Grave Gamer News & Views — video games

Wolfenstein: The New Order Dated, Trailered, and Slapped with Doom 4 Beta

The Bethesda backed, MachineGames developed reboot of id’s famed Nahtzi killin’ vidja game officially has itself a date.

Wolfenstein: The New Order, which sees B.J. “Blast-to-Bits” Blazkowicz launching a counter-offensive against the Nazi force that’s conquered the free world since winning World War II (History 101 Spoiler:...

Irrational Games is Closing Down

This is a helluva head turner, given the Massachusetts-based studio’s recent successes.

The studio responsible for creating the original Bioshock as well as last year’s sensational piece of digital art, Bioshock Infinite, is closing its doors. Ken Levine, the developer’s most prominent figurehead and creative visionary, revealed his reason for shuttering a studio seemingly at the peak of its career:

“Seventeen years is a long time to do any job, even the best one. And working with the incredible team at Irrational Games is indeed the best job I’ve ever had. While I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished together, my passion has turned to making a different kind of game than we’ve done before. To meet the challenge ahead, I need to refocus my energy on a smaller team with a flatter structure and a more direct relationship with gamers. In many ways, it will be a return to how we started: a small team making games for the core gaming audience.”

This new, refocused endeavor will only be taking fifteen Irrational employees aboard – the rest, unfortunately are being let go – and, according to Levine, will exclusively publish content digitally.

Founded in 1997 by three former Looking Glass Studios employees, Levine included, Irrational’s legacy spans titles the likes of System Shock 2, Freedom Force, and SWAT 4. In 2006, Take-Two purchased the studio, publishing their industry celebrated, publicly revered Bioshock series under the 2K Games label. Subsequently, the future of Bioshock franchise, now estimated to have made over a half billion dollars in revenue, is in 2K’s hands.

Irrational’s last effort will be Bioshock Infinite’s Burial at Sea: Episode 2; the final expansion to their last game. My best wishes go out to the studio’s team members. Thank you for the many, many hours we’ve spent lost, enthralled, and loving your worlds.

“I’m not going to fuck around with you like Valve does with Half-Life 3. Look. We know we want it and we know it should exist, but we don’t know what it is yet.

But we are doing things in Borderlands that we’ll announce soon, that are good, and that I think people will be really excited about if you love the franchise.”

– Randy Pitchford, CEO and President of Gearbox Software, updating Polygon on the status of a Borderlands 3.

Oh, Randy. I salute you. You can check out Mr. Pitchford’s full interview with Polygon here. The basic jist is that, no, Gearbox isn’t working on a Borderlands sequel right now because no single great, extravagant, kickass idea has emerged just yet.

Slap that frown off your face, though. With projects like Tales From the Borderlands in gestation, you’ll be back on Pandora faster than you can say “Get ready for bad touch!”

Master Chief Unofficially Confirms Halo 2 Anniversary

Remember that massive list of Xbox related leaks that hit the web oh not so long ago? The one that seemed too good to be true yet, suspiciously, Microsoft was lawyering up over? Welp, another bullet point rumor has seemingly come true.

Steve Downes, the gravelly voice behind our beloved Master Chief’s helmet for nearly thirteen years now, says we’ll be seeing a Halo 2 Anniversary Edition released later this year, as prophesied in the leak. Unfortunately, we’re getting the remake in lieu of a proper sequel to Halo 4.

In a yet to be posted interview with GameZone, the sometimes DJ, sometimes savior of the Earth commented on 343 Industries’ next installment saying, “I think you may be ahead of yourself on Halo 5. I wouldn’t expect anything until 2015.” However, “What you can look forward to this year is an anniversary edition of Halo 2.”

It fits. This year does indeed mark the tenth anniversary of Halo 2 (my god, I need to start getting serious about my will). Mr. Downes didn’t specify which system(s) we’d see the remake on, but according to that rumor monster of a list, we should expect it out on Microsoft’s latest and greatest, the Xbox One.

Giving more credence to the leak, Downes also backs up Halo 5’s slip into 2015 (the Big M originally was dead set on pumping out Chief’s new adventure in ‘14).

I’m obligated by the journalistic gods to inform you none of this information is official. But seriously. If you’re not going to believe Halo news straight out of Master Chief’s mouth, what’s it going to take?

UPDATE: IGN took a minute to reach out to Steve Downes about his revealing quote. His reply? That GameZone misquoted him. Downes claims he merely said he heard some rumblings online about there possibly being a Halo 2 Anniversary and that he didn’t intend on implying he had any inside info in the least.

Oh, well. Rumor debunked, internet. But brake your warthogs, Spartans. IGN was then emailed the original interview that took place between the Chief and GameZone. Low and behold, Downes’ spiel about online rumors and this “possibly” talk are nowhere in sight. Curiouser and curiouser. Consider this rumor… bunked still? 

New Titanfall Gameplay Makes the Last Seven Years of FPS’s Look Tame

If your address places you snugly beneath a rock, I can understand your confusion as to why the term ’Titanfall’ has the gaming populace shitting mech proportioned bricks. Watching all ten minutes of this video will bring you right up to speed and have you shitting bricks with the best of ‘em.

This footage makes the countless...