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We’ve seen hilarious trailers and controversial screenshots for Obsidian’s upcoming South Park game. But there hasn’t been a lick of gameplay to be found for The Stick of Truth. But now we get to see it in action, thanks to one enterprising attendee from this weekend’s past Fan Expo in Toronto. Read more...

For almost two years now, I've been following South Park: Stick of Truth with feverish anticipation.Read more...

Gearbox announced plans at PAX Australia to warp drive HD remakes of Homeworld 1 and 2 to Windows this year, following their recent acquisition of the franchise from THQ for $1.35 million. Direct ports of the original games will also be made available on unspecified digital distribution platforms for Windows.

Gearbox Software CCO Brian Martel expressed his fondness for the series in April after the purchase, stating his intent to make them "accessible on today's leading digital platforms" in a statement released by Gearbox.

Relic Games, creator of the Homeworld franchise, was sold to SEGA during the liquidation of THQ's assets and is currently working on Company of Heroes 2. Part of the Homeworld development team has since left the mother ship to begin work on a more grounded RTS, Hardware: Shipbreakers.

Polygon are reporting that Gearbox have announced their intention to release HD versions of Homeworld 1 & 2 for PC. We already knew this was a possibility, of course, with their having acquired the license during the IP stripping of THQ earlier this year. No date on in yet, but my bet is early in 2014, to coincide with the next International Homeworld Day. That’s on everyone else’s calendar too, right?

Sega has filed a claim against bankrupt publisher THQ for $941,710.93, the amount the defunct company received in pre-orders (after Valve's cut) for Company of Heroes 2. Eurogamer reports payments totaling $508,877.85 were made after THQ filed for bankruptcy.

Sega isn't the only one checking the abandoned sofa that is THQ for lost change between the cushions. Double Fine, Codemasters and former THQ executives like Jason Kay and Jason Rubin are also looking for what they're owed. Sega may not get anything out of the deal, but the suit puts it in line with other creditors just in case there is a resolution of some kind.

Sega won developer Relic and the Company of Heroes intellectual property for $26.6 million as part of the THQ asset auction earlier this year.

Next gen hacker SuperDaeE, who breached Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Valve, Blizzard and other gaming companies, just released a 1.7TB treasure trove FTP download. The files, however, are apparently encrypted. Previously, SuperDaE vowed he would release said files, which are believed to contain sensitive information about unreleased games, should he be arrested. SuperDaE, whose real name is "Dylan" and who is an Australian citizen, announced earlier his plans on sister site Gizmodo. SuperDaE leaked loads of accurate new info to Kotaku about the then unnamed Xbox One and PS4 earlier this year. Earlier today when the FTP went life, SuperDaE tweeted, "Insurance up." As Kotaku first mentioned last month, the "insurance file" supposedly contains material grabbed by SuperDaE's hacks into Gears of War and Unreal Engine developer Epic, World of Warcraft studio Blizzard, Sleeping Dogs dev house United Front Games and the now-shuttered publisher THQ, among others. The FTP also apparently contains software development kits for the PS4, Xbox One and Wii U as well as possible old code for unreleased games such as Company of Heroes 2 and WWE 14. The Epic directory includes folders for Unreal Engine 4 and UE4 projects called Fortnite (an announced game), Kilo, Lima and Orion. When asked via Twitter what the FTP contained, SuperDaE replied, "Enough files to change the video game industry for better." The encrypted file is currently live on SuperDaE's site (noted by LevelSave and NeoGAF). SuperDaE's website also has an Australian bank transfer number and a BitCoin link. Currently, it's unclear how the downloader gets the seemingly necessary key to open the file. Recently, Kotaku reported that SuperDaE, a 17 year-old minor, was facing an array of eight legal charges, including "possession of cannabis and drug paraphernalia", "possession of a prohibited weapon", "possession of identification material with intent to commit an offence", and "possessing and copying an indecent or obscene article, possession of child exploitation material". Last Kotaku heard SuperDaE was out on bail. To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter @Brian_Ashcraft.

Freespace, the interstellar combat series developed by Volition and published by Interplay, is now back in Interplay's library, fully and officially, following a stint at THQ. Interplay paid $7,500 to snag the Freespace rights in a THQ bankruptcy sale this month. THQ was bound to find some emotionally rich items in the back corners of its closet eventually - but Freespace wasn't going to save the company, it seems.

Interplay never lost the right to sell Descent: Freespace and Freespace 2, even after THQ bought Volition in 2000, when Interplay itself neared bankruptcy. Let the rampant sequel speculation begin.

Patrice Désilets, the creator of Assassin's Creed, is suing Ubisoft for about $400,000 and control of the game 1666, which he had been building for THQ until it went bankrupt and sold the project to his former employer. Last month, Désilets said he was fired from Ubisoft, the publisher for whom he had worked until 2010, when Désilets left Ubisoft for THQ. When THQ went bust, its assets were sold off to various other publishers and studios, including 1666 going back to Ubisoft, seemingly taking Désilets along with it. According to the filing, first reported by La Presse of Montréal, creative control appeared to be a sticking point in their relationship. The suit says that Désilets' agreement with THQ guaranteed him a certain amount of creative control over 1666. Ubisoft sought an amendment to the contract, and when negotiations broke down, Désilets was fired on May 7. Désilets' departure was at first given a sanitized description by Ubisoft, which said that "Patrice has left the studio." Désilets himself later said he was terminated and escorted from his workplace by building security. Later, Ubisoft president Yves Guillemot told investors that, following the breakdown in negotiations with Désilets, "we have suspended 1666 for an undisclosed period of time." Désilets' suit against Ubisoft seeks $400,000, $250,000 of which is a year of his base salary and another $100,000 is "moral damages." He also seeks to enforce a clause in his contract with THQ that allows him the right to acquire 1666. Kotaku has contacted representatives of both Ubisoft and Désilets for further comment. Any made will be updated here. To Game Informer, Ubisoft said: "We received Patrice’s legal request and we will take the time needed to evaluate our options. We will make no further comment at this point." Le créateur d'Assassin's Creed poursuit Ubisoft [La Presse, via Game Informer]

Remember the days before Volition exclusively made (admittedly marvelous) games about superpowered crimelords/US Presidents dubstep gunning virtual reality aliens? Those were very different times. For one, we didn’t have smartphones or Facebook or music players we have to actively worry about ingesting or anything like that, but mainly that era saw the Saints Row’s developer craft some of the finest space combat sims in all the ‘verse. Unfortunately, Freespace and Freespace 2 couldn’t out-dogfight the then-mighty retail mothership, and the Interplay-published series crashed and burned. But here’s the fun part: Via Volition, Freespace ended up at THQ, who’s now sold it back to… Interplay.

(more…)

Freespace was the world's last great space combat series, a genre you may not even be aware of if you're under the age of 20. Yet it's still quite active today; the amazing Battlestar Galactica mod Diaspora is built on Freespace 2's engine. Given its popularity, reverence and continued practical uses, it seems insane to me that publishers Interplay have been able to very quietly sneak in and buy the rights to the series for $7500 from creators Volition and the bones of THQ. Seriously, $7500? I could have saved up and done that. That seems insanely cheap. Well, good for them. I'm looking forward to Freespace 2: HD on Steam in 2014, followed swiftly by the "Freespace 2: HD becomes most profitable title in Interplay history" press release. Court Documents [via Polygon]

The Darksiders series isn't really dead. Nordic games owns it, and will presumably do something with it. But the series as we knew it, developed by Vigil Games, may as well have died earlier this year when Vigil went off and joined Crytek and left Darksiders behind, where no major publisher on Earth wanted anything to do with it. So we'll never get the game that was originally intended to follow Darksiders III. Which is a shame, because it sounds like it might actually have delivered on some of the teases made at the end of the first Darksiders (the only part of that game I really enjoyed), and which went unanswered in the sequel. Speaking with IGN, Vigil's former creative director Joe Madureira “It was always our hope to do a full four-player co-op game, with all four Horsemen playable. It’s possible we could have pulled it off. I would have liked to introduce Fury and Strife. I know many fans feel robbed that they never got to play the last two Horsemen." As for story ideas, he says "Story wise, we tossed around the idea of the Horsemen attacking Hell to challenge Lucifer," he continued. "And then taking the battle to the Charred Council to regain their freedom. Epic stuff. There was also an idea to do crazy ‘western’ type story, where the Horsemen are mortals after the rebirth of Mankind, sort of an alternate future. But neither idea got very far.” And now never will. What Darksiders III Could Have Been [IGN]

Editor's note: The mysterious figure known as Superannuation in an expert at digging up what's hidden in plain view. All of what Superannuation finds is available to the public. These could very well be true gaming secrets. Read on... In his CV, a business development person at Ubisoft's Swedish studio Massive mentions that he is "Working on the Business strategy of [a] tens of millions euros project based on a top grossing brand of Ubisoft. " He also talks about conceiving an "Acquisition, Retention and Monetization strategy" and the "prototyping of F2P games," suggesting that this is an online free-to-play title. Word of Massive's MMO ambitions is not new, though there has been no indication previously that this is connected to an existing Ubisoft brand. Several days after Ubisoft officially acquired Massive in November 2008, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told investors that Massive would focus on the MMO space, beginning with smaller-scale MMO games popular in Asian markets and expanding to full-fledged "RPG and RTS also in the MMO space." At the time, many guessed it might be a Tom Clancy brand MMO, given Guillemot's comments from earlier that year stating that a massively multiplayer Clancy game was at the top of his company's agenda. Massive has been hiring for their MMO project for quite some time. In late 2009, the studio put up a few programmer openings for its "MMORPG team." In 2011, Massive posted openings for MMO level designers to build "a compelling long-term player experience from the ground up." Last May, a Danish gaming site noticed a job listing on Massive's site for a PVP designer to work on "a highly ambitious AAA Next-gen Online RPG project." A version of the posting on an external jobs portal described the game as a "AAA MMO title," and asked for candidates with "Experience playing PvP at a high level in a major MMO" and "developing third-person action games." Massive already worked on Assassin's Creed: Revelations, leading some to speculate that Massive was developing an online title related to the top-selling historical sandbox franchise, which has supplanted the Clancy-verse as Ubisoft's premier core brand. Since being acquired by Ubisoft, Massive—previously known for RTS games such as Ground Control and World in Conflict—has contributed to several of Ubisoft's major titles. Massive turned a small abstract puzzle game the studio was working on into the puzzle-based Desmond Journey sequences in Assassin's Creed Revelations, after the Assassin's Creed team took notice of Massive's puzzle project. (I wonder if any of the other disparate gameplay elements in the series came about this way.) The studio also created Far Cry 3's multiplayer and co-op modes, and houses the team behind the Uplay PC client. Additionally, several weeks ago Massive posted a job opening for a programmer to make mobile iOS/Android games in relation to a project that "is very ambitious and is breaking new ground for the industry of gaming and entertainment and is reaching out to both existing and completely new type[s] of customers." Perhaps this Massive MMO has a mobile component? Electronic Arts' Dead Space almost went in a somewhat unusual direction. On his resume, an engineer at EA's Visceral Games studio says he spent the latter half of 2011 working on a prototype for a social-oriented, "browser based Dead Space prototype" made with Flash. Intriguingly, the engineer mentions that they apparently folded work on the Dead Space project into some sort of Battlefield project. He then worked on a Unity-based prototype for a multiplayer 3D Battlefield game. Mac gamers may be able to enjoy some more EA franchises in the future. Recently, DICE put an opening up on its site for a Mac OS X engineer who "will be part of a team focusing on bringing Frostbite to Mac and work closely with game team customers and the Frostbite team to deliver an engine as great on OS X as it is on Windows and traditional console platforms." Frostbite, of course, is the engine that powers DICE's Battlefield franchise, as well as an assortment of titles like the next entries in the Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Command & Conquer, and Need for Speed franchises. DICE porting its Frostbite engine does not necessarily mean that the infamously-demanding Battlefield series will be coming to Mac. The engine is powering 15 games in development at EA, including less technically demanding titles like forthcoming free-to-play Command and Conquer, and EA recently suggested that they hope to use Frostbite as the engine for most of their non-sports titles. With DICE also bringing Frostbite to mobile devices, incorporating Mac seems like a logical step for games that could very well have cross-platform components. According to several resumes, Patrice Desilets' recently "suspended" project 1666 was a next-generation title using Unreal Engine 4. An engineer says in his resume that the prototype for 1666 was done in Volition's Saints Row engine and moved to Unreal Engine 4 for the actual game development. Little is known about what type of game 1666 was, but the title and job postings mentioning "open-world" might lead one to guess a historical sandbox game. On his LinkedIn profile, a level designer says aspects of 1666 he worked on include "Chaos management, NPC interactions, Combat, Mission Structure, Detection & Reactions," which sound like the sort of things that might appear in a historical sandbox title. THQ Montreal was also hiring for a designer to work on the game's melee combat and multiplayer. Also of note: Underdog, a second THQ Montreal game revealed by THQ bankruptcy court documents, was a Unity-based "AAA tablet game." superannuation is a self-described "internet extraordinaire" residing somewhere in the Pacific Time Zone. He tweets, and can be reached at heyheymayday AT gmail DOT com.

In the Olympics, the Jamaican bobsledding team is famed for beating out countries who had a number of advantages over the Jamaican team—like winter coats and bobsledding tracks for training. Sure, the Jamaican team didn't come in first, but the fact they were competitive in the first place was amazing. 4A Games, the developers behind Metro: Last Light, are kind of like that Jamaican bobsledding team. In a recent article at Games Industry, former THQ executive Jason Rubin described the supposed ridiculous working conditions under which 4A Games developed Metro: Last Light. It's difficult not to look at the game with awe when you consider that it had "10 percent of the budget of its biggest competitors," that 4A Games had to sneak dev kits through Ukrainian customs, that they had to deal with armed thugs, or that they had to bribe people to try to get decent office chairs. To top all that off, they also had to deal with constant power outages, according to Rubin. "Power outages are the norm for 4A," Rubin explained. "All developers have deadlines, but I know of few that had to bring in construction generators to be able to work the weekend before final submission because an extra day meant missing shelf dates by weeks. Montreal is cold, but when it gets cold in Kiev it's different. That's because the government provides all of the heating through a central coal burning facility that pipes hot water to homes and offices. Unfortunately, it breaks down reliably a few times a year for a week at a time." Nevermind the difficulties in continuing to work on the game, this type of setback also meant having to deal with keeping warm. Despite all of this, Metro: Last Light is a game worth playing—making 4A Games, in a way, much like the Jamaican Bobsledding team. Lots of disadvantages, and sure, Metro: Last Light isn't the absolute best shooter out there. But it's good, and if this stuff is all true, it's kind of crazy that it was able to get made in the first place. Jason Rubin: Metro: Last Light is the "triumph of an underdog" [Games Industry]

Former THQ president Jason Rubin has spoken about the struggles Metro: Last Light developer 4A Games went through to get its game to launch. In a post on GamesIndustry International, Rubin extolled the efforts of the Ukrainian studio, citing a relatively meager budget, cramped working conditions, and extreme logistical troubles as major adversities.

According to Rubin, the game's development budget was "less than some of its competitors spend on cut scenes, a mere 10 percent of the budget of its biggest competitors." That budget apparently didn't extend to swanky office equipment, with 4A's staff sat "elbow to elbow" at card tables and on folding chairs. Upon seeing 4A Games in person, Rubin wrote, he wanted to buy them proper office chairs, but the logistics were something else.

"When 4A needed another dev kit, or high-end PC, or whatever," Rubin wrote, "Someone from 4A had to fly to the States and sneak it back to the Ukraine in a backpack lest it be 'seized' at the border by thieving customs officials. After visiting the team I wanted to buy them Aeron office chairs, considered a fundamental human right in the west. There were no outlets in the Ukraine, and our only option was to pack a truck in Poland and try to find an 'expediter' to help bribe its way down to Kiev."

In the end, the offices were too cramped for the wider Aeron chairs anyway.

Former THQ president Jason Rubin has spoken about the struggles Metro: Last Light developer 4A Games went through to get its game to launch. In a post on GamesIndustry International, Rubin extolled the efforts of the Ukrainian studio, citing a relatively meager budget, cramped working conditions, and extreme logistical troubles as major adversities.

According to Rubin, the game's development budget was "less than some of its competitors spend on cut scenes, a mere 10 percent of the budget of its biggest competitors." That budget apparently didn't extend to swanky office equipment, with 4A's staff sat "elbow to elbow" at card tables and on folding chairs. Upon seeing 4A Games in person, Rubin wrote, he wanted to buy them proper office chairs, but the logistics were something else.

"When 4A needed another dev kit, or high-end PC, or whatever," Rubin wrote, "Someone from 4A had to fly to the States and sneak it back to the Ukraine in a backpack lest it be 'seized' at the border by thieving customs officials. After visiting the team I wanted to buy them Aeron office chairs, considered a fundamental human right in the west. There were no outlets in the Ukraine, and our only option was to pack a truck in Poland and try to find an 'expediter' to help bribe its way down to Kiev."

In the end, the offices were too cramped for the wider Aeron chairs anyway.

Metro: Last Light is a survivor. Not only did it suffer multiple delays, but it also managed to get through its publisher's unfortunate closure unscathed. The result is an excellent, albeit slightly troubled, first-person horror shooter. While some reviews note a few performance- and technical polish-related shortcomings, they agree that Last Light's universe, story and unique, dark atmosphere is hardly something that can be ignored. Here's a few snippets of what reviewers are saying. Eurogamer Some games seem bad because they are. With Metro: Last Light, it's more a question of expectations: what do you want from the Metro series? For me, it's a scary and dark post-nuclear Russian underground, a first-person survival horror-slash-shooter with scarce resources and terrifying scenarios. There's a bit of that, to be sure. But if you also want tits, QTEs and hand-holding companions, then congratulations — you're part of the wider audience this game is looking for. Machinima The story, at least, is a faithful extension of Metro 2033. You again play as the mute Artyom, a ranger in the strange subterranean world of the Metro. In case you aren’t familiar with the game’s setting, here’s a crash course: World War III led to a nuclear apocalypse forcing the residents of Moscow to survive in the city’s Metro tunnels. Now the surface is irradiated and filled with mutants while savage living conditions have turned the Metro into a warlike no-man’s land of tribalism. Giant Bomb Atmosphere went a long way towards helping you forget the frustration of shooting things in Metro 2033. The gunplay was shoddy enough to break the illusion. (...) It takes precious few moments with Metro: Last Light to appreciate the mechanical upgrade. On a controller, the controls are much more streamlined, and allow you to swap tactics on a whim. This translates to the mouse and keyboard, as well, and reflects a general shift in combat design to encourage more than popping off rounds and hoping for the best. The way it feels is harder to describe. It just... feels like a modern shooter, and is no longer a distraction. The Metro games aren't about the power fantasy in so many other shooters, and it doesn't reinvent shooting a gun. Now, rather than fussing with the controls, you can easily fire away, and focus on surviving the hellscape. Polygon The economy of bullets established in Metro 2033 returns in Last Light. In the supply-starved metro underground, military grade bullets are rare, powerful and traded as currency, which can be used to upgrade your weapons. But Last Light squanders this intriguing economy's potential by making standard, non-military grade ammo abundant and attachments mostly boring. The shooting is fine without this system, though. The guns feel strong, and each weapon has trade-offs that make it difficult to pick a favorite, as everything feels useful. Gamespot You aren't required to go toe to toe with human opposition. You can use darkness to your advantage, twisting light bulbs and flipping circuit breakers to keep yourself hidden, and then sneaking through bases to avoid combat altogether. You can be silently murderous, sidling up behind a guard and slicing his throat, and then quietly flinging a knife into another's back. Human enemies go about their actions in realistic ways; they follow patterns, of course, but they aren't always so regimented as to seem unnatural. As a result, the stealth is fun and tense, though you can always shoot your way out of a bind if you need to. GameTrailers Unique checks and balances add additional flavor to Last Light's trigger-happy moments. The air in some regions is toxic and will kill you within seconds if you don't cover your face with a gas mask, and without a steady supply of fresh filters extended exposure to the haze could be fatal. Your flashlight constantly runs out of juice too, requiring you to stop what you're doing to hammer away on a hand-powered generator until it's ready to go again. The heightened sense of risk that results is palpable, but the tension really ratchets up when you're in the middle of caving a fanged mutant's head in or high-tailing it from a gang of heavily armed troops. Kotaku Despite technical irritations, I very much enjoyed the majority of my time with Metro: Last Light. (Oh, the power of well-wrought atmosphere!) It's a game of stark, nightmarish beauty, and while it borrows liberally from many other games—among them S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Half-Life 2, Far Cry 2 and its own predecessor—Last Light still manages to forge a weighty, worthy identity of its own. Top image courtesy of Gergő Vas. Questions? Comments? Contact the author of this post at andras-AT-kotaku-DOT-com.

Tim Schafer tells Game Informer that his studio, Double Fine, still is trying to buy back the rights to Stacking and Costume Quest from the dissolved THQ, and also Brütal Legend from EA and Iron Brigade (formerly Trenched) from Microsoft. "We can still make more of those games," he says.

THQ's remaining assets including Darksiders, Red Faction, MX vs. ATV and more have found new homes.

The THQ back catalog auction results are in, with Nordic Games riding away with the intellectual property rights to Darksiders, Red Faction and MX vs. ATV for $4.9 million. The other reveal is 505 Games grabbed the rights to Drawn to Live and Drawn to Life: The Next Chapter for $300K.

The news follows this afternoon's reveal that Gearbox Software picked up the Homeworld franchise. We now know the price tag on that was $1.35 million.

We've listed the winning bids in greater detail after the break.

Joystiq has obtained details on the winning auction bids for the various back catalog items from THQ's intellectual properties that were for sale in the most recent round of the former publisher's bankruptcy auctions. We've listed the winning bids and runners up below.

Gearbox Software, best known for the Borderlands series, has purchased the rights to the Homeworld intellectual property during the recent THQ back catalog auction round.

Gearbox Chief Creative Officer Brian Martel has "great love and respect for Relic's brilliant, fun and innovative game and personally spearheaded the acquisition," according to a company statement.

The company statement goes on: "Brian intends as first priority to direct Gearbox's interest to preserve and assemble the purest form of the original acclaimed and beloved games, Homeworld and Homeworld 2, with the intent of making them accessible on today's leading digital platforms."

The Homeworld series was originally developed by Relic Games, which was purchased by Sega during a previous round in the THQ bankruptcy auctions

It is unclear if Sega bid on Homeworld. We do know that Galactic Civilization developer and Sins of a Solar Empire publisher Stardock was in the running. CEO Brad Wardell tweeted us, "I'm surprised. I was wondering who had outbid us. It'll be interesting to see what they do with it. As long as I get [Homeworld 3]!

...developing...

When THQ went bankrupt and saw several of its IPs heading to the auction block, indie developer teamPixel began crowdfunding bidding money to win the Homeworld property for use in its upcoming space RTS game. Even after garnering $58,644 through a successful Kickstarter campaign and $13,675 on Indiegogo, teamPixel recently announced that it failed to win the Homeworld IP during the auction process.

"We hope you will join us in supporting Homeworld's new owners in building a future for the franchise," the developer said in a Kickstarter update. "We anticipate an announcement of the new owner to be made within a couple weeks and for the sale to be finalized around mid-May."

Well into development on its own Homeworld-inspired strategy game, teamPixel will refund all money earned during its crowdfunding efforts while also offering donors a "special credit" in the game. The developer's "Save Homeworld" site has since transformed to a landing page for tracking donor refunds.

The final THQ auction is expected to earn $6 million to $7 million. First details of the bidding results are expected to be revealed Monday.

Sega has just announced Company of Heroes 2 will march to retail on June 25 in North America and Europe.

Company of Heroes and developer Relic Entertainment were the most expensive properties in the THQ asset auction earlier this year, going for $26.6 million. The studio and franchise almost ended up in the hands of Zenimax Media, the parent company of Bethesda Softworks (Fallout, Elder Scrolls), for $26.3 million.

"Our acquisition by Sega has given us the chance to work with a new partner that has a great track record of working with long standing PC franchises," said Company of Heroes 2 executive producer Jonathan Dowdeswell. "It gives us great confidence to know that we have a well aligned team working to bring the best experience we can to gamers around the world."

Sega is one of the few publishers supporting high-quality real-time strategy games in the market. The publisher is also responsible for the Total War franchise.

Double Fine has self-published Costume Quest and Stacking on PC, but THQ still holds some of the rights to those games as publisher of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. Those games are among the properties being sold off in THQ's latest auction - however, they're being sold as a bundle with dozens of other properties. Officially, they can't be sold outside of the lot, but Double Fine is hopeful.

"THQ retained limited distribution rights that we bid on during the previous process to reclaim them prior to their expiration," Justin Bailey, VP of business development, told Polygon. "We are optimistic about regaining these distribution rights, as this process has already demonstrated that when there are parties interested in specific assets, those assets are worth more when sold separately." Double Fine has yet to hear back from THQ about any potential deals.

The aftershock of THQ's dissolution continues, as servers for the Xbox 360 version of Nexuiz have been shut down. Developer Illfonic announced the news on its Facebook page, noting that the servers were being run by THQ and "cannot be maintained anymore." The PC servers, however, will remain online courtesy of Illfonic itself.

Nexuiz is currently slated to be sold off in an upcoming auction of more THQ properties this April, alongside the likes of Darksiders, Homeworld and Red Faction.

When Sega plucked Relic from the ashes of THQ last month, it appears they didn’t get the Homeworld license along with it. So for now the sublime space RTS series remains without a home, in an odd case of life imitating art. The Homeworld IP is now up for sale in an auction of THQ’s remaining stuff – as is the likes of Supreme Commander, Red Faction, Darksiders, Titan Quest, Full Spectrum Warrior and a whole host of names known and forgotten.(more…)

#wwe2k14 In an interview published this morning by ESPN, 2K Sports and World Wrestling Entertainment discussed their new, five-year contract arising from THQ's bankruptcy and dissolution, formally christened their next collaboration as WWE 2K14, and said it should launch during its traditional fall release window this year. More »

THQ may have had its last stand, but the Company of Heroes movie is apparently still a go, as we've gotten word that it's still coming to DVD and Blu-ray on February 26. The full-length film, based on Relic Entertainment's critically acclaimed real-time strategy series (now owned by Sega), stars Tom Sizemore, Vinnie Jones, and Neal McDonough. It follows a band of soldiers trying to stop Nazi Germany from creating an atomic weapon during the Battle of the Bulge.

Will it be any good? We don't know yet. But if you want to honor the old THQ brotherhood (and get a nice taste of the setting before Company of Heroes 2 comes out), you can grab a copy of by the end of the month.

Nexuiz, an arena-based product of Illfonic and THQ Partners, is in limbo following THQ's bankruptcy and assets sale, during which the Partners brand was not sold.

"Our deal with THQ was basically a licensing deal through THQ Partners, so we do have a period of time [in which] THQ has the rights to be the exclusive publisher," Illfonic president Chuck Brungardt tells Polygon. "Now with them folding we are still trying to figure out what this means and awaiting details from our contacts handling the transitions at THQ."

Brungardt says it will probably take another month to figure out the future of Nexuiz and the remaining THQ assets. Nexuiz is lumped in with THQ Partners, the Darksiders franchise, Vigil Games and other back catalog properties that former THQ president Jason Rubin said will be sold off in a separate process.

#thq On one hand Jason Rubin, the final president of now-defunct THQ, isn't making excuses for the publisher's failure. Asked by MCV if the industry pains squeezing out mid-tier publishers are what sank the company, Rubin said no, THQ created a lot of its own problems. More »