Those without fancy VR future-goggles can now enjoy the neon tank-wars of Rebellion's Battlezone. While I'd assumed that the Gold Edition update for the game would be a separate release or some manner of paid upgrade, I'm happy to be wrong here. Today, the Gold Edition rolled out as a free update to all existing players, opening the door to a whole new set of players.
]]>You wait forever for a Battlezone game, and suddenly two roll up at once. Mere weeks from the release of Battlezone: Combat Commander, Rebellion have the confusingly named Battlezone: Gold Edition lined up for launch on PC at the start of next month. Completely unrelated to the recently-remastered RTS/shooter hybrid series, this is a port of the PlayStation VR arcade tank shooter from last year, although our version will make the fancy space-age headgear optional.
]]>Not every PC classic is deserving of a full remaster/remake/spit-and-polish treatment, but I reckon that 1999's RTS/FPS hybrid Battlezone 2: Combat Commander has more than earned its place on Rebellion's list of games to update to modern spec, and Big Boat Interactive's update looks to be doing the game justice.
Along with announcing a release date - March 1st, just one month off - Rebellion have released a new trailer comparing the game as it looked back in the day to how it looks now, given the blessings of a modern renderer, sharper textures, smoother models and an upgrade to 4K resolutions.
]]>After last year releasing a revamped version of Battlezone, the 1998 RTS-FPS hybrid where spacelords join the battlefield themselves to drive vehicles and scamper about, Rebellion are now focusing on its sequel. Today they announced Battlezone Combat Commander, a remastered version of 1999's Battlezone II. Coming some time in 2018, it'll boast a similar amount of fancying-up as the Battlezone 98 Redux though with a less clumsy (but more confusing) name. Check out the announcement trailer:
]]>Last time someone 'rebooted' Battlezone [read: applied a known brand name to a largely-unrelated game -ed.], we got a splendid FPS-RTS. This time, new owners Rebellion are rebooting closer to the series' origins with arcade-y tankblasting in the game they call simply Battlezone [official site]. After jacking into PlayStation VR last year, Battlezone today arrived on PC exclusively for cybergoggles.
In more-important Rebellion news: did you see that they have got a live-action Judge Dredd TV show in the pipeline? Mate!
]]>Battlezone 98 Redux [official site], Rebellion's recent revamp of Activision's ace RTS-FPS, now has an expansion. Not a new expansion, mind. Not really. Available now is a revamped version of Battlezone's old expansion The Red Odyssey, which adds two new singleplayer campaigns with two new factions and loads of vehicles and weapons and whatnot to continue the secret wars across our solar system and beyond.
]]>Battlezone 98 Redux [official site], a revamp of the splendid sci-fi FPS-RTS from 1998, is out... oh! Today! Now! It's out now! Publishers Rebellion today jumped out a box yelling "Boo!" and flinging it onto Steam. They say they have more revamps coming too.
Battlezone's your usual '90s arcade-y RTS - the space race was a cover for an interplanetary hot war between the USA and USSR, where they collected resources to build tanks and blow up each other's bases - only with the delightful addition of the ability to scamper around the battlefield yourself, taking control of vehicles to lead the fight. I remember it fondly.
]]>When Sniper Elite devs Rebellion announced last year that they were bringing back Battlezone, everyone responded "Oh. But not the good Battlezone?" (by which I mean I said that, but I'm using my authority to make you complicit, sucker). Luckily, Rebellion soon added that as well as making a game based on Atari's 1980 arcade shooter, they were revamping The Good Battlezone, the FPS/RTS Activision released in 1998.
Now we know that Battlezone 98 Redux [official site], as they're calling it, will arrive in spring with Steam Workshop support for mods and other new bits.
]]>When Rebellion dug out the rights to Battlezone, they announced that they were rebooting the wrong Battlezone game - the Atari wireframe FPS rather than splendid '90s FPS-RTS. They hastily added that they planned a "remaster" of Battlezone '98, but it sounds like that'll take ages.
For now, you might be interested in Warshift [official site], which sounds like Battlezone with an action-RPG edge. It's an RTS where you build bases and armies but can also slip into units to fight on the battlefield yourself, then level up and customise them too. It hit Steam Early Access last night. Have a look:
]]>Rebellion are not content with simply rebooting the old green-and-black Battlezone [official site] from 1980. They've put out an open letter to fans of the series today letting them know that they will also be working on a "remaster" of Battlezone 1998. I guess now no one can moan at them for remaking the "wrong" one.
]]>I didn't know Sniper Elite devs and 2000AD owners Rebellion had the Battlezone [official site] rights these days - seems it's passed through more hands than a brown envelope at FIFA HQ. Anyway, the olden tank battles game is coming back, back, back for the umpteenth time, now as a VR-focused game based on the original 80s Atari game rather than on Activision's 90s FPS/RTS mash-up. "The father of VR gaming has returned," they say. Sadly I can't see it in gogglevision from the discomfort of this slowly-collapsing Ikea chair, but the trailer tries to give us some sense of what fractal spaceships launching themselves directly at your eyeballs might be like.
]]>In the first of what certainly won't be a regular innuendo-strewn column entitled Dan's Hot Tip, I bring news directly from the Twitter feed of handsomely bearded journo Dan Griliopoulos. Jason Kingsley of Rebellion, the home of Sniper Elite and 2000 AD, discusses the UK developer's plans for Battlezone. [We] "bought the IP at auction from Atari last year. Have some exciting plans for it and lots of ideas". The purchase was made last summer and Rebellion picked up Moonbase Commander rights at the same time. The real news though - the part that you can actually touch - is the release of Bionite's alpha.
]]>At this time of resurrection and rebirth, it seems apt to look at yet another Kickstarter project that aims to roll back both a stone and the years in order to bring glories from the past to walk our digital hallways once more. Bionite: Origins, already two years in the making, is an attempt to revive the play style of Battlezone '98, a hybrid of first person hovercrafting and strategic base building. I'm sure there are other much-loved properties in need of a successor, spiritual or otherwise, but I reckon by summer, Kickstarter will have them all covered. What makes Bionite a little different to many projects is that funding isn't being sought to begin development, but to continue it. A working alpha of the game already exists and the beta testing phase is imminent. Video evidence of the team's work is nestled below.
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.png?width=1200&height=630&fit=crop&enable=upscale&auto=webp "שחרורו של Assassin's Creed Shadows נדחה למרץ כאשר מועצת המנהלים של Ubisoft שוקל מכירת חברה")
