Namco Bandai wasn’t the only publisher having a media day today. Ubisoft held its annual Digital Days event, where it unveiled a slew of new downloadable titles in the works. Find the full list of games below.
Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (PSN, XBLA, PC)
Developer: Techland
Release Date: Q1 2013Summary
From the dust of a gold mine to the dirt of a saloon, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger is a real homage to the Wild West tales. Live the epic and violent journey of a ruthless bounty hunter onto the trail of the West’s most notorious outlaws. Blurring the lines between man and myth, this adventure made of memorable encounters unveils the untold truth behind some of the greatest legends of the Old West.Key Features
- Meet the legendary outlaws: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, Jesse James… Face down the West’s most notorious gunslingers and live the untold stories behind the legends.
- Experience a lawless land: Blaze a trail through the wilderness of the Old West and live an epic adventure through stunning Western landscapes.
- Dispense your own justice: With a gun holster tied to your leg, become a ruthless bounty hunter on a journey made of all out gun battles.
- Prevail in deadly gunfights: Master the art of blasting pistols, shooting rifles, dodging bullets and unleash lethal combos to gun down multiple enemies in split seconds.
- Become the West’s finest: Choose the specific gun fighting skills you want to develop and acquire new shooting abilities to become the West’s finest gunslinger.
Legends of the West
One reason Westerns have been thought to be popular is because they are true. Historians and genre experts agree: what we know about the heroes and villains of the Wild West are often highly exaggerated facts jotted down in saloon interviews, and then fancifully woven with great liberty into popular dime novels. In many cases the stories were simply pure wishful fiction. Billy the Kid was not that bad, but it served Pat Garret, who was selling his own merits, to paint him as a crazy killer. John Wesley Hardin was considered a brutal hero, though by today’s standards he would be cataloged a serial killer. Jesse James was a train robber who was called a modern day Robin Hood though he never gave much of anything back to the poor…
It is the elements of truth combined with a bigger-than-life spirit in the Western genre that breeds epic heroes; untamed, unformatted and highly memorable. They surpass the reality that attempts to bind them down and put them in a box, because they are unfettered by education, civilization or social convention. All that remains to define them are their personal values and individual codes. That is why they are exciting to watch. Those legends are what we all could be if we were not weighed down by convention and could just pick up a gun, using our heart as a compass, and shoot until the world went right.
That is where we are pulling our inspiration. The epic journey of our hero Silas Greaves is likened to the history of our era. It is a mix of myths and historical facts. We believe this unique combination makes the perfect material for a videogame experience. Silas Greaves has some incredible stories to tell, and players will live them while he is narrating. During his life he was a part of many historical events and an actor in as many legendary gunfights. He lets players face off with some of the West’s most notorious names, such as Pat Garrett, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy, and many more.
Silas’s story is also, as part of the Western genre, dealing with universal themes like law and justice, vengeance and redemption. This brings us to the real reasons the Western Genre fascinates audiences. They are a collection of stories about the birth of modern society upon the values of the old. The melting pot was out East and the future was out in California: the Wild West in between was a fascinating battleground of proud cultures and hungry peoples, sudden fortunes and family feuds, tired traditions and harsh conditions. They were fighting it out to bring about a new state of order and a new set of laws valid for everyone, in a land of freedom and opportunity. The heroes were forging new sets of rules in a new country with the high stakes and tested codes. They believed that justice was universal though laws could be arbitrary. Every now and again you had to take up a gun and make sure that true justice did not slip through the floorboard cracks. Life was simple, and death often set things straight.
As Silas encounters these legends, on a personal journey to right a terrible wrong, justice is done. The spirit of the Wild West is all about building the foundations of a nation that will one day become a decent place to live. It was the courage, sweat and gumption of millions of men and women that built the nations of the Americas, but from time to time, when law and order were in short supply, justice still had a way of making itself known. Silas Greaves was one of its mysterious and exciting gavels.
Until we live in a world where no crime goes unpaid, we’ll always have a desire and fascination for those times in history where men and women rewrote the law books. Whether they were bounty hunters or outlaws, peacekeepers or soldiers, cowboys or Indians, they were all working to make things right… at least in their own eyes.
Cloudberry Kingdom (PSN, XBLA, Wii U, PSV, PC, Mac)
Developer: Pwnee Studios
Release Date: Q1 2013Summary
Welcome to Cloudberry Kingdom! The first ever platformer with fully randomly generated levels. Every level is brand new and never seen before. The difficulty level can match any need, from the casual to the hardcore.Unhappily ever after? That’s how it starts. The Orb resurfaces and the classic characters return. Kobbler with his mania, Princess with her endless boredom. It’s only a matter of time before Bob, our hero, shows up to put order back to madness. Three powers struggle for victory and the fate of Cloudberry Kingdom hangs in the balance. What will become of the retired hero, Bob? Will saving Princess one last time win her love? Could true love ever stop Kobbler and the power of the Orb? No, probably not. But hey, it’s worth a shot.
Features
- Infinite Levels: A platformer designed with a fully random level generator. Every level is brand new and never seen before. The difficulty level can match any need, from the casual to the hardcore. Also, save and send levels to friends!
- Hero Selection: Play as 10 hero types and unlock more. Also create your own hero in Hero Factory, not just the look of the hero but the physics as well.
- Multiple Game Modes: Experience three different types of play; Campaign mode, Free Play, and Arcade mode which include Time Crises, Hero Rush, Escalation
- Multi-player and Co-Op: Up to four player gaming with local multi-player and Co-Op modes, including bungee mode
- Celebrity Voice Acting: The Game touts celebrity Voice Actors Kevin Sorbo Star of the hit TV series “Hercules”, “Andromeda”, and leading role in the parody film “Meet the Spartans”
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (PSN, XBLA, PC)
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release Date: May 1
Price: $14.99 (according to Steam)Summary
The year is 2007. It is the future.You are Sergeant Rex Colt: Mark IV Cyber Commando. The year is 2007 and Earth has been ravaged by a nuclear war which erupted in the 90s. The east vs. west conflict has raged for generations, and humanity continues to struggle to progress after a disastrous decade. New paths for peace must be found, and the US cyborg army may have found a solution: a powerful bioweapon on a distant island. Your mission is to gather information and figure out what the hell is going on.
Features
- A Kick-Ass Cyber Shooter: There’s only one force powerful enough to stop an army of rampaging killer cyborgs, mutated scientists, metal sharks and vicious Blood Dragons that shoot lasers from their eyes – that force is you. Your name is Sergeant Rex Power Colt, a Mark IV Cyber Commando. Lock and load as you and your seven favorite fully customizable killing implements tackle a bizarre open world island crawling with evil. Take down the enemy with ninja stars, guns or even just good old explosives. Your battle. Your way. Their tough luck.
- Get the girl, kill the bad guys and save the world: As Sergeant Rex Colt, you are part man, part machine, all American. You are a state-of-the-art Mark IV cyber-commando on a mission… of vengeance. You’re out to bring down your old commanding officer and his battalion of ruthless killer cyborgs-and you’ll stop at nothing to get the job done.
- Wrapped up with every cliché of the VHS era: Hollywood action icon Michael Biehn (The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss), returns in this explosive 1980s-style sci-fi vision of a dark future where cyborgs and mutants collide. So turn off your VCR, plug in your video game cabinet, and get ready to experience all the thrills of Far Cry® 3 Blood Dragon in full stereophonic sound.
Flashback
Developer: Vector Cell
Release Date: 2013Summary
20 years after the original game’s launch, Conrad is enlisted back to active service for the triumphant return of one of the most acclaimed franchises in gaming history.It’s not a reboot. It’s Flashback re-imagined. The original Core-Team revamped their own creation, leveraging the best of today’s technology while remaining true to the classic side-scroller that set the standards of the genre in the 90’s.
Features
- One of the best adventure-action games ever created re-imagined by its creators. It’s the same team. It’s the same passion. Only this time, they have had much more firepower at their disposal to recreate the legendary classic!
- Gorgeous graphics, amazing animations. It’s the Flashback you’ve always dreamed of. True to the original spirit but made a million times better by using modern engines such as Unreal and Havok. The makeover is completely stunning.
- It’s all about gameplay. The team modernized gameplay mechanics, making the game more reactive, offering new features, like gadgets and an experience progression system. But the developers kept the original formula in mind: a fine balance between rolling and shooting, exploring remote space stations and obliterating hostile alien planets.
- Bringing back new memories. The story was revamped to speak to 21st century gamers. Most of the cast of the original game is still here – Conrad, the Morphs – but you can expect new characters and a few twists you’re definitely not going to forget… this time.
Q&A
- For those who might not know Flashback yet, can you tell the original vision behind the game? Flashback is a platform game that takes place in a futuristic setting. It was one of the precursors of what we call today “gameplay narrative”. Flashback tells the story of a young man fighting to prevent an invasion of Earth by Extra-Terrestrials capable of changing appearance and who are controlled by a single immense brain. This is a vibrant example of the sci-fi genre in the nineties.
- What drove you to create a new and revamped version of Flashback? We wanted to do something for its 20th anniversary! It’s been that long since Flashback came out in 1992, and we thought we could both honor our fans who have been asking us for the return of Conrad for a long time and also allow a younger audience to discover the universe of Flashback.
- Is it the same story? The story is true to the original scenario, and all the characters and their enemies from the first game are all back. It has been beefed up and modernized though. Some characters that were sort of in the background in the first version were developed and have taken on more importance. We also went back and took a longer look at some of the blurry spots in the first Flashback and the fans will hopefully discover certain aspects of the world that might have been overlooked.
- What are the improvements brought to the original game? Our first objective was to remain faithful to the spirit of the original game, but to also take full advantage of the computing power of today’s machines. Quite a few points were considered to bring the game up to standards. The first was obviously in the graphics department. We also gave a facelift to the gameplay by making it more reactive and dynamic, the reactivity and instinctive control of Conrad being two points that we really take to heart. We also integrated an experience progression system for the character and his equipment, with upgrades that can be found throughout the various levels. Accessibility was brought up to current standards as was the Level Design that would seem rather punishing through today’s lenses if we had kept it exactly as it was. All in all, though, we’re extremely happy with the result. We feel we were able to keep Flashback’s soul and put it into a new body.
- What team at Vector Cell has been working on the game? Did they take part in the development of the original game? We’re a team of fifteen, and five of the lead were part of the original project. To that you have to add externals that came in to work on various specialized domains: film direction, sound design, music, dialogues & scenario.
- What is the nature of your collaboration with Ubisoft? We started the project alone for a time, and then we presented it to Ubisoft who agreed to publish it. We’re extremely happy to work with them and benefit from their enormous experience. We worked together with the editorial teams at Ubisoft in order to fine tune and improve the game. They helped us out immensely, wide-angle perspective. It’s always hard to take a step back when you’ve got your nose to the grindstone.
- What platforms will the game release on? The game will be available on XBLA and PSN and will release in 2013.
- Ultimately, what is your goal when remaking Flashback? And what do you want the players to “take with them” when they finish the game? I hope players will play this Flashback with the same enthusiasm they did twenty years ago. We stumbled upon gameplay back then that is truly special and provides a unique game experience. All we’ve tried to do in this version is give the game a new body that meets the expectations of the 21st century. We think we’ve protected its soul along the way… and that’s what we want people to be able to share with the old generations and the new.
Spartacus Legends (PSN, XBLA)
Developer: Kung Fu Factory
Release Date: Summer 2013Summary
Experience all of your favorite combat moments from the Spartacus show and pave the way for your own destiny as a Legend of the arena.Spartacus Legends allows you to live out all of your favorite gladiatorial fantasies as a Lanista and build a Ludus of your own. Although eternal glory is found on the battlefield, there is more to Spartacus Legends than meets the eye. How will you manage, train and equip your gladiators for victory?
Features
- Free 2 Play: Experience all of the world-class combat of Spartacus Legends for Free! Simply download the game and get into the action. With our Free-2-Play gameplay, you choose how to equip your gladiators for battle and build on the legendary status of your Ludus.
- Intense Visceral Combat: Partake in some of the most brutal, action packed battles ever put in a videogame, where you will fight and DIE for the honor of your ludus.
- Weapon & Gear Customization: Upgrade your gladiators with the most ruthless weaponry in the world, to take on the opposition and unleash madness.
- Perks & Boosts: Equip yourself with boosts to acquire maximum fame & leave the battle with unique perks that elevate your abilities.
- Lanista “Manager Like” Gameplay: Purchase gladiators with very unique skills to build on your Threat Rating and create the ultimate warriors.
- Online Multiplayer: Climb the ranks of the weekly online leaderboards, by beating your friends, your enemies & the best players in the world.
- Weekly Challenges: Experience iconic weekly challenges for a chance to showcase your skills to everyone in the world.
- World of Gladiators: Immerse yourself in the world of Gladiators and battle in some of the most memorable arenas from the show.