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PSA: Terraria grounded on Android
Terraria is available now on the Google Play store, 505 Games announced. The Android version of the sandbox adventure game includes an android robot character for players to find and team up with as well as Facebook-integrated Game Services leaderboards and achievements. Terraria is free for players to download and try, and the full version costs $4.99 to unlock. The game landed on iOS in late August and will soon launch on the Windows Phone platform.
Payday 2 sells 1.58 million copies, 80 percent through digital
Payday 2, the sequel to Overkill's 2011 game Payday: The Heist, has sold 1.58 million copies across all platforms. Just 20 percent of the game's sales came through retail channels, while the rest were through digital platforms like Steam, Xbox Live and PSN. The sales for Payday 2 were enough to land it a spot in the NPD's top ten sales list for August. Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson-Klint said in early August that the game turned a profit just six days before it launched, so things are certainly looking up for the developer.
Retail box boosts Terraria sales in Japan, potentially Europe
Downloadable hit Terraria will be released in both digital and standard retail box form when it reaches Europe later this month. Initially released on the PC in 2011, Terraria has since appeared on iOS, Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network. To date the game has sold more than 2 million digital copies, but for certain European territories publisher 505 Games has decided on a more traditional sales method. "Different territories have different digital acceptance," said Tim Woodley, director of brand management at 505 Games. "We're releasing Terraria in a box in September as we think the lack of digital uptake in France, Germany, Italy etc is prohibiting sales. Terraria has done incredibly via digital, but most of the numbers are from the US." Terraria was released in Japan this past May and has so far sold 110,000 copies. The majority of these have been retail box sales, Woodley claimed.
PSA: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons travels to Steam, PSN today
Starbreeze Studios' touching fantasy adventure Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is now available on PC via Steam and on PSN. The game was originally released as an Xbox 360 Summer of Arcade title on August 7. Joystiq's Editor-in-Chief Ludwig Kietzmann was quite taken with the game, saying in his review that "Brothers exudes a truly earned charm in its warm fairytale world, which is sometimes comical, sometimes gory, and even disconcertingly grim." Brothers concerns two brothers (shocker!) who embark on a quest to find a cure for their ailing father. It's worth nothing that the Steam version of Brothers requires a controller to play. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions do as well, but that's not worth noting.
Takedown heading to XBLA and Steam on September 20
Takedown: Red Sabre will launch on XBLA and PC via Steam on September 20, Creative Director Christian Allen told Joystiq at PAX Prime. The tactical shooter will cost $14.99, and will see an early release for Kickstarter backers. Takedown developer Serellan received funding on Kickstarter for the game in April 2012, prior to finding a publishing partner in 505 Games in February. Takedown is a squad-based, tactical first-person shooter, billed as a spiritual successor to the original Rainbow Six and SWAT 4. It will feature six-player cooperative and 12-player competitive multiplayer modes, as well as mod support for Steam users looking to create their own battle arenas.
Payday 2 yoinks top spot in this week's UK charts
Witnesses report the nefarious Payday 2 was sighted in a hit-and-run in the UK charts. It's believed Overkill's crime-it-up stole the prized top spot from Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition, where Mojang's crafter had been safely stowed for three weeks straight. The police had nothing to say on the matter, and told us to stop calling them. In other chart–crime news, is that Grand Theft Auto 4 we see sneaking into tenth place? With GTA 5 around the corner on September 17 and all the hubbub of last week, Brits seem very keen to reunite with their own in Scottish-based GTA studio Rockstar North. Elsewhere, chart mainstays like FIFA 13, Black Ops 2, The Last of Us, and Tomb Raider - it's still going, Square Enix! - continue to hang tough.
Overkill adding 5 DLC packs to Payday 2, would 'love' to add mods
Overkill Software producer Almir Listo recently said the studio has "a year of DLC planned" for Payday 2, its multiplayer heist game that launched this week on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 (August 23 for Xbox Games on Demand). Listo tells Joystiq that five DLC packs in total are in the works. "Payday 2 - just like its predecessor Payday: The Heist - is a living thing. We have 5 DLCs planned together with 505 Games for the coming year." Listo went on to say that Overkill would continue to update the game with both paid and free content, "just like we did with the first game." In Payday 2, the same maps are recycled over many different types of jobs, suggesting a natural fit for modding support or Steamworks integration. "We would love to add support for creating community generated content," Listo said, but in the meantime the team will "continue to look into this." Listo posted a message on Steam yesterday about absent safe house customization options and Cloakers, special heavy-duty police units seen in the beta. Both will be added down the line: "The safe house is what we intended it to be at release," Listo said. "Just like Bain says when you enter the safe house for the first time, it's not much at the moment, but give it some time. He's working on it and he'll let us do some decorating soon." Finally, Listo addressed the idea of further franchise crossovers. The first Payday had a mission set in the No Mercy map of Left 4 Dead, serving as a non-canon prequel to Valve's co-op zombie shooting gallery. On this point Listo said, "We can't discuss if we have any crossovers planned right now, but we will let you know when/if that should change."
Overkill to keep updating Payday 2 for a year, planning female character
Payday 2 director David Goldfarb said "there's like a year of DLC planned" for the game in a recent interview with OXM. Among the additional content for the heist game, Goldfarb said he wants "to make sure we get a female character." A playable female character for the action game may not be the first piece of downloadable content to arrive, though. "I don't know if we'll get it as our first DLC, because we'd have to redo all the animations so it doesn't look like a dude walking around with a female body," Goldfarb said. "It's definitely on our list. One of the many things that are on our list." Goldfarb didn't reveal the other items on Overkill Software's list of DLC plans, and it may be some time before we find out. Payday 2 first launches this week on PC, Xbox 360 and PS3.
Payday 2 review: Take the money and run
Payday 2 is a heist-em-up starring four crooks – codenamed Dallas, Hoxton, Chains and Wolf – who take on a series of jobs in the hopes of earning enough cash to retire on a beach somewhere, sipping fruity drinks with little plastic umbrellas in them. It's a nice fantasy, but Payday 2 proves that you can't plan for everything. No two jobs, despite being of similar set-up, go down in the same way – and without the help of few friends, you'll never survive long enough to reach that tropical paradise.%Gallery-195861%
Report: Payday 2 turns a profit six days before launch
Pre-orders of Payday 2 already made back the money that publisher 505 Games provided Starbreeze Studios for development, Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson-Klint said in a statement to investors (translated by Gamereactor). Payday 2 launches on August 13, and any incoming sales are profit to be split between 505 and Starbreeze. "Today Starbreeze has once again demonstrated that our strategy of focusing on our own properties is correct," Andersson-Klint said. "Not only have we managed to deliver a desirable product in Payday 2 but also executed a promotion that few companies of our size can. We now look forward to the royalty income that can secure the company's development of its own IP in the future. That Payday 2 generates revenue for the company six days before the release is of course very unusual for games of this size and strengthens the long-term nature of our strategy." Hey, everyone. What day is it? Payday.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons traveling to PC on Aug. 28, PSN on Sep. 3
Those looking to begin their journey in Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons on PC or PS3 need to wait a little while longer, as the game will launch on August 28 for Steam users and on the PSN on September 3. Brothers launched on the Xbox 360 this week, kicking off Microsoft's annual Summer of Arcade promotion. In Brothers, players use both joysticks to simultaneously control two boys who leave their village in search of a cure for their ailing father. We rather enjoyed our time with the Xbox 360 version of the game, so we eagerly await its arrival on Steam and PSN.
Payday 2 dev diary treads softly, carries a big gun
Developer Overkill Software has added stealth mechanics to Payday 2, happy news for those who favor sneaking over bursting in, guns blazing. Keep those guns ready, though - we've seen enough heist movies to know that they all inevitably devolve into a shootout.
Takedown: Red Sabre bringing tactical shooting back to Steam and XBLA
Indie developer Serellan billed its first-person shooter Takedown: Red Sabre as a "spiritual successor to the original Rainbow Six and SWAT 4" when the developer successfully raised $221,833 on Kickstarter in April 2012. Squad-based tactical shooters, where real-life military tactics take priority over the run-and-gun trappings of triple-A shooters, are arguably harder to come by and have become a niche in the broad FPS genre. Crowdfunding Takedown made more sense to creative director Christian Allen then, who told Joystiq at E3 that "part of [the decision to crowdfund] was figuring out what people really care about and what people really wanted." The project's 5,423 backers saw promise in the game, due in no small part to the team's history; Allen is a former creative director on the Ghost Recon series and was design lead for Halo: Reach. Perhaps equally reassuring for tactical shooter fans is the fact that Allen spent about nine and a half years serving in three different United States military branches: Four years as law enforcement in the Marines and over five with the Air Force and Army. Takedown: Red Sabre features single-player, six-player co-operative and 12-player competitive multiplayer modes. Like tactical first-person shooters of the past, sprinting through the non-linear maps isn't a viable strategy, as the game places an emphasis on slow, strategic and realistic warfare. Part of that realism comes from the work put into the game's weapons: Allen said that creating just one gun for the game takes about three weeks of development time for the Seattle-based team of about 10 developers. %Gallery-192121%
Payday 2 web series continues in 'The Vault'
This second episode of the live-action Payday 2 web series picks up where the first one left off: the crew is in the middle of robbing a bank and is about to make its escape from the vault. Payday 2 will launch on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC in August.
Microsoft announces Summer of Arcade lineup, beginning August 7
Microsoft announced this year's Summer of Arcade lineup for the Xbox 360, set to launch in August. Featured Xbox Live Arcade games include Activision's brawler TMNT: Out of the Shadows, an Ubisoft-published remake of Delphine Software's side-scrolling thriller Flashback, 505 Games' character-driven adventure game Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, and Ska Studios' punk-themed multiplayer beat-'em-up Charlie Murder. Specific release dates have not been announced. The Summer of Arcade campaign will kick off on August 7.
Terraria digging its way into mobile platforms
Terraria is a Steam title that just recently arrived on consoles, and now publisher 505 Games has announced that it's coming to iOS as well. The game is a 2D variant of the Minecraft-style sandbox genre, where players can hack away at squares of various types, recombining and reusing them to build machines, magic items or even dig on down and find various bosses and dungeon environments. The mobile version, says 505, will support leaderboards, achievements and Facebook integration as well, to share screenshots and other information about what you're doing in the game. This move makes a lot of sense, given how extremely successful Minecraft, Deepworld and other sandbox titles of this type have been on mobile platforms and especially iOS. Though it is interesting to note that after arriving on Steam, Terraria decided to work on a console version first and foremost. A few months after release, we'll have to see which version of the game has had a bigger effect on their player base and the bottom line. Terraria for mobile platforms, including iOS, is set to arrive later on this summer.
Payday 2 secures pre-order loot on Xbox 360, PS3
Those who sign up early for Overkill's latest heist, Payday 2, will net themselves some additional in-game perks. Pre-ordering on either the Xbox 360 and PS3 will yield the Lootbag DLC pack, which includes a red dot weapon sight attachment, a trio of exclusive masks and a fistful of in-game cash. Payday 2 pre-orders have been open on Steam for a week now. The Lootbag DLC will go to those who pre-order the base version of the game, while the $50 Career Criminal Edition will net players the same incentives listed above, along with two beta keys, in-game blueprints, store discounts, and the full soundtrack from Simon Viklund (Bionic Commando: Rearmed).
Report: Sniper Elite V2 Wii U missing online co-op
Citing Miiverse player reactions, Nintendo Life reports that the recently released Wii U version of Rebellion's sniping sim Sniper Elite V2 lacks online cooperative play. The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC versions of Sniper Elite V2 allowed players to team up with partners online in order to take on the game's campaign missions. Previously released ports also included cooperative Kill Tally, Bombing Run, and Overwatch modes, all of which are reportedly absent from the recent Wii U release. Sniper Elite V2's Wii U port additionally lacks downloadable content released for older ports. Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley previously confirmed that the Wii U version of Sniper Elite V2 would not ship with DLC bundled on-disc, though the company has not announced plans to release Wii U add-on content at a later date.
Payday 2 planning an August heist, web series starts in two weeks
Payday 2, the Overkill-developed crook sim, is set to launch in August. The news comes at the end of the trailer above, which teases a new web series set to start in two weeks. We have yet to see any actual Payday 2 gameplay beyond a brief teaser issued in March, but feel free to case our gallery of in-game shots below. Payday 2 – which adds classes and a contracts database on top of its predecessor's core robbery mechanics – is planning its heist on Steam, PS3 and Xbox 360. Pre-orders are open on Steam right now and all who sign up early will get an in-game loot pack. %Gallery-189209%
Sniper Elite V2 scopes out Wii U tomorrow
An enhanced Wii U version of Rebellion's sniping sim, Sniper Elite V2, is headed to retailers tomorrow, offering up a collection of platform-exclusive tactical options. Announced back in February, the Wii U edition of Sniper Elite V2 uses the console's GamePad by giving players an in-game map and quicker access to weapons and equipment. Players can additionally use the GamePad to tag and track enemies, mark traps, and predict the blast radius of planted explosives. The Wii U port also features off-TV GamePad mirroring, in case the rest of your family doesn't want to watch you shatter skulls.%Gallery-188866%
