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Bethesda has announced the next add-on expansion for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, “Dragonborn.” The expansion will be available to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace on December 4 for 1600 Microsoft Points ($20). PC and PS3 release dates will be announced at a later time.
The debut trailer above gives us our first taste of Dragonborn and the battle against the Dragon Priest who, like the player character, is a Dragonborn.
No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…
It’s been five days and I still can’t believe that Disney owns Lucasfilm and the entire Star Wars franchise. It feels like the natural order of things has been upended and, yes, that there’s been a disturbance in The Force.
While I’m absolutely giddy to go see Episode VII in three years (really, how bad could it be?), we put the future of LucasArts to a debate in The Good, The Bad, and Disney’s Acquisition of LucasArts. What will Emperor Waltatine do to Lucas’ game development house? We don’t know for sure, but we’ve got some theories.
If all this Star Wars stuff doesn’t interest you, you should check out our other big articles from the week: What We Played in October 2012, our picks for The Games of November 2012, and the fourth edition of Kickstart This
And there’s even more non-Star Wars news after the break.
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You finished the fight, but now he’s back! The Master Chief returns to the Xbox 360 this week in Halo 4, the first game in the series not developed by Bungie (it was actually created at Microsoft’s 343 Industries).
So who will stand against the mighty Master Chief? Believe it or not, a pair of racing games. Sony is bringing LittleBigPlanet Karting to the PS3 this week and Activision will release the multiplatform NASCAR: Inside Line (PS3, Wii, Xbox 360).
Also available this week is a quartet of compilations: Namco Bandai’s Dragon Ball Z Budokai HD Collection (PS3, Xbox 360), the Rockstar Games Collection: Edition 1 (PS3, Xbox 360), BioWare’s Mass Effect Trilogy (PC, Xbox 360), and THQ’s Saints Row: The Third – The Full Package (PS3, Xbox 360).
Hit the jump for even more new releases.
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Frank O’Connor, the Franchise Development Director at 343 Industries, recently sat down with The Seattle Times to discuss next week’s launch of Halo 4. Towards, the end of the interview, the conversation naturally turned to Halo 5. O’Connor was not shy about revealing that development on the game has already begun, but he was less clear on if it’s coming to the Xbox 360 or the (still unannounced) Xbox 720.
Seattle Times: You’re presumably working on the next version — “Halo 5” or whatever it’s going to be called will be the anchor tenant on the next version of the Xbox, right?
O’Connor: We’ve done as much prototyping and storytelling [on] the future arc of the universe as we have on technology. So we’re definitely working on the future but in some ways it’s technologically agnostic at this point.
Halo 5’s existence was first revealed at E3 2011, when O’Connor himself announced that Halo 4 would mark the “dawn of a new trilogy for the Xbox 360.” If Halo 5’s status is truly “technologically agnostic,” it might actually be in development for both the Xbox 360 and Microsoft’s next generation system. A dual Xbox 360/Xbox 720 release wouldn’t be the craziest idea ever and actually makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint.
Square Enix debuted Agni’s Philosophy, a technical demo showcasing the power of their next-gen Luminous Engine, at E3 2012. The mini-movie was heavily based on themes found in the Final Fantasy series and was a glorious display of graphical power. Go on, watch it again, I’ll wait.
Ready? Good. Usually, these tech demos from Square Enix don’t amount to anything. Just think back to the HD rendition of Final Fantasy VII‘s introduction they presented at E3 2005. But comments from Julien Merceron, Square Enix’s Worldwide Technology Director, point to a better future for Agni’s Philosophy.
He told French site Final Fantasy Dream: “So, around June of next year, there will indeed be something different around Agni’s Philosophy, which will perhaps be presented on different platforms than those which have been used before. I cannot tell you more, but I can tell you that it will not run on PC only.”
Wow. So, Agni’s Philosophy might be a real game and it’ll make a return appearance next June. It’s possibly in development for more than the PC and on platforms we haven’t seen before. Which means it’s very possible Merceron is referring to the Wii U, PS4/Orbis, and Xbox 720. I’ll say it again, wow.
Or it could be nothing, like all of Square Enix’s other tech demos.
Rovio has released two additional gameplay trailers for Angry Birds Star Wars featuring everyone’s favorite droids and everyone’s favorite smugglers.
C-3PO is able to use his power of klutziness as he shatters into several pieces after colliding with the Pig Empire. R2-D2, naturally, is on top of things and pulls out his zapper arm to explode barriers. When Chewbacca gets his turn, he just turns on his Wookiee rage and powers through everything with his immense size and strength. Let the Wookiee win indeed. Finally, Han Solo perfers to have a good blaster by his side and he puts it to good use.
Both trailers can be found after the break and Angry Birds Star Wars will be available to download on November 8.
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Political Kombat ’12, Slate’s series of videos depicting the battles between the candidates as one-on-one fights to the death, has been a ridicuously awesome success. Watching Romney lay waste to the rest of the Republican pretenders while Obama performs the long form fatality on Donald Trump is just good YouTube time.
But now we’re up to the main event… President Barack Obama versus Mitt Romney. This is the ultimate battle and only one can survive. So be sure to vote for your candidate at the end of the video and in the real election on Tuesday, November 6.
Political Kombat ’12 was clearly created by someone with a deep affinity for the fighting genre and it shows in every special attack. Direct references to Mortal Kombat and Marvel vs Capcom litter the entire series. And when… SPOILER ALERT… George Washington showed up as Shao Kahn, I nearly lost it.
Good show Slate.
On Tuesday, October 30, The Walt Disney Company purchased Lucasfilm from George Lucas. This multibillion dollar deal included all rights to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, as well as the subsidiary companies Industrial Light + Magic, Skywalker Sound, and LucasArts.
In the same announcement, Disney confirmed that Star Wars: Episode VII was in development and would be released in theaters in 2015. The Internet (and quite possibly the world) was in utter disbelief. You might say that millions of voices suddenly cried out in confusion and were suddenly silenced in stunned shock.
But that silence didn’t last long as the speculation concerning Episode VII and what this means for the Star Wars franchise began almost immediately. And that’s where we come in, as two Warp Zoned staffers debate exactly what this merging means for Lucasfilm’s game development arm, LucasArts.
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