Hoist the mainsail! Scuttle the jib! Other water-based activities! Stop doing them all, because a new Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag trailer has sailed into view, carrying a cargo of nautical narration on a sea of stabbing, shooting and shark attacks. Because in trailers, just as on the romanticised high-seas, it’s customary to punctuate even the most solemn of speeches with random acts of violence.

This time, we get a further look at the motivations (“steal things”) and methods (“stab things”) of new protagonist and pirate assassin Edward Kenway, along with a taste of his dislike for knee-bending. We also see plenty of the game’s expanded naval focus.

The game is due out November 1st.

And strike another one off the rapidly diminishing list of surviving subscription MMOs. If there was any sub-based game not called “EVE” or “World of Warcraft” that had a possible, maybe, oh-so-slim chance of surviving with a monthly payment model, I’d have argued for Rift. If nothing else, it had a history of providing generous new content to validate its regular toll. Alas, no, Trion have now announced that, as of June 12th, Rift will be entirely free-to-play.

Actually, scratch that – this is great news. The pretty excellent Rift will be entirely free to play!



A subscriber model remains, albeit with subscribers renamed as “Patrons” – as is customary during a free-to-play transition. Patrons will be getting additional buffs, but crucially, the world won’t punish free players. “All players will have total access to the entire world,” writes Rift creative director Bill Fischer. “Every dungeon, every raid, every Warfront, and every level. We won’t be locking our content or advancement behind walls – our goal is to break down every barrier. We want more people playing together and more people having fun together.”

While new players will receive less starting inventory and character slots, Trion promise that for previous owners of the game – even those who no longer subscribe – nothing will be removed.

June 12th will also bring the game’s 2.3 update, titled Empyreal Assault, adding a new zone, world event, Chronicle and “Stronghold” challenges.

For more details, check out Rift’s free-to-play page.

GTA 5 trailer alert! Sound the hype-horn! Rockstar have plopped out more moving pictures of their upcoming open-city mug-’em-up so that we can look at them and say “put it on PC, please!” Rockstar are being coy about plans to bring the sequel to our hallowed platform, but we can take some solace in the knowledge that every GTA game has come to the PC eventually, apart from the first few, which were born on the PC. How far things have come from the 2D pixelly crimes of yore.

For more Grand Theft Auto bits, check out the latest GTA 5 screenshots and the last GTA trailer.

—TRANSMISSION FROM THE FUTURE—

The year is 2053; the world is on the brink of financial and social collapse. It started innocuously enough. Star Citizen – Chris Roberts’ multiplayer space sim – took to Kickstarter, making a healthy $2,000,000 from backer pledges. But the money kept pouring in through the game’s website at Roberts Space Industries. By the end of April 2013, Star Citizen had raised a staggering total of $9,062,402.

“Great,” we collectively thought, “$9 million is enough money to make a really good space game.” But it didn’t stop. People kept throwing money at the chance to trade, smuggle, pirate, bounty hunt, and battle throughout a universe-sized sandbox of spaceships. The stock markets tanked, countries collapsed, the team at Cloud Imperium Games were cloned multiple times to keep up with their increasingly ludicrous development promises. On the plus side, we do have a really good space game.

—END TRANSMISSION—

Well that was weird. Anyway, Chris “Wing Commander” Roberts’ Star Citizen has now raised over $9 million through crowdfunding.

To find out why that’s good news, and almost definitely not the precursor to the eventual downfall of Earth civilisation.

Thanks

…Call of Duty: Ghosts. That’s according to a mistakenly published (and now removed) listing posted by megaconglomoshop Tesco. The posting, showing the PS3 version of the game, stated a December release, and lists Infinity Ward as the developer. That’s as expected, given the annual franchise swapsies between them and Treyarch.

With no official announcement from Activision, further details are light. According to rumours that surfaced last month, Ghosts is a Modern Warfare spin-off set in the future. It’s suggested that a major plot event will force characters to use current-day weapons. Beyond that, if I were to wildly speculate:

Someone will be shot.
At some point, you’ll be informed that you’re “Oscar Mike”.
The plot will be jingoistic and morally dubious bobbins, but no-one will care because hey, multiplayer.

I’d also like to nominate the Ghost Knifefish as the official mascot of CoD:Ghosts. Just look at that thing! If the final cutscene doesn’t involve the protagonist being incapacitated by ultimate villain Gruffman McBadingtons, groping around in a just-in-reach puddle, pulling out a Knifefish and throwing it skull-first into your opponent, then it’ll be a criminally missed opportunity.

While the PS3 listing suggests current-gen consoles, it’s more than likely that Activision will be keen to release the game on every conceivable format, including next-gen consoles – hopefully meaning the PC version will get a long overdue graphical bump.

Here’s that box art in full. Just pretend the PS3 logo isn’t there. And that we still use boxes.



Thanks, OPM

ArenaNet are teasing the finale to Guild Wars 2′s four-part Flame and Frost update series. Retribution will close out the “Living Story” that was started back in January, with a quest to assault an experimental weapons facility and defeat the Molten Alliance. It’s certainly a tonal shift after the happy pixel clouds and bright platforming of the MMO’s last update.

In addition to the story’s culmination, Retribution will also introduce a couple of PvP beta features – letting a limited number of players trial custom arena battles and spectator modes.

“With custom arenas, you can make your own place to play, you can organize private tournaments with friends, and you can challenge other teams to scrimmage,” writes ArenaNet server programmer Steve Bikun. Matches will be customisable through a number of rules, including team size, point and time limits, respawn type and balance.

Custom arena makers will also be able to toggle Spectator Mode on or off, allowing other players to watch these battles. According to programmer Evan Lesh, “Spectator mode is a great way for new PvP players to learn from more experienced players, and it will allow expert players to watch each other in order to refine their skill. It will also be an amazing tool for shoutcasting games between high-level teams.”

Other Retribution additions include new Guild Missions, new WvW abilities, and guild siege weapons for WvW. Flame on Frost: Retribution is out April 30th. You can see the full patch run-down here.