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Starbreeze self-funding original IP
Starbreeze, the developer behind The Darkness, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay and the upcoming series reboot Syndicate, is looking to expand its developmental output beyond the intellectual properties of other creative minds."We want to make our own IP; no doubt," Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark told Gamasutra. "We're actually self-funding one original IP right now. If we're going to take it to market ourself -- I haven't decided yet. It's always about how you maximize what you can do." Nermark's current strategy is to continue working on high-profile titles like Syndicate while simultaneously looking for opportunities to launch the developer's own original IP. As the old saying goes, "You can only milk another man's cow for so long." Or something.
Riddick comes out of hiding in new Dark Athena video
Starbreeze wasn't cooling its heels while it waited for word on a new publisher for The Chronicle of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, as evidenced by this first video of the game in all its current, two-games-in-one glory. We've seen it in action and can attest to the fact that, yes, it actually looks like this on 360 and PS3 (though it will also be hitting PC).The video features a couple of elements that we were especially impressed by. The first is a visual nuance, but one that speaks to the effort being put into the polishing of the final game. In the segment where Riddick hangs from a pipe and moves along it, hand over hand, there wasn't one iota of clipping – no "hand through wrist" glitching, nada. The look of the game is extremely solid. The new gameplay mechanics are impressive as well. The half-man, half-weapon characters in this trailer are "drones" – cyborgs created by the Dark Athena crew from the hapless passengers of ships they've raided. Riddick can kill these enemies and use them as human shields, while using the gun grafted to their arm to shoot. As you'd expect from a real body, it's difficult to push it forward, but dragging it's a snap (which factors into overall strategy). It's also possible to control these guys from a remote terminal, hence the red-hued POV you catch at one point during the footage. Download in HD (79MB)
