E3 2016
7 CommentsTacoma is a different kind of power fantasy
"I feel like I'm not good at writing people who are just really terrible," said Steve Gaynor.
"As a writer, I don't get drawn to a lot of people just being terrible to each other, or real heavy stuff like that."
The Fullbright co-founder is showing off the team's upcoming game, Tacoma. Like the developer's breakout hit Gone Home, Tacoma is a narrative-driven title built on a foundation of exploration — both of the game's world and its characters. Writing interesting characters, whether they're likable or not, is key to crafting a good game.
Tacoma is set onboard a space station of the same name and stars Amy Ferrier, a young woman investigating the disappearance of the ship's crew. Amy has some help here — an AI called ODIN, and an augmented reality system that gives her access to...
News
69 CommentsAmbitious crowdfunded game ReRoll abandoned, backers given little in return
ReRoll, the ambitious open-world multiplayer survival game, has been abandoned by its creators according to a post on Reddit. Montreal-based Pixyul announced via email during E3 last week that "the development of ReRoll is over." The only compensation offered to backers, some of whom paid nearly $300 for access to the game, is a key to an unrelated early access title valued at $15.
ReRoll, described as an isometric persistent online open-world survival action-RPG, was the brainchild of Julien Cuny and Louis-Pierre Pharand, both formerly of Ubisoft Montreal. The pitch, to use existing topographic and municipal data as well as civilian drones to create a digital version of the entire Earth one square-kilometer at a time, was enticing. But crowdfunding was not enough to bankroll the...
Cover Story
Issue
19
May 25, 2016
Designing Mirror’s Edge: The making of a franchise
Go behind the scenes with DICE on the creation of Mirror’s Edge and Mirror’s Edge Catalyst.
Read moreE3 2016
12 CommentsVerdun arrives on consoles nearly two months before Battlefield 1
Console fans looking to dive deep into World War I combat are in for a treat this summer because multiplayer shooter Verdun is headed to modern consoles.
In an email circulated today, the teams at M2H and Blackmill Games announced that Verdun would be available Aug. 30 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, nearly two months before Battlefield 1.
Verdun puts players in the trenches with several European and American factions during The Great War. When we spoke with the team last year we learned how they build maps based on real-world battlefields in Belgium and France using historical artifacts.
E3 2016
0 CommentsFullbright's Tacoma received a gameplay overhaul, here's what it looks like now
The team from Fullbright appeared briefly on the YouTube Live at E3 show with Geoff Keighley to show off a newly revised vision for their game, Tacoma.
Co-founded by Steve Gaynor, Johnnemann Nordhagen and Karla Zimonja, Fullbright made a name for itself with the narrative exploration title Gone Home. Tacoma is a departure, trading Gone Home's '90's aesthetic for a far-flung future on an abandoned space station. Players are tasked with putting together the mystery of what happened aboard the station by piecing together the lives of the former inhabitants. The only trace of the mystery are augmented reality avatars, representing that former crew.
In March, Fullbright circulated an email signaling that Tacoma was receiving a major overhaul.
"After we did our big unveiling last summer we...
E3 2016
8 CommentsWorld War II shooter Day of Infamy announced
New World Interactive was on hand at this year's PC Gaming Show to announce their next game. Called Day of Infamy, the first-person shooter takes players to the famous battlefields of World War II — places like Sicily and Normandy.
E3 2016
2 CommentsYour first look at Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord
The PC Gaming Show unveiled the first ever gameplay footage of Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord, the sequel to the cult classic. The pre-recorded demo focused on the single-player game's siege gameplay, and promised battles with more than 500 troops at release.
Bannerlord is developed by TaleWorlds Entertainment, a studio based in Turkey that burst onto the scene in 2008 with the release of the original Mount & Blade. Originally published by Paradox, the title was in many ways ahead of its time — combining a sophisticated first-person melee combat system with a strategic layer.
Bannerlord was first announced more than four years ago, and community manager Frank Elliot was on hand to share footage of the improved siege combat.
"You're a regular person in the world," Elliot said. "But...
E3 2016
6 CommentsRare's next game is a multiplayer pirate adventure
Sea of Thieves, the latest game from Rare, featured prominently during Microsoft's E3 press conference. Fans finally got a glimpse of the online, multiplayer game that pits bands of pirates against one another above, and below, the high seas.
Rare's Craig Duncan was on hand to unveil the game's first proper demonstration, an organic experiment pitting two teams of players who had never played the game before against one another around the same deserted island. The game features a playful style art style and exaggerated, almost cartoon-like physics. Players had to work together to hoist up the sails, navigate the ship and aim the ship's guns in first-person.
"What you've just seen represents the breadth of our pirate world," Duncan said, following a montage of scenes from the...
News
30 CommentsInafune is already talking about plans for a Mighty No. 9 sequel
Mighty No. 9 hasn't launched yet — still 10 more days to go — and even though its community has been disappointed by repeated delays and jeered the game's launch trailer, creator Keiji Inafune is still speaking expansively about future projects under its name.
Speaking to 4Gamer (translation by Siliconera) Inafune said Comcept is "also moving forward in an anime and live action film for [MIghty No. 9]." Further, "development for a sequel [video game] is already in our minds, and we all share the feeling of 'we'll do it even if it doesn't sell'."
Last summer, with Mighty No. 9 delayed past its original spring 2015 window and a month from its first declared launch date, Comcept opened a Kickstarter for another video game project, also billed as a spiritual successor to the Mega Man...
News
4 CommentsTorment: Tides of Numenera delayed again, now coming in early 2017
Torment: Tides of Numenera, the Kickstarter-funded role-playing game from InXile Entertainment, is now scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2017, the studio announced yesterday.
InXile had been working toward a late 2016 release, and CEO Brian Fargo said in a Kickstarter update that "we could crunch and rush to get the game out around November." However, InXile believes that doing so "would lead to a less polished game," and would affect the localization work that the company is undertaking.
"We feel that getting a good quality translation of such a deep narrative experience is very important for a large percentage of our players," said Fargo, noting that Torment now contains more than 1 million words. In addition to localizing the text, InXile is still tuning up the...
News
15 CommentsReport: id taking control of Doom multiplayer back from contractor
Certain Affinity, the developer tasked by id Software with building some multiplayer components of the Doom reboot, are no longer on the project, Eurogamer reports. While the game’s single-player campaign was a critical hit, fans have so far been disappointed with the game’s multiplayer mode. An id representative says they’re ready to deal with those issues personally.
"We worked with Certain Affinity through the launch of the game and really appreciate their contributions and effort on the game," Marty Stratton, executive producer and game director for Doom, told Eurogamer. Going forward, id’s own teams will be working on adding features, squashing bugs and rooting out cheaters.
Eurogamer points to growing discontent among Doom players as one of the reasons for the move. Features...
Deals
2 CommentsGet System Shock 2 free right now during the GOG.com Summer Sale
The good folks over at GOG.com, distributor of DRM-free games both new and old, have embarked on one of their famous sales. To get things started they've giving away System Shock 2 for the next 48 hours, and discounting games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as low as 50 percent off.
The System Shock 2 giveaway is part of a stress test of GOG's Steam-like client called GOG Galaxy. Users who download the client and then visit the sale page through that client will be able to unlock their free copy.
More than a thousand games will be going on sale over the course of the promotion. The more games you purchase, the more experience points you earn towards additional free games like Spelunky, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers - 20th Anniversary Edition and a Dreamfall...
News
7 CommentsJapanese horror classic D finally makes PC debut
Creepy, quirky horror game D is now available on GOG.com, more than 20 years after it launched on 3DO, Sega Saturn, MS-DOS and PlayStation. The Linux, Mac and Windows PC release marks the first time director Kenji Eno's cult classic is available on those platforms.
D costs $5.99 and is comes without copy protection, as is the case with games on GOG.com. The game is a straight port, so contemporary players have a chance to check out the frightening full-motion video title in its original state. Among the notable features of the Los Angeles-set murder mystery are its story, which plays out in real time, lack of saving and multiple endings.
Eno followed up the game with two sequels: Enemy Zero for Saturn and PC and D2, a Dreamcast game. Each found cult success with survival horror and...
News
6 CommentsWinter sports game Snow gets big snowboarding update ahead of PS4 debut
Snow, the open-world winter sports title from Swedish indie studio Poppermost Productions, is getting its biggest addition yet: snowboarding, the game's first sport beyond skiing. With the long-awaited debut today of snowboarding, along with snowmobiles, Poppermost is looking to set Snow apart from everything else in the extreme sports genre — including another indie competitor, HB Studios' upcoming Mark McMorris Infinite Air.
Poppermost originally launched Snow on Windows PC and Linux via Steam Early Access in October 2013, and more than 500,000 registered users have tried the game since then. The studio counts 100,000 monthly active users on the platform. And of the 4,400-plus reviews Snow has received on Steam, 73 percent are positive, illustrating the strong connection that...
News
10 CommentsYooka-Laylee story details and new screens arrive ahead of demo launch
Playtonic Games have debuted a new look at Yooka-Laylee, its upcoming platformer and Kickstarter success story, on its website. In a blog post, the developer wrote that it was finally ready to show off the game's "final form."
A handful of new screenshots accompany the first hints at Yooka-Laylee's story. The game will take place "inside the work halls of a baneful business, as the buddy-duo seek out the magical Pagies required to explore the mysterious Grand Tomes," Playtonic explained. The titular chameleon and bat will have to stop the appropriately named Capital B from stealing and transforming all of the books in the world into cash.
Along the way are collectibles to grab and puzzles to clear, in keeping with the game's biggest influence, Rare's Banjo-Kazooie series. Playtonic...
News
3 CommentsHands-on with Shiny, the nonviolent platformer
The second-best thing about Shiny is what you don't do. But the best things about Shiny are all of the things you can see behind it.
Shiny is the product of Garage 227 Studios, a game maker based in Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is about as far away from the mainstream metropolises of development as you can imagine. And yet, the tiny team there is on the verge of releasing Shiny on Steam, thanks to community support from Steam Greenlight, and Xbox One, thanks to Microsoft's self-publishing for independent developers, ID@XBOX.
Garage 227 is a, well, shining example of the democratization of the enormous changes distribution and publishing that have emerged in the last few years. Gone are the days of teaming up with publishers and console platform owners granting tokens to publishers....
Active Discussions
Polygon's Destiny thread for the week of June 21st: No Banner, No Cry
in Destiny by graze81
Anime!! Manga!! Anime!! Plight Vol 4 No 6: Foolish Edition!?
in Off-topic by The Fool
Polygon Daily: June 27, 2016
in Off-topic by James Elliott
Life is Strange is coming to the Mac App Store!
in Mac by michaelisjones
PlayStation 4.5? Will There Be A PS5 on/around 2020?
in PlayStation 4 by The Accidental Druggist