News: Emails between senior Activision staff dating back to 2009 show the the breakdown between the publisher and Infinity Ward heads Vince Zampella and Jason West, predicting their firing would create a “big, negative PR story”. The ongoing Activision vs. Vince Zampella/Jason West court case has turned up some emails sent between Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and executives Mike Griffith, [...]

News: BBC Worldwide has partnered up with the National Film and Television School to offer scholarships to students studying game development. BBC Worldwide is offering scholarships to students taking the new MA Games Design and Development course at Buckinghamshire’s National Film and Television School , according to Games Catalyst . The scholarship provides financial aid and work placement opportunities to four [...]

News: Medal of Honor: Warfighter will address complaints abouts its predecessor, Danger Close’s creative director says. Even Rich Farrelly , creative director of Danger Close , thinks 2010′s Medal of Honor had bigger problems than a missing U. In an interview with Games On Net , however, he says that the studio has been taking feedback on MoH into acount whilst making the [...]

News: The Brute class can rave harder than ever with the release of the Staying Alive Update for Tribes: Ascend, giving him three new bits of kit and adding a host of video features. Things are about to get funky in Tribes: Ascend . The Staying Alive Update focuses on the towering thrower of Rave ‘Nades , the Brute, offering him [...]

News: The main questline of The Elder Scrolls Online will be designed for solo play, according to game director Matt Firor. The pleasures of being a lone-wolf hero won’t be lost in The Elder Scrolls Online, says director Matt Firor , as the MMO’s main storyline can be played “100% solo”. Speaking to Game Informer , Firor discussed the process [...]

News: Two trademark listings for Gearbox and Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 have been legally abandoned, leaving the future of the game in doubt. Remember Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 ? If not, it was a stylised, comically violent reimagining of Gearbox Software ‘s sombre WW2 shooter series, with strong hints of Borderlands and Inglorious Basterds . Publishers Ubisoft have, however, remained oddly [...]

News: Amidst financial difficulties, 38 Studios has released the first teaser trailer for Project Copernicus – their fantasy MMO set in the world of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Joystiq reports that struggling Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning developer 38 Studios has bought itself some time, successfully paying back the first installment of a $75 million loan from the state of [...]

News: EA are offering to waive distribution fees for crowd-funded games sold on Origin for a 90-day grace period, with Kickstarter darling Wasteland 2 among the first to sign up. Indie cred-challenged gigapublisher EA has made the surprising move of offering to distribute crowd-funded games over Origin with almost all distribution costs waived, for a period of 90 days [...]

News: Runic are sending out more Torchlight II beta invites as part of a weekend-long server stress test. If you haven’t got in on the Torchlight II beta, here’s your chance; developers Runic Games are using this weekend to stress-test their servers, and are sending out another round of invites to maximise the load. According to Runic’s blog , this [...]

News: Carmageddon: Reincarnation plans to use Steamworks, according to Stainless Games founder Neil Barnden, but that won’t stop the inclusion of offline LAN play. Stainless Games may be a few more tens of thousands of dollars shy of funding Carmageddon: Reincarnation , but that hasn’t stopped them looking ahead to distribution details. The plan, according to Stainless co-founder Neil [...]

News: Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will be released on PS3 and the PS Vita simultaneously and will include “cross-save functionality”, Sanzaru Games has announced. Writing on the PlayStation Blog , Sanzaru Games president Glen Egan has announced the tasty-looking Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time will get a PS Vita release on the same day as its bigger brother, the PS3. Egan [...]

Video: A chunk of Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance footage has been released in English. ahead of its US/Europe releases in July. Even though the JRPG stylings of Kingdom Hearts has never particularly appealed to me, I’ve always secretly enjoyed the manner in which they mash together scores of Disney characters like it ain’t no thing. Witness [...]

News: Naughty Dog has detailed the Multiplayer 1.11 patch for Uncharted 3, due out at the end of May. Over on the PlayStation Blog , Naughty Dog have revealed the ancient secrets of Uncharted 3 ‘s 1.11 update. Headlining the patch is The Lab, a multiplayer mode returning from Uncharted 2 that – not unlike Left 4 Dead 2 ‘s Mutations – switches between [...]

News: Nintendo has released a patch for Mario Kart 7, removing “unfair” shortcuts from a number of courses. Nintendo are so serious about fixing exploits in Mario Kart 7 – like this one , via CVG, which lets unscrupulous drivers skip a huge chunk of track – that you won’t be able to play online until you install the latest update. [...]

Video: German magazine Play³ has uncovered some some Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 footage, showing classic maps in the new engine. Apologies if you don’t sprechen sie deutsch , but we have German magazine Play³ to thank for this video of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD we are about to receive. No trailerised dubstep or hyperactive editing, just three minutes [...]

Video: Ghost Recon Alpha, a lengthy live-action prequel to Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, has been released on YouTube. Ubisoft sure are fond of having GRIT and REALISM and DESATURATION in their trailers for Ghost Recon: Future Soldister . First there was that sort-of documentary , and now they’ve released Ghost Recon Alpha – a live-action prequel featuring twenty solid minutes of [...]

News: EA say more official DICE servers will be playable on the console versions of Battlefield 3, after players complained they were being lost to custom rented servers. EA plan to add more DICE-operated official servers to the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Battlefield 3 , after reports that they had become largely inaccessible after the addition of server rental [...]

Video: A teaser exploring a deserted village location in Beyond Good & Evil 2 has been unearthed. How unbelievably coincidental – only a few days after designer Michael Ancel confirmed that Beyond Good & Evil 2 was indeed alive and kicking, the game appears to have sprung a leak. Here’s a video, courtesy of Unseen64, which slowly peers around a dusty, [...]

News: Valve and Blizzard have ended their dispute over the former’s attempt to trademark the DOTA name, with Valve retaining commercial usage. You might recall a while back that Blizzard formally challenged Valve‘s efforts to trademark the DOTA (Defence of the Ancients) name ahead of their upcoming release of DOTA 2 – Blizzard having ownership of Warcraft III , where the original DOTA [...]

News: Murder Banshees for profit in the latest Mass Effect 3 multiplayer event, Operation Silencer. Any right-thinking person would only have to look at a static screenshot of Mass Effect 3 to hate the Banshees – shrieking, lanky bullet-sponges created from Asari succubi that can pick you up by and impale you like Krogan shawarma. Therefore, it’s [...]