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Signal Studios has acquired the rights to its original intellectual property, Toy Soldiers, from Microsoft.

"That was our first game, it was our baby," said Signal Community Manager Becky Taylor. "We are working on a future game in the franchise, we have a large publisher interested who we haven't announced yet," she told Joystiq today at GDC.

Taylor tells us the next game is planned for next-gen systems, and although she couldn't confirm PC, she was sure it would be on PS4. She continued, "Since we acquired the rights back, we've put out Toy Soldiers Complete, which includes the original game, Cold War and four DLCs... and it's 10 bucks through 'early access'."

The original tower defense shooter hybrid Toy Soldiers and its sequel, Toy Soldiers: Cold War, have sold a combined total of 2.5 million units.

Theories both conspiratorial and practical are discussed.

The Creative Assembly has been forced to make a number of changes in order to realize the vision for Alien: Isolation. After successful pitches to both Sega and 20th Century Fox, the developer turned to recruitment, ensuring it added new members to its team that were capable of crafting the exact game it pitched, what Creative Lead Al Hope calls: "The Alien game that we always wanted to play." A game completely different from that other Alien game, which his team at The Creative Assembly had no involvement with making, yet keeps coming up, just the same

Its pitch demo for Isolation was built in four weeks and featured two identical medical bays: one with its environment and objects in pristine condition and the other obliterated by an unknown menace. The juxtaposition led to immediate questions: "What happened? What did this?" Soon, an answer invaded the screen as a large xenomorph falls into frame, ending the demo. Sega was immediately interested, Hope says, as was Fox. Adding new talent to execute on the project was necessary. For the better part of a decade, The Creative Assembly has focused its attention on the RTS genre. Once its pitch was green lit, Creative Assembly brought in talent that contributed to a host massive franchises, including Grand Theft Auto and Assassin's Creed. Its team assembled and its concept approved, the developer began its work over three and a half years ago on Alien: Isolation - a survival horror game based on a beloved movie from the late 1970s.

"This is exactly the game we want to make," Hope says.

Comcept released a new gameplay video of crowdfunded platformer Mighty No. 9 running in alpha, and it showcases some familiar-feeling run-and-gun gameplay along with images of Mighty Numbers 1 to 8. If we had to pick a favorite it would have to be Mighty No. 6, because he's got a cross between a bomber plane and a helicopter for a head, and missiles that launch out of his ankles. He looks like he'd be a lot of fun at a party.

Keiji Inafune's new platformer was one of the most successful gaming fundraisers of 2013, amassing a mighty $3.8 million through Kickstarter alone. While Comcept is starting to show more and more gameplay we're still a good year away from the estimated release date of spring 2015, when the game will rock and roll onto Xbox One, PS4, Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, Vita, 3DS, Wii U, Windows PC, Mac, and Linux. [Image: Comcept]

Watch this awesome fan-made musical trailer that shows you what's really going on in Titanfall. See more LITERAL trailers at tobyturner.com.

Snake! Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is a sneaking mission, so while wandering around some crazy 1975 military base, try not to get caught. Maybe don't start casual conversations with guards or ask to bum a smoke either.

Joystiq knows not to make these Metal Gear blunders, having dug into Ground Zeroes' guts for its 3.5-star review, but some of the crew has yet to enjoy Kojima Productions' PlayStation 4 and Xbox One debut. Hence why today's stream will involve blithely marching into Metal Gear, pretending Kiefer Sutherland just wants to make some new friends rather than save Paz.

Head on over to the Joystiq Twitch channel at 4PM EST on Thursday to revel in our stealth skill as we play the PlayStation 4 version of Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes. Anthony John Agnello will be holding the controller, displaying how good he is at hiding behind stuff just as he did in Thief and Outlast. (Note: He's not very good at hiding behind stuff.) Susan Arendt, Joystiq's Managing Editor, will be hanging out in the chat, relaying your questions as we play. Come hang out!

Joystiq Streams broadcasts live every Tuesday and Thursday at 4PM EST. [Images: Konami]

We saw this scene right at the end of our preview playthrough of the first two hours of Wolfenstein: The New Order, and it introduces Frau Engel to players for the first time. Engel looks to be sadistic bordering on psychopathic, toying with hero B.J. Blaskowicz as he tries to keep his cool and maintain his cover.

For what it's worth (spoilers), when we played this sequence we didn't do for the gun despite how crazy the crazy lady was. Instead, we simply picked the cards. That caused Engel to angrily declare we were impure and point the gun to our head, only for her sultry toy-boy to calm her down and remind her it was all a game.

Bethesda released a separate video interview today (below the break) with MachineGames' Narrative Designer Tommy Tordsson Bjork. In it he describes conceiving the Frau Engel character as his proudest moment because she's "such a cool, female villain, which is not that common in video games."

Engel is just one of the antagonists Blaskowicz faces in MachineGames' alternate vision of a post WW2-world where the Nazis won, and players will get to see the whole lot - possibly including a mech-suited Fuhrer? - when the game hits Xbox One, PS4, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC on May 20 in North America, and May 23 in Europe. Bethesda recently revealed pre-orders net players an invite to an upcoming beta for the next Doom game. [Image: Bethesda]

Hyper Light Drifter's combat mode is a solo or co-op evil-beast explosion - it begins in a training room lined with dummy targets, and a seafoam platform that recharges your magic. A door etched in rune-like symbols waits at the end of the room. Behind it, when you're ready, lies an arena filled with creatures bent on your destruction.

First, the training room allows you to play with mechanics: Plugged into a MacBook Air, playing with an Xbox 360 controller, press the right bumper to see a circle of weapons and map the ones you want to the Y or B buttons. These weapons include an enemy-seeking mine ball, a shotgun that shoots in a diamond formation, a boomerang, and a close-up attack that embeds a fucshia crystal in an enemy, which you then detonate into huge crystal splinters covering the surrounding area. These attacks drain magic.

The A button is a (very useful) dash, and X is a sword slash. Left bumper displays magic and health bars, and your weapons.

Unfortunately, there's no button to halt the flow of angry, violent creatures that swarm you once you open that door.

Japan's getting a slightly different version of Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes than everyone else.Read more...

Before it comes to Xbox One as part of Microsoft's independent games initiative, apocalyptic racer/shooter hybrid Calibre 10 Racing Series will launch on PC through Steam's Early Access program - likely as soon as next week. The game's developer, Bongfish, expects the alpha development period to last around six months, after which the completed game will make its way to Xbox One, roughly around Fall.

Calibre 10 Racing Series hinges on two-player teams competing on and around a deadly racetrack. One person drives to the finish line, usually in a glossy sports car that hungers for power-ups littering the track, while the other takes command of gun turrets positioned alongside the route. Drivers can defend themselves with barrel rolls (as recommended by anthropomorphic space animals), temporary shield pickups, or collect turret upgrades for their gunning teammates to rain down hell on opponents.

Developer Bongfish considers Calibre 10 a spiritual successor to Harm's Way, the bouncy arcade racer that emerged in 2010 as a finalist in Doritos' "Unlock Xbox" game design competition. If the game finishes its early access circuit with aplomb, it hopes to offer a hub for the community to design high-end concept cars. And then shoot them in the world's toughest safety standards test.

In previous versions of Project Spark, players were allotted 40 minutes of free Spark Time every day. Spark Time, despite its perky name, was limiting: you could only play user-made levels built with paid content you hadn't purchased or features unlocked above your current level for 40 minutes each day. If you wanted to play more, you could use in-game credits or pay real world cash for tokens to buy more Spark Time. Purchased Spark Time came with bonus XP and bonus credits, but those would-be customer loyalty perks still rankled players that felt that they were blocked from content for insidious reasons. No more.

Eager to respond to negative feedback, Microsoft announced changes to the game on Tuesday that should mollify fans upset with pay gates in the upcoming Xbox One and PC video game builder. Just as the Xbox One Project Spark beta opened up to all players, developer Team Dakota completely removed Spark Time from the game.

Other microtransactions were transformed rather than excised. Spark Power remains on sale in Project Spark, though it's now called Spark Premium. Spark Power allowed you to play levels with DLC or level-blocked content indefinitely with no need to worry about Spark Time, and it granted a 200 percent boost to experience and credits earned. As Spark Premium, players just get the experience and credit boosts, making it easing to unlock new content in the game.

Microsoft's added 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month Spark Premium purchase options to the existing 1-day and 1-month options, making Project Spark into a more subscription-centric experience rather than one defined by piecemeal purchases. [Images: Microsoft]

Hideo Kojima provides director's commentary for the opening cinematic of Ground Zeroes, revealing how it was shaped by The Guns of Navarone, J-Pop, and Splinter Cell.

Microsoft is currently "brainstorming" ideas on how to reward well-behaved Xbox Live players. In other words, after a decade of policing Xbox Live's worst offenders, they're going to see if the carrot works better than the stick.Read more...

Put your mind at ease, Battlefield 4 players. You can make a stand, lend a hand, protect the motherland and join your fellow man IN THE NAVY in the game's Naval Strike DLC on March 25. The DLC will feature four new maps, five weapons, two gadgets, a hovercraft vehicle, ten assignments and a new Carrier Assault mode where players compete to sink the enemy's aircraft carrier first.

Battlefield 4 Premium members will be the first with access to the content, while non-Premium members will have to wait until April 8 to become a macho, macho man ... in the Navy.

Minority Media, the studio behind Papo & Yo and the upcoming Silent Enemy, have announced another upcoming game designed to tug at your heartstrings. According to the Canada Media Fund database, Cali tells the story of Massi, a young boy from the Amazon who becomes separated from his group and discovers a pixie-like creature named Cali.

Game Informer reports that creative director for Minority Media Vander Caballero did not give many details during the game's announcement, only saying that the game would tell a story of "what it would be like to fall in love with an AI avatar." The CMF database also notes that, "while Cali is the secret to Massi's future success, there is a deadly reason why she cannot, or will not, help."

Game Informer also reports that Caballero confirmed the game would be heading to "new-gen consoles," while the CMF database describes the game as in development for iOS, Android and "the Cloud." [Image: Minority Media]Papo & Yo dev's next game is a love story set in the Amazon

The as-of-yet unannounced sequel to Titanfall will, like its predecessor, be published by Electronic Arts, according to an anonymous source.

Making his video game voiceover debut next month in Kinect Sports Rivals, the Tenth Doctor and the grumpy dying detective from Broadchurch, Mr. David Tennant. Isn't he dreamy? Read more...

Quick, think of the burliest video game engines that you've seen lately. Frostbite 3. Unreal Engine 4. That Luminous Studio demo Square Enix showed off at E3 2012. Project Cars. Pretty soon, you're going to have to add Snowdrop to that list.Read more...

Though Ridley Scott's classic Alien takes place in a distant future, the film's production values were a product of the late 1970s, with sets and props cobbled together with elements from the era. Rather than evolve the original designs-of-necessity in its upcoming and inspired Alien: Isolation into more modern props and environments, developer The Creative Assembly chose to embrace the "lo-fi sci-fi" concepts found in the horror masterpiece.

"You could say the first part of development was this phase of deconstruction," Creative Lead Al Hope explains. "Kind of taking everything we knew and loved about the film and pulling it apart, so that when we built new content it would still look and feel as though it were from the film."

To achieve an in-game design that would mesh with the original film's aesthetic, The Creative Assembly pored over three terabytes of behind-the-scenes video, photos, handwritten notes on props and continuity photos from the production of Alien, courtesy of the 20th Century Fox archives. The treasure trove even included some rarely seen production pieces, such as detailed blueprints of the cargo vessel Nostromo, which proved vital for creating the spaces within Isolation. Using the source material, the developer made what Hope calls "a brave decision," and began populating its game with objects and environments created by replicating production techniques used for the film's development. Computers are slow, clunky and always seem on the verge of breaking down. And it's all by design.

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes has received plenty of criticism for its length, and one player has likely just set the record for shortest completion time of the game.

One of this fall's big Assassin's Creed games, called or code-named Unity, is set at least partly in 18th-century Paris, according to early leaked screenshots obtained by Kotaku.Read more...

Alfredo and Greg use teamwork to demolish an opposing team.

The Creative Assembly is clear that its new game, Alien: Isolation, is a survival horror game directly inspired by Ridley Scott's 1979 classic film, Alien. That means there are no big, James Cameron-developed pulse rifles. No gruff marines. Just you, Amanda Ripley, attempting to survive. In Isolation there is only one big bad; one lethal and intelligent xenomorph hunting you down.

But does the horror and tension work? Is a single alien enough to jolt you out of your seat? A few sounds from a recent demo make us think Sega's next alien game is on the right track. [Image: Sega]

Note: This article contains spoilers! One of the side ops missions in Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes is a little bit different. It's a short rescue mission, where we have to infiltrate a military base and find someone... special.Read more...

Alfredo breaks down a killer Titan loadout for Titanfall.

Artistically lush RPG Child of Light is getting ready to glide on in to PC and consoles on April 30. Ubisoft has posted a little behind-the-scenes trailer featuring the game's visual inspiration.

Microsoft may unveil its own 3D virtual reality device in the future, providing that sources close to The Wall Street Journal are accurate. "People familiar with the project" reportedly confirmed that the hardware manufacturer developed virtual reality devices and has already filed one patent for the project.

The technology has seemingly been developed concurrently with a project called "Fortaleza," which translates to "fortress" in Portuguese. The projects are expected to result in a "suite of experiences unique to Microsoft's Xbox products," the report reads. This follows another rumor from last week that indicated Sony might announce its own virtual reality headset, as well as news from today showing Valve's continued support of VR through Steam.

One version of Microsoft's apparent foray into virtual reality uses augmented reality technology, which projects computer-generated visuals onto real-world images. Augmented reality devices have gained some traction recently: Ex-Valve employees managed to earn over $1 million on Kickstarter in November for their Cast AR headset, $400,000 of which came from just two days of funding. [Image: Microsoft]

Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes is the amuse bouche of the bigger (and hopefully better) The Phantom Pain, which should sneak into stores sometime between October and the birth of standardized nanotechnology. Our review of this carved out experience called it "too good to be a cash-in, too calculated to be satisfying and too intriguing to spurn."

If you want to see what all the la-li-lu-le-lo is about, check out our Joystiq Streams this Thursday at 4PM ET and watch our own Anthony John Agnello (@ajohnagnello) play it for the first time.

Head past the break to see what others think of the Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain prologue.

In today's episode, Bobbya1984 goes back to his favorite map "Colony" to wreck on the opposition. In addition he discusses the pros & cons of the Burn Cards.

This is State of Service, an ongoing review of the online service of a recently launched game. See our scored review of Titanfall here. Tuesday, March 18 | T-minus 23 days until final verdict
Current State of Service: Good
Summary: Launch day problems resolved. PC experiencing limited issues. Australia receives dedicated servers.

One week out, Titanfall seems to be running strong. Isolated reports of lag and hanging matchmaking screens are reaching us, but the Joystiq staff is reporting no significant issues on either PC or Xbox One. The biggest complaint so far seems to be uneven matchmaking, with low-level players regularly being matched with high-level and even Prestige level players.

Some PC users with Belkin routers are still having trouble connecting, but Belkin offered a workaround that's less expensive than "buy a new router."

If you encounter any problems with Titanfall, let us know in the comments or on Joystiq's Twitter or Facebook accounts (use the hashtag #sos and don't forget to specify your platform!).