Free Radical Design Shutting down

UK developer Free Radical Design are closing their doors for good.

Last month Free Radical director Steve Ellis had this to say about the company.

"Nothing unusual is happening here"
"we certainly won't be laying off any staff today. Or, for that matter, any time in 2008,"

However news is that the complete opposite has actually occurred.

Staff working at the company were today met by closed doors to the studio and were left with instructions to head to a nearby hotel for one last company meeting.

Free Radical are best known for their Timesplitters series and the PS3 exclusive Haze, Free Radical were working on Timesplitters 4 prior to closure.

Check out Gamesindustry.biz for another source.

Criterion Black Sequel

Criterion Games are best known for their Burnout series however a few years back they produced a game for the Xbox and Ps2 known as Black this FPS managed to get rave reviews even though it came from a company with little or no FPS background.

Well over on Criterion games website a listing has been noticed stating a game for release in 2009 known as Black: Second Mission which stands a very good chance of being Black's sequel.

This game is scheduled for release on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

Although this is yet to be confirmed or denied by Criterion is stands a good chance of being real seeing as it was posted on their own site.

More details as they come.

I've only just came back to this post to find comments asking for a source however when I went back to the Criterion website the listing had been removed. So as it goes this is still firmly just a rumor. Hopefully Criterion will make an announcement of some kind soon.

As a result of this I would like to apologize to all those who are looking for a source as of now there is no longer one.

This story has also been posted over at Eurogamer Portugal to show further proof.

Rumor - Red Alert 3 Expansion

Rumors have begun to circulate that EA's Los Angeles studio are busy developing an expansion to Red Alert 3 known as "Uprising".

However when EA were questioned about this development instead of shooting the rumor down like you would expect the to do they replied with the following,

"We will have more information in the New Year."

This tells me that they are at least in the thought process of development of this expansion or have even begun development and don't want to let the details slip to early.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 was released in October of this year for PC and Xbox 360.

More details as they surface.

Need For Speed Still Kicking?

Yesterday I posted stating that the Need for Speed series would more than likely be coming to an end with the closing of EA's Black Box division due to finance issues.

However Joystick have received a tip from an undisclosed EA official stating what is actually happening over at EA.

He states that the Black Box division will more than likely close down however this doesn't mean the end of Need for Speed. He claims that NFS and the Skate franchise will both be moved to a larger studio called Burnaby.

He also mentioned that the next NFS title will be made using the Burnout engine and that the goal will be to produce 1 Need for Speed Title every year.

However this is still to be confirmed.

Rumor - Kojima To Make Shooter With Infinity Ward

Kojima has been visiting the game studios over at Infinity Ward to discuss a new game. The rumors are flying round that this new game is a shooter.

Updates as they come...

Rumor - Guitar Hero: Metallica New Features

Again the rumor mill is churning and this time in the direction of the new Guitar Hero game. Yesterday I posted about the leaked track list, well half of it, and now rumors have started flying round the internet about new features that will be included in the game.

Guitar Hero: Metallica Features
- Expert Plus Mode - This will test even the best drummer with the use of Dual Kick pedals.
- Bonus Video Content
- Drum Fill Mode
- Pop Up Videos Of Metallica

These features have neither been confirmed or denied and I will update as I know.

Please remember though that these are just rumors.

Rumor - Rare Teasing Killer Instinct 3

Here we are again in the rumor mill and this time it's Rare's turn to step up. Apparently the image below is taken from the new Banjo-Kazooie game, where a merchant is trying to sell Banjo a copy of Killer Instinct 3 before it hit's the market. However this image is not from Rare and was uploaded by a user online.

So is this image an actuall teaser from Rare for KI3 or is it some useless Internet proporgander, who knows check it out.

The Allegeded Screen