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Housemarque knows people are skeptical about 'Stormdivers'
Two days ago, Resogun developer Housemarque released its first proper trailer for Stormdivers. The reaction was mixed. At the time of writing, the official upload on YouTube has 290 thumbs-up and 321 thumbs-down ratings. "I'm going to miss absolutely amazing arcade titles from you guys," one user wrote. "Might as well wait for the inevitable closure announcement," another user remarked underneath.
'Stormdivers' is a battle royale game with superpowers
Back in April, Resogun and Super Stardust HD developer Housemarque teased a mysterious multiplayer project called Stormdivers. The reveal, though, showed little beyond a forest locale, some man-made structures and the promise of "hard flying and heavy hitting gameplay." If you've been waiting for more information, good news -- the indie developer has released a new trailer today showing off the game's battle royale-inspired combat. It reveals a host of weapons, including machetes, assault weapons and rocket launchers, as well as futuristic jetpacks, portable shields, and some fantastical powers including invisibility and lightning-fast dashes.
The makers of 'Resogun' are leaving arcade shooters behind
Over the past decade, the name Housemarque has become synonymous with arcade-style games. From the early PSN title Super Stardust HD to the PS4 launch savior Resogun, the Finnish studio has produced many critically acclaimed and commercially successful games. In recent years, though, good reviews haven't been followed by strong sales. Nex Machina, a colorful top-down arcade shooter released earlier this year, is pure Housemarque. Created in partnership with arcade legend Eugene Jarvis, it's fast-paced, devilishly challenging and with tight controls. It received universal praise from reviewers -- a Metacritic average of 88 makes it the eighth-best-reviewed PS4 game of the year. When I visited Housemarque's Helsinki studio last year, I described the game as "a Hail Mary for arcade shooters" -- and it's now clear that the Hail Mary failed. The company confirmed that it's sold less than 100,000 copies of Nex Machina across both PS4 and PC. The studio has roughly 50 employees working on two games at any given moment, and doing some napkin math will quickly reveal that it lost a lot of money on the game, which it released without the help of a publisher. Matterfall, another arcade-inspired title, arrived in August and similarly failed to set the world on fire. As it was published by Sony, it hasn't affected Housemarque in the same way financially, but it clearly intensified the soul-searching.
Arcade shooter 'Nex Machina' gets a physical release November 10th
Resogun creator Housemarque has earned a reputation as a specialist in digital-only game releases (its last hard copy release was 2012's Angry Birds Trilogy), but it's about to buck that trend. The studio has announced that its well-received, Smash TV-style PS4 arcade shooter Nex Machina will be available in a disc-based version through Limited Run Games on November 10th. There's a $30 standard edition if you just want something tangible, but the centerpiece is a $65 Collector's Edition that includes the soundtrack on CD, a poster and four art prints in a special edition box. Arguably, that's the version to get -- if you want more than a download, you might as well get something truly memorable.
'Nex Machina' brings co-op robot slaughter to the couch June 20th
Developer Housemarque's ode to Robotron: 2048, Nex Machina, finally has a release date: June 20th on both PC and PlayStation 4. And if you were a fan of what you played in the beta but thought it was missing something, maybe that je ne sais quoi was couch-play with a buddy. "Local co-op will allow two players to play side by side, just like in the old school arcade halls, competing or helping each other out," the developer writes on the PlayStation Blog. It's something Housemarque has included in its previous games, sometimes as a post-launch add-on, but here it'll be a part of the experience on day one. Want a preview of how the voxel-based madness will play out next month? Peep the trailer below.
'Nex Machina' will show you exactly how someone hit a high score
Finnish developer Housemarque's ode to Robotron: 2084, Nex Machina is out for PC and PlayStation 4 this summer. And while we debuted it in December, details for the frantic arcade shooter have been relatively scarce since. But that's slowly changing. Perhaps the most exciting new wrinkle we've learned about is its replay mode. "All of the leaderboard entries are effectively recorded, which means it's possible to enter the leaderboards, select an entry and watch the replay," a post on the PlayStation Blog reads.
All the reveals from PlayStation Experience 2016
It definitely feels like Sony showed off more games during the PlayStation Experience keynote today than it did at E3. Which is pretty impressive, when you think about it. The show started out with a glimpse at the next chapter of the Uncharted saga and ended with, well, the next chapter in the The Last of Us. Both were extremely unexpected treats from developer Naughty Dog, but in between those bookends were a ton of other teases and announcements from the company's 20-plus years of gaming history. If you wanted fresh versions of Parappa the Rapper and WipeOut, or even an updated take on the obscure Windjammers, you're all set. Oh, and how about the next game from Housemarque, the Robotron-esque Nex Machina? Now, let's get to the videos.
The follow-up to 'Resogun' is a Hail Mary for arcade shooters
Housemarque, the Finnish developer behind Resogun and Dead Nation, hasn't had the best year. I visited its Helsinki headquarters back in September to see how the studio was following up Resogun, the surprise hit of the PlayStation 4 launch. What I found was a unique company struggling to hold on to the identity it believes in. Housemarque made its name with Stardust. Originally released for the Amiga in the early '90s, the series rose to prominence with the digital release of Super Stardust HD on the PlayStation 3. The studio has since become a specialist in digital-only games, almost all of which can trace their lineage back to the arcade. The isometric shooter Dead Nation was the studio's next big hit, going on to become one of the bestselling digital-only titles for PlayStation 3, while the Ikaruga-meets-Metroid platformer Outland was critically acclaimed. But it was during the launch of the PlayStation 4 that Housemarque would make the biggest impact. Resogun took the basic premise behind the arcade classic Defender and turned it into a modern shooter. With cylindrical stages and a custom voxel-based engine, the game was by far the strongest PlayStation 4 exclusive of its time, and one of scant few highlights of the console's November 2013 launch.
