News Round Up: New Batman, Aliens Reviews and Bungie’s Destiny

batman arkham city sequel 2013

It’s Stop the Presses Thursday here on GamerSushi. This last week was a bit light on news, so I thought I’d wrap up a few items in one convenient post for you.

First up is the word that a successor to Batman: Arkham City is in the works and will be coming out this year! Warners Bros. Interactive announced it quietly during an earnings call with the actual reveal coming in a few months. Rumors are abound about what the next Arkham game will be about, with Rocksteady either going back to the Silver Age of comics for inspiration or not being involved with the project at all. Arkham City and Arkham Asylum scribe Paul Dini will definitely not be returning, however.

After six years in development, Aliens: Colonial Marines has finally hit and boy is it a stinker. Just months after releasing their high-quality hit Borderlands 2, Gearbox has released another game on a level with the ill-received Duke Nukem Forever. According to an anonymous post on Reddit, Aliens: Colonial Marines has had a trouble history, coming together in the past six months after Gearbox took issue with the single-player campaign they contracted out to TimeGate. I played the game a bit last night and I can tell you, it’s as bad as they say. Continue reading News Round Up: New Batman, Aliens Reviews and Bungie’s Destiny

Bungie’s Sci-Fantasy Game Destiny Revealed in Infinity Ward Suit

Bungie Destiny reveal

An unintended side-effect of the long-standing legal battle between former Infinity Ward head honchos Jason West and Vincent Zampella and Activision is the reveal of the specifics behind Bungie’s contract with the publisher. Brought to light as part of the court-case, the 27 page agreement between the Bellevue, Washington studio and Activision details the plans for the studios’ new shooter, code-named Destiny.

There’s plenty of legalese in the document but the basic gist of it is that Bungie has signed on for a four game deal, the first of which is set to drop in 2013 for the Xbox 360. Subsequent games will be released on the next generation systems (aggravatingly, the agreement calls the 360 successor the “Xbox 720”) including the PS3 follow up and PCs. The games will be spaced to come out every other year with additional content packs called “Comet” filling in the gaps. Destiny is not strictly a “sci-fi” game but rather a “sci-fantasy” shooter. What that means exactly isn’t clear, so we’ll have to wait for a more specific reveal on that. The contract also stipulates that Bungie is working to revive their classic Marathon franchise.

Bungie’s official response, entitled “Well, that just happened” all but confirms this as fact, promising that the official reveal is coming soon and we’ll be seeing them starside in 2013.

What do you guys think about this? Is it unfair to Bungie to have their secret work revealed without much fanfare? Is this a low blow by West and Zampella’s lawyers to expose another developer? What do you think of the working conditions Bungie is under in the contract? Thoughts on what “sci-fantasy” means?

Source – LA Times, Bungie.net