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Amazon cancels 'Breakaway' video game
The team behind the competitive battle game Breakaway announced this weekend that the game "is no longer in active development" on Reddit. The brawler was being developed by Double Helix and published by Amazon Game Studios. It was one of three games Amazon's in-house game studio was planning on releasing.
Amazon's 'Breakaway' game is on hold while developers make changes
Breakaway, a competitive battle game under development Double Helix and published by Amazon Game Studios, is going on a bit of a break. Following a report from Kotaku claiming that the game was being put on "indefinite hiatus," the team working on the game said it was "taking some time to iterate and evolve Breakaway's core gameplay." That work is being done based on feedback the team received from players during an Alpha period that ran from June though September. In the meantime, however, there won't be any more Alpha matches hosted, and there's no timeframe given for how long the Breakaway team will spend retooling things here.
Amazon's next game will have a Twitch-centric wager system
Ever since Amazon bought livestreaming website Twitch, the retailer has slowly but surely begun building video tools into its offerings. It's new free game engine, Lumberyard, already lets developers quickly incorporate and scale community features from the outset, but Amazon has a lot more planned than that. At this years TwitchCon event, Amazon Game Studios confirmed that Breakaway, its new free-to-play multiplayer game made by Killer Instinct developer Double Helix, a company it acquired more than two years ago, will offer a new form of in-game Twitch currency and incorporate numerous Twitch features specifically aimed at building the video service's reputation as the home of live eSports.
'Killer Instinct' arrives on PCs
The PC hasn't exactly had a wealth of top-tier fighting games (Street Fighter V is more the exception than the rule), but that's changing today. As promised way back in June 2015, Iron Galaxy has released Killer Instinct for Windows 10 gamers alongside Season 3 of the Xbox One title. Both versions share the same combo-laden fighting game mechanics and characters (including new additions like Halo's Arbiter), and players on one platform can duke it out with rivals on another. Like you might expect, though, the PC version can look as good as your system allows -- it'll run at 4K if you have both the display and graphics hardware to match.
Amazon acquires Double Helix, the games studio behind the latest Killer Instinct
Leaked through a joint recruiting event between Amazon and Double Helix, Amazon has acquired the games studio, reportedly in a bid to grab both talent and IP. The studio is best known for its Killer Instinct remake, although it also includes less luminary titles like G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. (It's worth noting that Killer Instinct will be published by Microsoft Studios as an Xbox One exclusive.) Incoming games include a remake of Strider -- a series that first made its debut back in 1989. Amazon released a statement confirming the deal: "Amazon has acquired Double Helix as part of our ongoing commitment to build innovative games for customers." The announcement adds extra weight to recent rumors that Amazon might even get into the games console business -- it certainly doesn't hurt them.
Don't like your Lightning cable? Double Helix will mod it for you
If you would rather have your Lightning cable look bold instead of bland, then you should check out this custom mod by Double Helix cables. The cable maker is offering to take your Lightning cable and turn it into something that stands out from the crowd. The customized cable is crafted from a stock cable and can be shortened to your preferred length. You can also enclose it in a silver or black sleeve and add a gold USB plug to the end. Not only does it look striking, the gold plug also won't get stuck in your computer's USB port, a problem that some people are reporting with the stock cable. The Double Helix cable will set you back $85, if you buy the cable as part of the package. If you provide Double Helix with the Lightning cable, the company will knock $20 off the price of the mod.
MinION USB stick decodes DNA in a matter of seconds
If you happen to be "special," then this $900 USB device is just about the worst thing ever. The aptly named MINion serves its masters by interrogating the cells of living organisms and rooting out their genetic secrets. We won't pretend to know exactly how it works, but it starts by pulling a strand of DNA through a razor-like nanotube that unzips the double helix. The nucleotide bases are then electrocuted one by one until they give up their code. The resulting sequence is stored like a ticker-tape readout, for the whole world to see. The MinION can complete its task in seconds and, unlike most other DNA sequencers, it's portable and simply plugs into a laptop. Luckily, it has so far only been shown to work on very short genomes, like those belonging viruses and bacteria, so for now you're probably safe.
Scared stiff: Why should we care about Silent Hill: Homecoming?
Konami's Silent Hill franchise has forgotten more about keeping us hiding beneath our covers than most games will ever know. Even EA's own Glen Schofield tips his hat to the series, telling us earlier this week that he considers the 1999 PlayStation original to be among his favorite survival horror games ever. But after nearly a decade of stumbling through the fog, it's easy to feel that the dilapidated burg of Silent Hill has gotten a bit too long in the tooth. For the series' sixth installment, Konami has handed the blood-soaked baton over to external developer Double Helix Games, a recent mash-up of The Collective and Shiny Entertainment. The result is this fall's upcoming release, Silent Hill: Homecoming, and we recently puzzled our way out of mist long enough to ask the game's lead designer, Jason Allen, just why we should care about this latest return trip to Silent Hill. Gallery: Silent Hill: Homecoming
Foundation 9 melts together Collective and Shiny into Double Helix
Whatever last remnants of identity clung to by both Shiny and The Collective were lost today as the duo were merged together by owner Foundation 9, creating a new, wholly unfamiliar entity known as Double Helix. Studio head Michael Saxs Persson calls the new name and logo, which were chosen from a pool of employee submissions, a "perfect" match for the company, adding that "making games is in our DNA." The founding follows the initial merger, announced last October, and according to Foundation 9 creates a studio "that is now able to build upon its previous experience to gain new heights in quality and efficiency." And all it cost us was our fond memories of a simpler time spent playing the likes of MDK and Earthworm Jim. While the company remains coy regarding what it's up to currently, today's announcement notes that Double Helix is developing a trio of multi-platform licensed games, one of which we assume to be the already announced Silent Hill V.
