird. They've managed to be preternaturally pretty for ages - having easily ramped right over the steep walls of uncanny valley years ago - and, stranger still, they're even more aesthetically pleasing when being torn to gleaming shrapnel. Next Car…
BugBear's Next Car Game is the spiritual successor to their FlatOut series. And by that I mean it's covered in ectoplasm and knocking on the pipes and oh no it's grabbed television's Sarah Greene! But in another sense this is the game they've always wanted to make. One which conveys everything they've learned and put into their car crashing racing games, but in a new…
Bugbear, the makers of the glorious FlatOut, recently announced a crowd-funded car crashing game, intermediately titled Next Car Game. To help tempt you with those papery things in your wallet, they've released a video detailing the destruction engine that the game will have. You should watch it, and make sure your hands are free so you can give it a round of applause. It's beautiful.
Like a tyre rolling from the twisted, sad mess of a vehicle pile up, I shed a single tear at the awful state of the last FlatOut game. FlatOut 3: Chaos & Destruction wasn't made by the original developers, BugBear, but its existence appears to have angered them into returning to the car crashing games that they love. It doesn't have the FlatOut name, but…
Vroom-vroom! Vrrrrrr, rrrrrr, squeeeeeeeeeeech! Kkkkkkrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaannnnng, kablooom! That's the sound of me racing along the motorway of news, using videogame physics to slow myself by scraping along the scenery, and finally sceeching to a halt in the park space marked "Ridge Racer: Drifttopia and the closed beta now live on Steam". Yes, that's a thing which you can strap yourself in for here. The eventual full…
Next Car Game may well be a working title, but that hasn't stopped Bugbear from setting up camp at nextcargame.com. The video, below, is "all in-game footage" and it looks like a rock 'em sock 'em destruction derby. Hurrah! The developers FlatOut games aren't entirely about crashing cars but it's an activity that is very much encouraged. The vehicles in Bugbear's racer aren't the delicate…
I'm hoping Ridge Racer Unbounded will contain all the motoring mayhem that I crave. Although the full game's most interesting component may be its Trackmania style building options, the demo is just a single race as far as I know. It's downloading right now but my internet connection seems to be ailing slightly and is barely capable of propelling these words into your face, never…
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