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Here's what Amazon's 'New World' MMO looks like
Amazon's New World has been in the works for some time, and while there's no release date as yet, some leaked footage from a closed beta gives us a look at what it's like to play the MMO RPG. The person who leaked the footage posted over two hours of gameplay on PornHub, of all places, and YouTube channel Less Than Epic distilled that to nine minutes of material.
‘The Grand Tour Game’ is a near-perfect mirror of the show
When Amazon announced its Grand Tour video game, I imagined a generic racer with crudely digitized versions of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. The reality, though, is quite different. Amazon Game Studios is developing a title that, in many ways, is a perfect mirror of the Prime-exclusive show. The real-world antics portrayed in the TV series are more than loose inspiration -- they're the template for every race and mission in the game.
Amazon turned its ‘The Grand Tour’ TV series into a racing game
If you've enjoyed The Grand Tour on Amazon, here's some synergy you probably didn't see coming: The ecommerce giant's in-house studio is making the show into a video game. Before you ask, yes, hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May lend their voices to the title. But don't expect a one-and-done racing title. The game will be released piecemeal on a weekly basis during Season 3, with each episode featuring cars, locations and content from the show.
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.
'EverQuest' co-creator joins Amazon Games Studio in San Diego
Amazon is firing up new locations for its Games Studio (AGS) offices along the West Coast and infusing it with some legacy blood. John Smedley, one of the original creators of the seminal MMO Everquest, will be helming a new team operating out of San Diego. Apparently, they're already working on a project harnessing both Amazon Web Service Cloud and Twitch.
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.
Amazon is hiring developers for its first PC game
Amazon's ambitions for gaming apparently go quite a bit beyond the mobile space and "hit" consumer hardware. The e-commerce juggernaut is looking for folks to help flesh out the development team of its first PC game and placed a job posting on Gamasutra in an effort to make that happen. As Polygon notes, the studio already has the likes of Portal's Kim Swift and former Ubisoft developer Clint Hocking (Far Cry 2) on board, and the job listing says that designers whose resumés include Halo, Half-life 2 and The Last of Us are involved as well.
Amazon's first Fire TV games include in-house titles and Minecraft (update: video)
Amazon's new Fire TV media hub may be focused on video, but it's going to have a significant game roster -- including some examples from the company itself. Amazon Game Studios is building more than a dozen titles for the set-top box that include Sev Zero, a Gears of War-like sci-fi shooter. You'll have some third-party games to choose from, of course, such a special port of Minecraft Pocket Edition, a Monsters Inc. endless runner, the arcade racer Asphalt 8 and You Don't Know Jack. "Thousands" of games will be available within a month, and you'll see software from major developers like Ubisoft and Take-Two. While you shouldn't count on Fire TV replacing your PS4 or Xbox One anytime soon, it's evident that you won't be hurting for things to play. Update: Amazon has posted a video teasing some of the Fire TV and Kindle Fire games that it's working on. Check it out below! Update 2: Want to see the complete list of launch apps and games for the Fire TV? Check them out here.
Amazon Game Studios releases its first mobile game, Air Patriots, for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire
Amazon made its first push into in-house game development this summer with the launch of Amazon Game Studios and its first title, the Facebook-bound Living Classics, and its now made its second big move. The company announced today that its first mobile game, Air Patriots, is now available for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire devices (and free on each, albeit with in-app purchases). Not surprisingly, Amazon has paid particular attention to the Kindle Fire version, taking advantage of GameCircle to track achievements and high scores, as well as Whispersync to let you save your progress on one device and pick up where you left off on another. As for the game itself, Amazon says it's a "new kind of tower defense game," with players drawing a path for the planes to fend off the oncoming tanks. Head on past the break for a quick video. Update: As some commenters have pointed out, while the game supports a variety of Android devices, it looks like the Nexus 7 isn't among them.
Amazon launches its own game studio, goes social with Living Classics on Facebook
Amazon is committing itself to gaming much more seriously than providing a storefront: it just launched its own game development house. The simply titled Amazon Game Studios is starting out gently by producing a Facebook hidden object game, Living Classics, that lets the socially inclined dig around through scenes from well-known literature -- what else would you expect from the Kindle's creator? While the free, me-too game isn't going to give Microsoft or Sony any frights just yet, the company has the ambition of making "innovative, fun and well-crafted" titles. Amazon is actively recruiting more help for the studio as we write, so we'd expect more grandiose work before too long.
