Painkiller gets Resurrected

Be prepared for another descent into the world between Heaven and Hell.

JoWood and Dreamcatcher have signed on small Austrian developer Homegrown Games to produce another Painkiller game, Painkiller: Resurrection. The new team will be using an upgraded version of the original game’s engine, and will be adding a co-op multiplayer mode, created by Dr. Steven Wilkins and known by the name Blowfish in the Painkiller community. It was Wilkins who came up with the PK++ mode that added competition-style elements to the original game.

As with the original, the hero (antihero?) gets caught in Purgatory after he kills a few bad guys and a few innocents along with them. The game again revolve around the quick, in-your-face action style of DOOM and Quake, while the main character is used as a pawn by the forces of Heaven and Hell.

The game is planned for late this year, and IGN is reporting that an Xbox 360 version may come out sometime after that.

It will be interesting to see how this develops, literally. I played through the original and thoroughly enjoyed the action. I’m hoping they can come up with enough new gameplay to keep it fresh. Some games that have successfully capitalized on the old-school action have fallen flat in the sequel.Serious Sam 2 pulled off a good sequel, so we know it can be done.

EA Signs Pact with Epic Games

Electronic Arts and Epic Games announced that they have signed a publishing agreement for an all-new action title for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. The title in question will be an all new, original intellectual property to be developed by the fine folks at Epic’s People Can Fly studio in Poland.

People Can Fly are best known for creating the popular first-person shooter Painkiller on the Xbox and PC. That game, in my opinion was hot, so I have high hopes that People Can Fly will create something just as compelling and fun.