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Starhawk has matchmaking, server lists ... and space battles
Though LightBox Interactive blew the doors open on Starhawk a couple of weeks ago at a reveal event, not every question about the game was answered. To provide more information to anxious fans, LightBox head Dylan Jobe took to the PlayStation Blog for a Q&A. Among the most interesting tidbits is the news that Starhawk multiplayer will allow players to find each other using either matchmaking or a server list. And for those of you wondering whether you'd be able to leave the planet's surface, apparently you can. " 100% YES," Jobe said in response to a question about the existence of space battles. "The outer space environment set that the art team here at LightBox Interactive has put together is really awesome. Super fun to play on and looks great." Whether that means specific levels take place in space, or if you'll just be able to fly straight up in one of the transforming robot/plane "Hawks," remains to be answered. Jobe isn't talking details about this feature yet: "Some of the elements are still being worked on and we don't want to show it untill we're 100% happy with it," he said.
Rumor: Starhawk reveal coming in mid-May (Us: Try to act surprised)
We've been hearing about a rumored follow-up to Warhawk for nearly two years after Sony Computer Entertainment of America registered a trademark for a game known as "Starhawk." And though the rumors have gone quiet for quite some time, SystemLink PlayStation claims to have spoken to an anonymous Sony employee who revealed a wealth of details about the alleged sequel -- details that are reported to be part of a big reveal in mid-May. Lightbox Interactive is said to be in the pilot's seat -- a studio made of ex-Incognito devs, the same folks who made Warhawk -- and the game will be exclusive to the PlayStation 3. According to the report, the core gameplay doesn't deviate too much from its predecessor -- "a third-person shooter with jeeps, APCs, tanks, and now spaceships." As for space combat, the piece claims that only some maps will allow spaceships to exit the planet's atmosphere, with specific areas intended for ground combat. The game is also said to feature both single- and multiplayer, with a heavier focus on the latter. No details are provided as to whether it's a digital or retail release (or some combination of both, like the original game). As the piece points out, Lightbox Interactive president Dylan Jobe has been tweeting up a storm with his excitement, with such missives as "Been running in silent mode for too long. This is killing me. I can't wait to be able to talk about it" and "Thank you all for your patience. Really! I want nothing more than to show off the new game to our fans!" For what it's worth, an SCEA rep told us, "We don't comment on rumors or speculation," but we'll hopefully find out what's what in a few weeks.
Dylan Jobe leaves Incognito to start new PlayStation-focused studio
Incognito Entertainment's Dylan Jobe, director of Warhawk, has announced that he is leaving Incognito and taking other staff with him. The group has formed a new studio, Lightbox Interactive, which will relocate from Incognito's home of Salt Lake City, Utah, to Austin, Texas this fall "to take advantage of Austin's creative culture and its well established game development community." PlayStation fanboys concerned about losing talent to one of the other platforms need not be concerned: Lightbox's website mentions that the new studio is under a multi-year contract with Sony to develop games for "the PlayStation family of platforms." Well, now we know what Jobe will be talking about in the GDC "The Big Picture 2009: Managing Your Game Dev Deal and Operating Your Game Dev Studio" panel. [Via Kotaku]
Incognito, MyHawk collaborate on Warhawk stat tracking
If you consider yourself to be a veteran Warhawk player, then you might want to check out MyHawk.org. The fan site, in collaboration with developer Incognito, tracks in-game Warhawk stats and has just undergone a major update which added in new stat features such as: "clan matches & tournaments, daily leaderboards, new graphs, per-weapon stats, stats on individual games, [and] game calendar." The game's director, Dylan Jobe, revealed on the PlayStation Blog that this is all possible because of a little experimental XML feed. The XML feed streams raw Warhawk data, which any community -- not just MyHawk -- can get access to. Jobe calls it the "democratization of the player community." That means if you run a Warhawk community and want access to the global feed, Jobe says to "hit the Warhawk forums and post your info."
It's never too late: Warhawk demo may be in the works
The team at Incognito has been expanding the Warhawk universe in quite a number of ways, with three expansion packs, various free patches and tutorials for beginner players. While the Warhawk community seems rather healthy, it appears that Incognito is going to go another step further: it looks to be making a downloadable demo available in the future. An impromptu Q&A developed on the PlayStation.blog, with one reader asking Dylan Jobe about the possibilitiy of a demo. "What about a demo of sorts? A game like this won't ever see my purchase if I can't even try it out."To that, Jobe responds: "We're on it." Considering this is an online-only title, how would a Warhawk demo even work? Would there simply be a server dedicated to demo-only players? Or will, it be a time-limited offering? Guess we'll find out whenever Warhawk's better-late-than-never demo appears.[Thanks, Kyle!]
Jobe says Warhawk platinum trophy needs no purchased DLC
Dylan Jobe reiterated some points we touched on previously, but also had a very strong statement that is sure to please Warhawk fans: "To earn the Warhawk Platinum Trophy, all you have to do is unlock the base game's 44 Trophies...you do *NOT* have to buy any DLC to unlock the Platinum Warhawk Trophy. Forcing players to buy our DLC would be super-craptastic and completely unacceptable." That should calm all you hardcore Warhawk players.
Warhawk update v1.4 hits July 16
Warhawk update v1.4 will hit exactly at 10am GMT (3am PST) on July 16 with quite an amazing lineup of content, including two completely free gameplay modes: "Hero" and "Collection." In Hero mode, an "Epic Hero" is randomly chosen to lead their team to victory; teams gain points by either killing an enemy hero, or killing enemies as the hero. Collection is described by Dylan Jobe as "multi-flag CTF [note CTF = capture the flag]. There are four energy cores scattered around the map, generally positioned in the center or between the two team's main bases. Each team has a Reactor where Energy Cores are taken to score points."Other such additions include a Quick-join feature which scans for a perfect match based on your preferences, an updated mini-map, changes to Rank & Awards requirements, Minimum Rank server option, update on Home game launching, plus tons more. See the PlayStation.Blog for the full details.
Warhawk trophies and patches detailed, new booster hinted
Passed on to us by Sony's Harvard Bonin, we found out some interesting notes on Warhawk trophies from game director Dylan Jobe: "there has been some talk about Warhawk trophies super-auto-magically going LIVE late tonight when the firmware is released. This is not the case." This all means, in a nut shell, trophies for Warhawk won't be ready upon 2.40's release and, in fact, for quite awhile -- read on. As we've mentioned previously in our firmware 2.40 guide, games released prior to 2.40 (such as Warhawk) will have to be patched. So, the big question is: when will the Warhawk v1.4 patch hit? Now here is where things get a little funny; trophy support will not be found in v1.4 but, as Jobe states, will be found in the v1.5 patch. Neither v1.4 nor v1.5 have fixed released dates, but Jobe sounds very sure that both will be seen "very very very" soon. To give us something to look forward to, Jobe details that Warhawk will have 56 trophies set up in v1.5. Ten will be based off "current stats/rank/awards system" and can be retroactively attained. 34 trophies are entirely new and based off the core gameplay, which ultimately means happy hunting for you. The last 12 are set aside as booster pack-specific awards. With four per booster, and only two booster packs currently released (Omega Dawn and Broken Mirror), it sounds like to us that a third booster will be ready in time for v1.5.
Operation Broken Mirror priced and dated
It astounds us that Dylan manages to do any actual game directing, what with all his time spent writing posts on the PlayStation.Blog. His latest post goes into great detail with regards to the upcoming Warhawk expansion Operation: Broken Mirror. The trailer is posted above for those interested and Americans can expect this expansion to hit the PSN Store on April 15th for $7.99. Operation Omega Dawn was released simultaneously in both PAL and US regions, so we fully expect this to be the case with Broken Mirror.Be sure to check out Jobe's full post for in-depth information on the new level, including the ten different map layouts and new screenshots of it in action. Seeing as Warhawk is only $29.99 on the PSN right now (a price cut which ends on April 15th), this is the perfect opportunity to grab it and get some practice in before Broken Mirror's release.
Unsurprising: Warhawk dev working on new game
All game developers move on to new things. So, when Dylan Jobe mentions on the PlayStation.blog that the Warhawk team is working on a brand new game, we can't get too surprised. When "RatchetFanatic" commented on the blog to "make a new game already," Dylan Jobe sharply commented that it's being done. We don't have any details on said new game, but comes to show you that magical things can happen if you wish hard enough (and leave a comment on a blog!).[Thanks, Plantano555!]
Dylan Jobe strikes again with another Warhawk post
Dylan Jobe has once again managed to sneak past the PlayStation.Blog security droids and deliver us an update regarding Warhawk's upcoming expansions. Included in the post was the above video; a trailer for patch 1.3 and the various game upgrades it brings. Jobe says that both the patch and the "Operation Broken Mirror" expansion are "basically" done, with more news about release dates coming soon.Warhawk version 1.3 will not only include a couple of ground-based items, but will also contain a whole host of new Warhawk paintjobs and insignias. These are all fan made via the contest that was started in January and all the winners are viewable in Jobe's PlayStation.Blog post or on the official PlayStation Flickr. Finally, a screenshot of "Operation Broken Mirror" was revealed -- only problem is that it's all jumbled up like a puzzle. Luckily some quick witted readers managed to unscramble the image and gave us the first look of the new level and vehicle. Picture posted after the break for those who are spoilerphobic.
Upcoming Warhawk expansion hinted at on PS.Blog
Dylan Jobe's latest post on the PlayStation.Blog was a long list of upcoming features for Warhawk's v1.3 patch. Not only that, but the post also contained a number of subtle hints towards a future expansion. In the image above, showing how Home-launched Warhawk games will appear in the server list, is a listing for a level, "Vaporfield Gl...", that isn't currently available. When asked by a commenter about an expansion listing that has appeared on a number of PSN release date lists under the name of "Operation Broken Mirror", Dylan oh-so-subtly remarks on how interesting his own ASCII art looks. Clicking on the ASCII art at the bottom of his post takes you to this image. It's a broken mirror! How clever. No doubt we'll be hearing more about this before too long, especially with GDC happening next week. If we learn anything new, we'll be sure to let you know.
Warhawk v1.3 will bring new items, better VOIP, Home integration
That lovable rascal Dylan Jobe, Game Director of Warhawk, has posted up some info on the PlayStation.Blog regarding an upcoming update to the game. Version 1.3 has a huge feature list and will introduce some new gameplay elements whilst improving on various server options and online mechanics. The best thing about it though? It'll be completely free. There are no new maps or vehicles (this is an update, not an expansion) but instead the game will be further improved with the inclusion of two new items for ground-troops. The Bio-Field Generator acts as a personal healing station that can be placed down like a mine and the Field Mechanic's Wrench is a one-hit-kill melee weapon that doubles as a quick-repair for vehicles. On top of this, the 1.3 patch will introduce better VOIP options as well as new paint schemes for the air-based vehicles chosen from the ongoing Warhawk Paint & Insignia contest. Finally, Dylan mentions that their Home integration is coming along really nicely and that v1.3 will utilise game launching from inside Home. A great, much anticipated, feature. Interesting that we're seeing its implementation so soon, considering Home still has a TBA release date. Speaking of releases, when can we expect to see this update? It's in testing at the moment, with no expected release date for now. Hopefully we'll hear something more specific very soon. If you want to read more about the update (and you do) check out the post on the PlayStation.Blog. Oh yeah, did we mention this will all be free?[Thanks Hunter and Chubbs]
GDC 07: Warhawk's transition into a Network title
At the Sony blogger's event, Warhawk's Dylan Jobe admitted that the PlayStation Network game doesn't deserve "to be a full priced game." Unfortunately, he admits, it's not his job to set the pricing. The team wanted to make a good product, but there were a few employees frustrated that the game was becoming a Network-only game. There's a stigma, he noted, and one disgruntled employee left the team due to the misconception that downloadable games are somehow lesser experiences."Crap product will sell like crap, whether or not it's on a shelf or not," Dylan admitted. He thinks that the future of Sony's Network offerings is exciting, especially because it "transcends arcade rehashes." These are "high quality titles" that will allow the company to "earn the player's trust back."Going forward, Sony admits that they're trying to get a "downloadable demo for every title." There is no Warhawk demo in the works now, but the possibility of offering a public beta for trial purpose is still being discussed.
