While we were all away celebrating Christmas and opening gifts, some big news went around in the video game industry. Of the news, the two biggest involved an event and a publisher doing something few saw it doing. So, here is what’s new:
Spike Video Game Awards
That’s a cool ga… wait is that Metal Gear Solid V?!?!
The Spike Video Game Awards held its 10th show that saw awards go out, such as Half-Life 2 winning Game of the Decade and TellTale Games and its The Walking Dead: The Game taking away Studio and Game of the Year.
Yet, among the new trailers for games such as Gears of War: Judgement and Assassin’s Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington, there were two big announcements that no one in the video game industry saw coming.
First is the announcement of Dark Souls II from From Software, a sequel to Dark Souls and Demons Souls, notorious games known for their difficulty.
While the game is not set to release until 2014, it is already drawing up buzz because of some details regarding the game and the look the trailer had. According to reports, the game will be in a brand new area but will also have a turned down difficulty so that the game is more open to new players.
Already, this has caused a backlash from the fans because they are afraid the game is going to be too easy.
The other thing fans are critical of is the trailer itself, featuring dragons and overall having a feel akin to The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim, with some seeing problems because Dark Souls was unique. Over the next year, we will learn more but for now there is disappointment about Dark Souls II.
The biggest news was the announcement of The Phantom Pain, a game in development by Moby Dick Studios in Sweden. The trailer showed a hurt, old man trying to get out of a hospital as it falls under attack from an unknown force.
The buzz about the game is not just one element, but the entire game itself because this game could be the long rumored Metal Gear Solid V.
Moby Dick Studios just popped up two weeks before the awards and on top of that the old man in the game looks like Big Boss, the protagonist of the Metal Gear Solid 3 and Peace Walker.
On top of that, the studio is headed by Joakim Mogren; if you switch around the name Joakim you get Kojima, the name of Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima. Finally, the game seems to be using Kojima’s FOX Engine and the lines above the logo create Metal Gear Solid V.
Until we know for sure, there will be speculation, but it seems more than likely we will soon see the next installment of the famed Metal Gear Solid series.
THQ Files for Bankruptcy
Is this THQ’s Last Light?
THQ, famed publisher of Saint’s Row, Darksiders, Company of Heroes and the WWE games has filed for bankruptcy.
As reported by gameinformer.com, THQ has four studios up for auction which included Volition and Vigil Games, creators of Saints Row and Darksiders, along with THQ Phoenix and THQ Wireless.
The interesting part is that these are the only four studios up for auction, with every other studio not on the block and the other fact is that this is not stopping the development or release of THQ’s big titles, including Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light.
A judge has ordered that these four studios be put up for auction, with big names such as EA, Ubisoft and Sony apparently in discussion to pick up any of the four studios, which would be huge assets for any company.
The other big news concerning the announcement is that four games have been outed that were previously not revealed, which included Atlas, Crawler, Evolve and 1666.
They all seem to be coming out within the next two years and are under development by different studios; Atlas is being worked on by Relic, who did Company of Heroes, Crawler by Vigil Games, creators of the Darksiders franchise, Evolve is under development by that team that created Left 4 Dead and finally 1666 is being developed by THQ Montreal and Patrice Desilets, who helped create the Assassin’s Creed franchise for Ubisoft.
A judge has ordered for the auction around January and February, so until then all anyone can do is speculate. At this point, anyone can pick up these studios and if they do it would not only mean that those people get their jobs but that that company gets a good staff and possibly a new franchise.
Now the video game industry holds its breath and waits to see who will make the first move.
