Since our staff is responsible for covering pretty much everything related to the video game industry on a daily basis, it can be tough to post all the stories we think our readers would like to see. Videos go unwatched, new release dates are missed and silly quotes just float away without ever being heard. So, instead of ignoring the news that slipped through the cracks each week, we decided to put it all in one convenient place!
This week, John Carmack joins the Oculus Rift team, Major Nelson unboxes an Xbox One and much more.
id co-founder John Carmack becomes Oculus CTO
John Carmack has joined Oculus VR as it’s Chief Technical Officer. Carmack has been involved in the Oculus Rift project since the early days, helping with coding and even doing some soldering on the early prototypes. “The technical leadership he provides for games in development at id Software is unaffected.” That’s according to Pete Hines, Bethesda Softworks’ vice president of PR and marketing.
Carmack had some thoughts to share on the importance of the Oculus Rift in the post announcing his position: “Now is a special time. I believe that VR will have a huge impact in the coming years, but everyone working today is a pioneer. The paradigms that everyone will take for granted in the future are being figured out today; probably by people reading this message. It’s certainly not there yet. There is a lot more work to do, and there are problems we don’t even know about that will need to be solved, but I am eager to work on them. It’s going to be awesome!”
Cory Barlog returns to Sony Santa Monica
Most well known for his work on the God of War franchise, specifically directing God of War II, Cory Barlog has done a lot of travelling in the years since that games release. After some brief work on God of War III and PSP spin-off Ghost of Sparta, Barlog went off to work with various games studios including Just Cause developer Avalanche and most recently he directed the cinematics for Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider reboot.
Now, however, Barlog has returned to the studio that made him famous. While he doesn’t reveal exactly what he’s working on he did have this to say: “…I can say that it is freaking huge, and it will live up to the standards that I helped establish here at SMS. We’re putting together a team as I type this, an Ocean’s 11 kind of thing. We are searching the world high and low for the best of the BEST to come and be on the ground floor of this endeavor.”
‘Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix’ trailer highlights the updated original game
Square-Enix has released a new trailer for the upcoming HD Kingdom Hearts bundle. This particular trailer shows off some more footage from the HD version of Kingdom Hearts Final Mix specifically, which looks to be the definitive version of the original game.
‘Dishonored’ Game of the Year edition incoming?
Looks like Dishonored could be getting the ‘ol “Game of the Year” treatment, at least according to the Australian Classification Board. Gamespot discovered the rating, which one can reasonably assume will be a bundle of the game including the three DLC packs that have been release since the game originally shipped. Those would be Dunwall City Trials, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches.
Bethesda, the games publisher, has yet to officially announce this new edition of the game, but an official reveal shouldn’t be too far off.
Major Nelson unboxes the Xbox One, now includes a headset
Microsoft have released an unofficial unboxing video, featuring their own Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hyrb, for the Xbox One. It’s a fairly standard unboxing, with Hyrb briefly showing off everything you can expect to find in the box if you get the console upon release later this year. One interesting tid bit is that a headset is now to be included with all consoles purchased, something that Microsoft has previously said would not be the case.