Top Story
Until Dawn successor Man of Medan will have up to 5-player multiplayer
Developer Supermassive Games, the creators of 2015’s PS4 exclusive horror adventure Until Dawn, are hard at work getting the multiplatform follow-up The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan ready for an August 30th release – and now Supermassive and Bandai Namco have revealed that The Dark Pictures series will have co-op multiplayer.
This will be first time this type of game – a cinematic adventure in the style of Until Dawn, Heavy Rain, The Walking Dead or Life is Strange – features synchronous multiplayer. There will be two multiplayer modes available: Two-player online or local co-op, and a 2-5 player ‘Movie Night’ mode where each player controls one of the game’s 5 main characters. There will be offline solo play too, of course.
Don’t Split Up
We got a chance to play the two-player co-op version, which Supermassive describes as ’shared stories’. You’ll be able to read our full impressions in Dailybits tomorrow, but here’s how it generally works: Players take control of two random characters (out of the 5 available) at a time, and can either talk to each other and solve problems together – or go off and do entirely your own thing, there will be consequences no matter what.
Man of Medan is the first game in The Dark Pictures anthology series. Each episode will feature a different cast and story, and will focus on a different horror trope – Man of Medan, for example, will be based on a ghost ship. Or a zombie curse, one or the other.
Axe-wielding slasher killers and an Asian schoolgirl ghost with long hair covering her face were teased as potential future Dark Pictures. It’s basically a videogame version of The Twilight Zone, right down to the Rod Serling-like ‘Curator’. Either way, we’ll know more on August 30th.
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
How many games did Warframe developer Digital Extremes co-create with Fortnite studio Epic Games?
- 3
- 5
- 7
- 8
The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!
News Bits
There’s a Rainbow Six Siege ban wave coming today
You been naughty in Rainbow Six Siege? You better hope you haven’t used the chat symbol exploit to deliberately crash matches for other players, or you’re getting banned.
Ubisoft is rolling out a patch for this weird exploit, but in the meantime they will be banning players who used it for “varying lengths, depending on the frequency and severity of the exploit’s usage.” Don’t be a jerk in online games, folks.
Splinter Cell’s back… but it’s a VR game
Ever since 2013’s Blacklist, there have been hopes for and rumours about a new Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell game – but after split-jumping, neck-breaking star Sam Fisher appeared in a cute mobile game at Ubisoft’s E3 show and news of a new VR-exclusive Splinter Cell… not like this, Ubisoft. Not like this. Facebook has supposedly signed deals to get exclusive VR Splinter Cell and Assassin’s Creed games on Oculus, which is fine… but can we have a proper Splinter Cell now, Ubisoft?
Daily Fact
Warframe creators Digital Extremes are owned by… a chicken conglomerate?
We’re on a Warframe kick this week in honor of the annual TennoCon, a celebration of all things Warframe – complete with announcements of new cool features, like the upcoming mind-bending expansion The Duviri Paradox and the Battle of Endor-like joint space combat/ground combat team play.
But none of this is quite as interesting as the fact that Warframe developer Digital Extremes is owned by a chicken company.
Yes, back in 2015 Digital Extremes sold a large share to Leyou, a Hong Kong-based company that made its name in the poultry business. Faced with “an arduous task in respect of the poultry business”, Leyou did what any struggling chicken firm would, and diversified into videogame publishing – as you do. They became majority owners of Digital Extremes in 2016, picking up Dirty Bomb and Enemy Territory developer Splash Damage at the same time.
You will read more about Leyou elsewhere in this issue, as the company has just revealed this week that it’s making a Lord of the Rings MMO with Amazon. With considerable multiplayer and free-to-play experience under its belt, the poultry giant actually has a real shot at making a good game there. Still, they shouldn’t count their chickens before they hatch…