There was always hope Heavenly Sword would give birth to a sequel that was “bigger and better than ever before.” At least that’s what we thought when we received a batch of new concept art from Ninja Theory. Not only were our hopes dashed, but they’ve now been pummeled into believing there will never be a Heavenly Sword sequel.  Nariko is dead.

Prompted by a barrage of disappointed fans over Ninja Theory’s announcement that their next game is a multiplatform new IP, IT Manager “Peonic” gave them even more bad news:

We’re not abandoning HS just on a whim because we want to go off and do something different – there’s a great huge raft of reasons behind us taking the direction we are – and it’s also the nature of the business that I’m not allowed to share any of those reasons with you

As for the ‘you’re just not doing HS2 NOW’ comments – well one thing you learn in this industry is that you never say ‘Never’. So I’m not going to say we’ll “never” go back and make HS2 – but it’s something I personally see as extremely unlikely.

So there you have it, Ninja Theory have abandoned Heavenly Sword and a sequel is unlikely.  This is most likely due to perceived poor sales, despite recently reaching platinum status.

The following words from Ninja Thoery founder Nina Kristensen, stated before we knew an eventural sequel was unlikely, sheds some light on the decision:

Well, with Kung-Fu Chaos, we worked exclusively with Microsoft; with Heavenly Sword, we worked exclusively with Sony. And it’s really a time for us to go cross-platform, so we ultimately turned it down. As a studio, we feel it’s the right thing to do. It makes things more commercially viable – and as an indie we have to be very commercially aware. It was great to work with Sony and get really intimate with the PS3 hardware; going forwards, that positions us to execute things properly on both PS3 and 360.

Sadly Heavenly Sword 2 can’t be a multiplatform title, since the IP is owned by SCE.  Peonic goes on to hypothise that Sony could take on the series themselves:

As to whether SCE decide to get someone else in to extend the franchise – well that, as the IP owner, would be completely up to them.

We’re sure the game wouldn’t be the same without Ninja Theory, so we’re all set to be blown away by their new IP and will reluctantly forget about the planned Heavenly Sword trilogy.

Source: Ninja Theory Forums, Next-Gen.biz

Shorty after Microsoft announced what is sure to be the greatest game of all time, Sony (in typical Sony style) announced it’s very own videogame rip-off of someone else’s idea. We present to you now — LithGOW.

We were shown just that first piece of concept art because Sony only recently found out about Microsoft’s LithGoW. A Sony rep helps explain the difference between the two games:

“Our new title, LithGOW, is a God of War game, but we have replaced Kratos with John Lithgow. This is completely different from Microsoft’s game. You’ll notice that the “O” in “LithGOW” is capitalized in our game, not only to differentiate between the two games, but to show that our game is better. I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but we’ve had this idea well before Microsoft did. We really wish they would stop copying our strategy.”

I once again had a chat with John Lithgow to hear his thoughts on the new game:

“This is a really exciting time for me. I was contacted by Sony roughly 15 minutes after your story broke on Ripten, and some reps came to my house to take some pictures. Wait… [a voice is heard in the background] What’s that? [more background voices] Oh, I meant to say that we’ve been in talks with Sony for quite a while now, and they offered me a huge amount of money– err, opportunity– to star in their new game… which I still have no idea what it’s about.”

It’s nice that PS3 owners aren’t left out in the cold with no John Lithgow game, but it remains to be seen which game, LithGoW or LithGOW, will be the ultimate in John Lithgow awesomeness. We’ve been promised review copies, so we’ll let you know.

Source: Dancing Bacon

I was browsing the interwebs and stumbled across some interesting concept art. Turns out, it was for a little game called Gladius 2, a game that up to this point has not yet been announced.

James Zhang, an artist who has done work for several projects including multiple Star Wars games, had quite a bit of concept art up on his site — JZConcepts.com. A hidden list of links was “stumbled upon” in which there were images for Gladius 2, as well as Knights of the Old Republic 3. Those links are now gone.

The existence of Gladius 2 is further proven by the simple fact that Gladius 2 is listed under “projects” if you click on the client list on his main page. Kinda hard to deny it now, right?

Let’s hope this is more than just wishful thinking or unofficial concept art by a mere fan of the game (even though he works with LucasArts). Gladius was a great game, so a sequel would be much appreciated. Announce it already, LucasArts, and how about a release date some time this year!

Yesterday Steve Theodore of Bungie Studios sat down with Isamu Kamikokuryo to discuss how he got into the videogame art business and where his inspirations lie. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the new FFXIII trailer and concept art he had to show us, but we can point out some of the highlights.

Kamikokuryo actually started as an oil painter and illustrator and hadn’t considered working in videogames until after he saw FFVII. Inspired by the artistic potential, he presented a portfolio and eventually ended up directing background art in FFX, moving onto directing the art of FFXII.

His influences range from painter Andrew Wyeth to designer Luigi Colani, and even include comics he read in middle school by artists like Alex Ross and Frank Frazetta. Kamikokuryo is also a world traveler, always taking pictures of scenery and architecture for inspiration. He showed us a few of over 40,000 photos he took on a trip through the US last year.

On working in a large team at Square Enix, he said the key was to have a good vision for everyone to work towards. He did note that even though the scope of games had already broadened a lot by the time he joined the business, he still felt some nostalgia for the days of smaller groups.

What hasn’t changed is their aim for Final Fantasy to be a stylized reality, which is even more important now with the increased possibilities afforded by the hardware. The whole art staff at Square Enix instinctively agree, without needing a memo, that a stylized reality is better than getting too close to the Uncanny Valley -”…we can’t go there.” And with one of the scenes showing a girl on a green flying motorbike, prompting Theodore to quip, “Chocobo of the future?”, a stylized “reality” is what they’ve created.

The new trailer featured tons of CG, but also some in-game battle. Huge airships, something like dragons, and of course, Lightening herself, flew through the air. We saw her fighting a huge purplish ogre monster, and later against a swat team-like force in yellow uniforms and white masks. A blond fellow pulls up on a motorcycle but we don’t get to find out more about him before it faded to black.

We also got a peek at some really fancy concept art. The world of Cocoon hangs in the sky over the monster-infested outer world, Pulse, like a moon with a what seemed to be a huge crater. Cities have very intricate designs and at least one seemed almost nautical in style, another featured terraced halls enclosed by glass lit up in the night.

Obviously FFXII is one of those games that gets prettier every time you see it, so we’ll be looking forward to the next eyeful.

Killzone Concept Art

21 Photos

 

Credit: Xavier Marquis