Welcome to the Game Replay, the thrice-weekly look back at the wider world of gaming by the staff of MacNN. In today's edition, the next two mobile games from Nintendo will be 'free-to-start,' a Kickstarter campaign for a new Fear Effect game reaches its funding goal, and a report claims Microsoft could have potentially sold Lionhead, instead of shuttering the studio.
Next Nintendo mobile games will be 'free-to-start' titles
The
next two games to come out of the partnership between Nintendo and DeNA for smartphones and tablets are in fact going to be free to download. DeNA advised on Wednesday that
Fire Emblem and
Animal Crossing will be arriving on both iOS and Android with no cost to download, a change from earlier comments from Nintendo advising these will be paid releases.
Speaking to
the Wall Street Journal, DeNA CEO Isao Moriyasu advised both of the upcoming mobile titles will be "free-to-start apps," a statement also confirmed by a Nintendo representative. The two new games are expected to arrive soon, albeit without a firm release window, with a further two titles currently planned to arrive by March next year under the agreement.
It is unclear exactly what "free-to-start" entails, as previous partnership release
Miitomo could be classified as a "free-to-play" app that is available to play with fully, regardless of how much players spend on peripheral features. Though the report seems to believe the two terms are equal, the term could refer to a game where the first act or initial levels are free, but payment is needed to unlock later elements or the entire game.
Fear Effect Sedna reaches funding goal one day before campaign ends
A crowdfunding campaign for the development of a game from the
Fear Effect franchise has completed successfully, passing its goal less than a day before it was due to end.
Fear Effect Sedna, following after
Fear Effect 2, has achieved its target of raising €100,000 ($113,000) on Kickstarter, allowing the Sushee team to continue work, and eventually release the game.
The ten-person studio based in France will be getting assistance from Square Enix, in the form of an official license for the Fear Effect IP, help promoting the game, and feedback on the development of the title,
reports Eurogamer. Square Enix will be benefiting from the project, even if it fails to be released at all, as it is getting a five-percent cut of the net crowdfunded amount, plus a ten-percent royalty of revenue from the game's sale.
Despite following on from
Fear Effect 2, the game will be different in a few ways. The key change this time is that Sushee has opted for an isometric camera angle, with players able to control the five main characters during fights and puzzles. Set four years after the last game, protagonists Hana, Rain, Deke, and Glas head to the North Pole, with the game focusing both on the elements of the location as well as inuit folklore.
"We're aiming for a release in spring 2017," the studio advises. "Now that we can afford to see the big picture, we will begin working on the full game, starting now." It is expected to be released for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and on Steam, though it is unclear if a Mac version will be made available or just a version for Windows systems.
Report suggests Lionhead studio could have been saved from closure
Lionhead, the UK-based game studio that was
closed last month by Microsoft, could have potentially remained open, a report claims. It is believed that there were multiple entities interested in acquiring the troubled studio during the legally-required two-month
consultation period, but talks apparently faded over intellectual property agreements.
Multiple sources of
Kotaku claim several buyers attempted to pick up Lionhead during the period, and though confidentiality agreements prevent the sources from identifying those interested in the purchase, it apparently included "some of the biggest names in video game publishing." The attempts were also apparently serious enough that some filed letters of intent to purchase the company.
The stumbling block for negotiations is said to have been the unwillingness of Microsoft to release the IP for
Fable along with the company as part of the transaction, even though some offers were in the hundreds of millions of dollars. If an agreement was reached for an acquisition, the purchaser would not have had automatic rights to produce a new
Fable game, unless it also made a licensing agreement with Microsoft. This apparently was enough to make "90 percent of the people interested" simply step away from negotiations, according to one source.
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