During a GDC panel yesterday, the developers behind Asssassin’s Creed III discussed how four different studios came together to make last year’s action-adventure game. Ubisoft Quebec game director Marc-Alexis Cote, Ubisoft creative director Alex Hutchinson, Ubisoft game director Damien Kieken, Ubisoft Montreal senior producer Francois Pelland, and Ubisoft Singapore senior producer Hugues Ricour participated in the discussion.
Ubisoft Montreal was mainly in charge of Assassin’s Creed III’s core design and main missions. Singapore handled naval battles while Annecy tackled multiplayer. Finally, Quebec “tried to create the sense of the American Dream”, according to Hutchinson.
Having numerous studios work on a project has numerous advantages. Adopting this process does, for instance, let developers polish certain aspects to their fullest potential. It also allows for issues to be solved, sometimes overnight.
“When you are a co-dev partner, you will focus on a limited amount of features. Those features, you will be able to polish them. It’s not easy. It’s not rainbow land. It’s something that you need to work hard at to make it work. But if you do that, I really think it holds the keys to next generation development.”
CIRCLE Entertainment has confirmed that Witch & Hero will be hitting the European 3DS eShop next week. A North American launch is coming soon.
Witch & Hero is an action game featuring an 8-bit style, 20 stages, two difficulty settings, along with Trial and Infinite modes. Players will be battling lots of monsters and leveling up along the way.
Nintendo has approved Gaijin Games’ first Runner2 patch. It’s unknown when exactly the update will be available, but it’s coming “very soon”.
THIS JUST IN! The Wii U Runner2 eShop patch has been approved by Nintendo! Still awaiting a launch date for it, but should be very soon!
— CommanderVideo (@BitTrip) March 28, 2013
Runner2’s patch will address lock-up issues and other items. The full patch notes are posted here.
In the wake of Famitsu’s Devil Survivor 2: Break Record unveiling, Atlus has opened an official site for the game. Access the page here. There isn’t much to see at the moment, but expect updates on the site down the road.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is seeing a $10 discount on the Wii U eShop. For the next few days, SEGA’s racer can be purchased for $29.99. The sale ends on March 31, so take advantage of the deal while you can!
The folks at Sunbreak Games launched a Kickstarter last week for a new game called “Buddy & Me”. What makes this campaign particularly interesting is that studio founder Jason Behr previously lent his talents to Metroid Prime as lead level designer.
At this point you’re probably wondering if Buddy & Me has a shot of landing on the Wii U eShop. Behr is “personally a fan of what the Wii U’s trying to bring to the living room console experience” and also approves of Nintendo’s “recent loosening of their indie developer requirements”, but said that the team’s small size means the developer has to “pick our battles very carefully.” A Wii U version is certainly a possibility “if things are wildly successful”, but for now, the team is concentrating on putting out a quality experience on tablet and mobile platforms.
Regarding Wii U, that’s a great question, you’re not the first to ask. I’m personally a fan of what the Wii U’s trying to bring to the living room console experience (it’s conceptually very similar to how the DS evolved the handheld experience), and what kind of gameplay experiences the extra touch-screen interface might bring. I’m also happy to read about Nintendo’s recent loosening of their indie developer requirements.
But at the moment, Sunbreak is still a very small indie team with limited resources, so we have to pick our battles very carefully. Each additional platform beyond the initial iOS release takes more time, money, testing hardware, special-case assets, etc… So, yes it’s a possibility if things are wildly successful (either via Kickstarter or initial sales), but right now our #1 priority is focusing team resources 100% towards a quality release on tablet/mobile, before considering expansion to traditional consoles.
You can find more information about Buddy & Me on the official Kickstarter page here.
Having announced Toki Tori 2’s release date a couple of weeks ago, the only other piece of information left for Two Tribes to confirm is the game’s price. Today, the studio revealed that its Wii U eShop game will cost $14.99.
Those who purchase Toki Tori 2 at launch will receive a 10% discount. You’ll be paying $13.50 instead of $15, basically.
Here’s the full rundown of prices for each territory without the discount:
- 14.99 EUR (Europe)
- 14.99 USD (USA)
- 12.99 GBP (United Kingdom)
- 19.99 CHF (Switzerland)
- 120 NOK (Norway)
- 125 SEK (Sweden)
- 112 DDK (Denmark)
- 60 PLN (Poland)
- 600 RUB (Russia)
- 19.99 AUD (Australia)
- 23.99 NZD (New Zealand)
- 14.99 CAD (Canada)
- 195 MXN (Mexico)
- 30 BRL (Brazil)
- 375 CZK (Czech Republic)
- 180 AZR (South Africa)
Nintendo has published the next entry in its Iwata Asks discussion series. This time around, Satoru Iwata sat down with Yoshio Sakamoto, Masamichi Abe, and Naoko Mori for a chat about Game & Wario.
An English version isn’t available currently, but NeoGAF member “StreetsAhead” did translate a significant amount of points from the interview. There’s talk about how the Wii U title wasn’t always planned as a Wario game, how Nintendo of America influenced the naming of the project, and more.
Head past the break for the full summary.
DICE explains reasoning behind lack of Battlefield 4 Wii U, says Frostbite isn’t supported currently
What started out as a simple question ended up turning into a complicated answer.
You may remember how at Nintendo’s E3 2011 press conference, EA CEO John Riccitiello – now gone from the company – essentially promised Battlefield for the Wii U. He teased: “Imagine a shooter, like Battlefield, with jaw-dropping graphics and smooth character animations of the Frostbite engine, brought to you on a Nintendo system with that breakthrough controller.” Now along with Battlefield 3, Wii U won’t be getting Battlefield 4.
So what exactly is preventing a Wii U port? DICE was approached by Eurogamer in search of some answers.
You can read up on the company’s reasoning below, which also includes a confirmation that the game’s Frostbite engine currently isn’t supported on Wii U.
