#113: Alien MMO Set For 2020?

Top Story

Prequel novel based on Cold Iron Studios’ upcoming Alien MMO

Titan Books has announced a new Alien novel that will serve as the prequel to Cold Iron Studios’ upcoming MMO shooter. Alien: Infiltrator will focus on Dr. Timothy Hoenikker, who travels to Pala Station in search for alien artifacts. As you might expect, he soon finds himself in the middle of a xenomorph outbreak.

Written by Weston Ochse – who has authored licensed fiction for franchises like Hellboy, Predator and The X-Files – the paperback edition of the novel is already listed on Amazon US, and should be available on July 28th next year.

Cold Iron Studios have been working on an Alien MMO shooter since they were acquired by FoxNext in 2018. Not much has been revealed about the game, except it is targeting PC and consoles. Cold Iron Studios are continually bulking up their team with concept artists, world builders and other roles, which suggest that the game is far from done.

If the prequel is scheduled for next summer, it’s safe to assume the game is even farther away. Cold Iron Studios has yet to release any games, but it is home to a number of industry veterans from projects like Doom and BioShock Infinite, so there’s reason to hope they will do the Alien saga justice.

Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?

What is the only id Software game NOT to receive a direct story sequel?

• Wolfenstein 3D
• Doom
• Quake
• Rage

The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!

News Bits

BioWare to join in on Dragon 4ge Day

BioWare has revealed that they join fans in celebrating the 10 year anniversary of Dragon Age along at Dragon 4ge Day on December 4th. The fan-organized event has not been affiliated with BioWare before, and now there is speculation that BioWare might take the opportunity to announce more news about Dragon Age 4 during the event. In any case, the event will host live streams, fan art competitions and generally bring the community together.

Planet Zoo Review Roundup

Planet Zoo was released today, and seems to have made a good impression on critics with a metacritic score of 82. Here’s what some of them have to say:

Gaming Trend (Score 9/10) – “Planet Zoo is the culmination of the best parts of Frontier’s previous efforts, but is far more than the sum of its parts. Hundreds of creatures, both cute and deadly, need homes, and it’s up to you to help them thrive and survive. While a few bugs hamper the overall experience, this is another simulation game that’ll keep me building sprawling and ever evolving parks for hundreds of hours to come.”

Destructoid (Score 8.5/10) – “Even with occasional design quirks and bugs holding it back, I adore this game as is. Similar to Planet Coaster, I think it’ll get better over time, and Frontier will surely flesh out the species list with DLC packs. But even if that doesn’t happen, I’ll be satisfied. Some of us have been waiting decades for a game like Planet Zoo to come along and scratch our Zoo Tycoon itch. Now that it’s here, I can’t get enough.”

GamesRadar+ (Score 8/10) – “Planet Zoo is a complex, deep simulation game with too much to give, if you can get past the minimalist tutorials.”

PCGamesN (Score 8/10) – “Frontier delivers a richly detailed and visually glorious zoo creation sim for genre fans, newbies, and animal lovers alike, bloated only a little by a few clumsy interfacing points.”

PC Gamer (Score 75/100) – “Another strong (yet stressful) management sim from Frontier Developments.”

Daily Fact

The true telling of the last Indiana Jones has never been released

We’re big Indiana Jones fans here at DailyBits and the upcoming Alien tie-in novel reminded us of a missing Indiana Jones adventure. The original Indiana Jones games – Fate of Atlantis, Infernal Machine and Emperor’s Tomb – have always had fun stories, and Staff of Kings looked set to carry on the torch.

Unfortunately, LucasArts cancelled the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, and decided to target PlayStation 2 and Wii instead – with dire results.

The downgraded games didn’t exactly do the material justice, which is a shame since it had the makings of a classic Indy adventure: A biblical artifact of immense power hunted by the Nazis. They even had more than one opportunity to tell the story properly: Rob McGregor – who wrote many Indiana Jones stories – was supposed to deliver a tie-in novel, but it was cancelled alongside the AAA version of the game.

Despite being completed and ready to publish, it didn’t even see an eBook release. In other words, Indy’s hunt for the Staff of Moses is lost forever – or at least until some courageous archaeologist uncovers it sometime in the future.

Daily News

Jeff Kaplan claims he had to convince Blizzard to merge Overwatch 1 & 2

One of the biggest surprises from BlizzCon 2019 was the announcement that Overwatch 2 will effectively be a PvE expansion to the original Overwatch. In an interview with Kotaku Australia, game director Jeff Kaplan talked about the challenges he faced trying to keep the two games joined together. After all, from a business perspective it appears much more attractive to force players to buy a new game than to simply give them the option to buy more content.

Thank Jeff Kaplan for letting you keep your items

“The way that I try convince people, I try to tell them if we do what’s right by the players, they will be happy, we will have a better game, and we will end up in a better place in the long run. Rather than having this short sighted thinking that’s usually driven by anxiety of ‘the only way to get players to play Overwatch 2 is to cut off all the Overwatch 1 players and starve them out and force them to come over and, you know, make that game just sort of die on the vine.”

Considering Activision is famous for releasing a brand-new Call of Duty game every single year, it’s almost shocking that Kaplan managed to get things his way. He also goes into details about the struggles of Overwatch’s development and the debate about whether Overwatch should be free-to-play or not. Kaplan clearly knows his audience, and we should feel lucky that Activision trusts his instincts.

Rocky launch for Red Dead 2 on PC

The PC port of Rockstar’s cowboy adventure Red Dead Redemption 2 was released today, and things could have gone quite a bit smoother. The game was released at 8am ET/5am PT/1pm GMT, but many players are still unable to launch the game. The most common error message simply says “The Rockstar Games Launcher exited unexpectedly. Please visit support.rockstargames.com for more information.”

Some users have circumvented the error by disabling their anti-virus software and updating their GPU drivers, but others have had less luck. Avast and BitDefender users have suggested placing the entire Rockstar folder – including the Red Dead Redemption 2 install directory – into the exemption list. Just exempting the executable doesn’t seem to do the trick.

Can’t run Red Dead Redemption 2? You’re not alone

Rockstar has declined to comment on the issue, with their latest tweet simply stating that “Red Dead Redemption 2 is now available for PC” and linking to an article describing the technical enhancements, story mode additions and some press quotes.

While not everyone is having problems, more and more error reports are cropping up on Twitter and Reddit. Some users have reportedly been in touch with Rockstar’s support team, who have not successfully helped resolve the issue.

News Bits

John Romero claims id Software considered remaking Quake years ago

During a recent Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, John Romero – co-founder of id Software – was asked about the possibility of a Quake remake or sequel. Romero responded that “id Software thought about a Q1 remake years ago. Not sure if it will happen, but I’m rooting for it.”

In the wake of the successful Doom reboot, fans have been clamoring for an overhaul of the Quake IP. The last single-player Quake game was ifrom 2005, which was not exactly the strongest entry in the series. Bethesda and id Software are presumably aware of Quake’s continued popularity since they have spent considerable resources on the free-to-play online game Quake Champions – but only time will tell if they have bigger plans for the classic series.

Upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate stream features 45 minutes of Terry Bogard

Terry Bogard of Fatal Fury fame is the newest addition to the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate roster, and we will finally get a good look at how he plays. Nintendo Versus has announced a 45-minute live stream for November 6th at 5am PT/3pm CEST/1pm GMT featuring director Masahiro Sakurai and a close look at the new character.

Players can also expect a new update, which will include various fighter adjustments, so remember to convert your replays to videos before that rolls out! There have been no new hints or announcements of any new fighters.

Weekly Giveaway

Europa Universalis: The Price of Power

We are doing a bonus giveaway in colloboration with Aegir Games to celebrate the Europa Universalis: Price of Power Kickstarter campaign. To participate, you need to visit the Kickstarter page, put down a pledge for the full game and send us your Kickstarter backer name by email.

Everyone that enters will receive a free key for Iconoclasts on the system of their choice, and also has the chance to win two Nintendo Switch Lites! The winner of the first giveaway for the actual board game was announced last week, so check your emails if you missed it.

The giveaway is open until the Kickstarter campaign ends on Thursday, and winners will be announced the following day.

Quiz Answer - Did You Get It Right?

What is the only id Software game NOT to receive a direct story sequel?

Answer: Quake!

John Romero – designer of Doom and Quake – recently revealed that id Software had considered remaking Quake! That would be fantastic, since Quake is the only id Software game that hasn’t had a proper, direct sequel. Doom has had a number of sequels and spin-offs, Wolfenstein has grown into a huge series and even Rage has a follow-up.
Quake

While the original Quake had a weird, dark and gothic Lovecraftian horror vibe, Quake 2 went in a completely different direction before Quake 3 turned the series into a pure multplayer affair. Now that 90s-style shooters are back in fashion, it’s a perfect time to revive the original Quake experience!

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