More and more clues are emerging about next generation of video game consoles that should be released within two years. The latest clue comes from Gears of War developer Epic, a company which also makes the popular Unreal Engine. A recent job posting is looking for a “Technical Artist” to work on “multiple new and existing IP’s across multiple platforms”. The job ad goes on, hinting at next gen hardware:
“Your goal will be to attack the more complex issues that arise when we push the technology envelope, both in production on current hardware, and prototyping for next-generation hardware”
This could also be a possible indication of Unreal Engine 3. As for next-gen consoles, Nintendo will be releasing the Wii U this year, while Microsoft and Sony are reportedly already hard at work on the next gen systems, which should see release in 2013 or 2014.
We have a whole bunch of contests lined up here at DigitalBattle, and we’re kicking it off with a big one: a chance to win a limited edition Gears of War 3 Xbox 360 console, with two controllers, a copy of Gears of War 3, and 3 months of Xbox Live.
How to enter: simply follow DigitalBattle on Twitter and re-tweet this post.
The contest ends on December 31 and is open to entries from around the world. The winner will be notified via Twitter.
UPDATE: The contest is now over, the winner has been notified via Twitter. Thanks to everyone who participated, we have a new contest lined up for next week!
Epic games have announced that Gears of War 3 will be getting a new DLC called “Fenix Rising”, which is slated for arrival on January 17, 2012. The DLC will retail 800 MS points, or $10, and will include 5 new multiplayer maps. On top of that, Fenix Rising will include new multiplayer skins and an updated experience system called Re-Up, which gives players over the level 100 a chance for another tour of duty. The five new maps are called “Academy”, “Anvil”, “Depths”, “Escalation” and “The Slab”.
Just like every other console on the market the Xbox 360 has an extensive line up of games. Many of these games are found on competing consoles but many of them are also exclusive to the Xbox 360 such as Halo and Gears of War. Both of these titles have managed to sell quite well and help push consoles which makes it no surprise that their respective developers are hard at work on sequels.
While Halo 4 won’t be out until next year, Epic Games has assured us that the highly anticipated Gears of War 3 will be out later this year. However, it seems that the company has run into some problems as it was just made known today that the game has leaked in its entirety. Of course, this is not the final build as the studio has quite some time to work on it before the game is actually supposed to be released.
We’re definitely not condoning pirating a game as not only does it hurt the studio but it ruins the story for you as well. However, it is important to note that things like this continue to happen despite efforts of just about everyone to protect against it.
Epic Games, the creators of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, have revealed that their websites and forums were hacked, and that users emails from their forums have been leaked onto the web (or rather, exposed to the hackers, which usually means they’ve been leaked). Epic says that password were leaked as well, but they were encrypted. As a precaution, Epic has reset all the passwords on the site.
This is yet another incident in the streak of game related website hackings that have taken place over the past few months, were Nintendo, Codemasters, among others, have had security breaches. Then there’s Sony, which had its PlayStation Network servers shut down for over a month when a hacker group attacked their systems.
Gears of War isn’t just a video game, by now it’s a franchise with books, comic books, animated series, a movie coming soon, and now: a board game. Board game makers Fantasy Flight Games have announced the official Gears of War board game, which supports one to four players, playing against the AI controlled Locust.
The Gears of War 3 board game features 7 levels, and over 30 plastic figures, 200 cards, and 35 Locust AI cards. The board game will available this Summer and will cost a rather steep $80. We dunno if that’s worth it for a board game, considering you can get Gears of War 3 brand new, and probably Gears of War 1 and 2 used for $80. But if you’re into board games and you’re a Gears of War fan, go for it 
Epic games has revealed their Epic Edition of Gears of War 3, as well as the Limited Edition. The Limited Edition will retail for $80, and will feature a life sized Octus Service Medal, a cloth Cog flag, and in-game unlockable Adam Fenix multiplayer character.
The Gears of War 3 Epic Edition is whole other beast, as it will retail for a whopping $150 bucks, but in return, includes a massive figurine of Marcus Fenix, weighting in at an impressive 3.7 lbs! On top of that the Epic Edition includes all of the stuff found in the Limited Edition, plus a 96 page book covering all aspects of Gears of War, and custom multiplayer skins for the five starter weapons in the game: Lancer, Retro Lancer, Hammerburst, Sawed-off Shotgun, and Gnasher Shotgun.
Both versions will be available when the game launches on September 20, albeit the Epic Edition is said to be in very limited edition quantities. So pre-order it, if you absolutely must have it (and if that $150 is burning a hole in your pocket).
Epic producer Rod Fergusson has stated in a recent interview that he believes Gears of War has the best cast in all of video games, which is of course a lofty statement, considering all the great casts in video games, from Half Life 2 to Grand Theft Auto 4.
Nevertheless, Fergusson talks about a moment in Gears of War 2 where character Dom’s wife dies, and how that had an effect in the voice acting room with voice actor Carlos Ferro. Fergusson said, “It can definitely get pretty intense, when you’re trying to get those kinds of emotional scenes.”.
True, we can imagine it requires real acting from voice actors to do the tense scenes in video games, but that goes not just for Gears of War but for all video games. Although, we’ll have to admit, the voice actors doing the Locust voices in Gears of War are pretty awesome.
We’ll have to see how the cast and voice acting is in Epic’s latest game, Gears of War 3, which hits the store shelves in September.
According to recent rumors over at Gears3blog.com, Epic Games is interested in bringing Gears of War 3 to the PC sometime in 2012, after seeing great success with the PC version of Bulletstorm. Of course, Microsoft still has a say in this, as they’re more interested in selling more Xbox 360 consoles than pleasing the PC crowd. And if one thing will sell Xbox 360 console, it’s Gears of War. With the release of the original Gears of War and the sequel, Xbox 360 sale saw a spike, which will most likely be repeated with Gears 3.
The original Gears of War was released on PC in 2007, a year after the Xbox 360 version. However, Microsoft’s motivation for releasing the game was solely to launch its new Games For Windows Live service. Considering the failure of the service, perhaps they can try and re-launch it in 2012 with Gears of War 3 for the PC.
Big time developers and publishers are having a tough time competing with the emerging smaller devs that exclusively work on iPhone games. Because when your competitor offers a $0.99 cent game on iPhone that’s of decent quality, it’s a lot harder to sell a game for 60 bucks to the same audience, and gamers are now expecting cheaper and cheaper games, something AAA titles simply cannot offer.
Epic games knows this, as Epic president Mike Capps said in an interview with GamesIndustry. Capps said “How do you sell someone a $60 game that’s really worth it … They’re used to 99 cents.”. It’s not surprising that major developers see the 99 cent market as a huge threat to their business. But both Epic and the big publishers have tried to get into the iPhone market, Epic especially with Infinity Blade and they’re now even offering an Unreal Engine SDK for the platform as well.
