Unconfirmed

Criterion, the developer behind Need For Speed Hot Pursuit and the awesomely destructive Burnout series is hiring for an all new action racing game.

• NEWS: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit Getting Three DLC Packs

The company has posted listings over at EA's career site, stating they're, "hiring and actively looking to add the world’s top talent to a team that just delivered the highest rated Need for Speed title yet." They go on to mention that this, "is a very exciting time at Criterion Games and anyone that joins us will be working on top selling, world class games, on cutting edge hardware in an extremely creative environment."

But if you look closely, there are a few hints about the upcoming title sprinkled throughout the listing. 

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George Lucas' corporate empire appears to be cooking up something called Star Wars 1313, based on an assortment of domain registrations and a newly filed trademark. It all started with the news from Fusible that Lucasfilm registered a variety of domains related to "Star Wars 1313" on May 2, 2012. No less than 20 domains were registered in all, some in different regions of the world, with WHOIS lookups pointing to Lucasfilm as the owner on all of them.

The initial assumption was that these domains related to an upcoming film project due to the Lucasfilm tie, but a subsequent trademark discovery by Fusible seems to indicate that Star Wars 1313 is some sort of video game-related project. Lucasfilm has confirmed nothing, but with 2012's E3 conference approaching very quickly now, we'll hopefully hear more soon.

Harmonix may be working on a motion-control music game, but that's not even the cool part. If rumors are to be believed, the game would have combat, explorable words and a narrative element. Don't get too excited though, this information is definitely unconfirmed, and even it it was true, it the game would be for the next generation of consoles.

The rumors come to us thanks to Superannuation, an internet sleuth extraordinaire. He found a few references that pointed to the new title. First, a job listing appeared for a software engineer which mentions “brand new IP and next-generation consoles.”

• NEWS: Rock Band Blitz Announced: New Arcade Game From Harmonix

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According to an email reportedly sent from Valve president Gabe Newell, the company won't be announcing anything at E3 2012. The company will be showing off, "Stuff everyone already knows about." So if recent rumblings about a potential Half-Life 3 reveal got you putting on your Hope Shoes, it's time to quietly slip them off.

Here's the full text of the email:

"We are not announcing anything at E3. Really. We are not announcing Half-Life 3 or Portal 3 or Left 4 Dead 3. We are going to be showing stuff everyone already knows about (CS:Go, Dota 2, 10' UI, ...)"

I understand the human capacity for hope, and I hate to crush it, so let me be as generous as possible and suggest that 1) Valve could change its mind between now and then. 2) The email is a fake!  3) Someone will go back in time and change things just enough so that Valve will change their minds. 

I don't think any of these things are likely to happen, but you never know! Keep Hope Alive! The cake isn't a lie!

Valve announcement or not, E3 2012 is going to amazing. I promise. G4 will be all over it, so set your television and internet to go on June 5-7!

Source: ValveTime

Half-Life 3 is such an eagerly awaited game, that we'll report on anything that even suggests it's coming. We've got some intriguing recent tidbits that are enough to at least be aware of. This is very, very far from any kind of official announcement, but here's the rumor.  Website Inside Gaming Daily reports that a site with the URL http://orange.half-life3.com/apache2-default/ exists. And when you go to it, there's a message reading simply:

"It works!"

Valve owns that domain, and the part of the domain that reads "apache2-default" is the default created when you install Apache, a Website engine, leading to speculation that Valve is preparing Half-Life 3's website. It could mean absolutely nothing.

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Rumor has it Sega has cancelled Bayonetta 2 before the game was even announced. The rumors come from SPOnG who claim to have a source "familiar with the situation." Bayonetta was developed by Platinum Games, the dev team behind Anarchy Reigns and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

Considering Platinum Games seems pretty busy and SEGA is currently restructuring, I'd say it's possible Bayonetta 2 has been placed on the back-burner for now. Personally, I enjoyed Bayonetta and hope another will be released one day.

• NEWS: Anarchy Reigns Adds Bayonetta To Its Roster

SEGA has not commented on these rumors.

Do you want more Bayonetta in your life?

News on plans for Skyrim DLC could be less than a week away if Bethesda's Pete Hines gets his way, but a few tech-savvy fans may have beaten some of that reveal to the punch thanks to animation files included in the latest patch for the game (via RipTen). Specifically, file names make mention of bow a "snow elf prince" and crossbow, both of which would be new to the 2011 RPG.

The crossbow is pretty self-explanatory but the filenames that mention the Snow Elf Prince point to certain elements of the deeper Elder Scrolls lore. The ancient snow elves were led by one known only as the Snow Prince, who staged a campaign against the early Nord settlers in Skyrim. The elf leader was killed by a child at one of the conflict's key battles, allowing the Nords to push back on their attackers and, ultimately, ruin them.

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Microsoft will offer an early look at their new music service, Woodstock, a codename, at E3 2012 according to The Verge. Microsoft is repositioning how they distribute media by moving away from Zune in favor of focusing on the more established Xbox media center. Woodstock is said to allow cross platform play for Android, iOS, Windows 8 and Xbox users.

• NEWS: Xbox 360 Successor Rumors Surface: Christmas 2013 Release, Dual GPUs, More

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According to Nintendo Power magazine, Pikmin 2 is coming out for the Wii in North America... finally. You Pikmin 2 fans have been waiting for a long time -- Pikmin 2 was originally announced for the Wii way back in 2009, and folks in Europe have been playing since then. So if you need a reason to blow the dust off your Wii, you'll have it soon.

It's not known if anything new is planned for the North American release of Pikmin 2, a game that was originally a GameCube title.

• NEWS: Pikmin 3 Wii U Game Set For E3 Reveal

If you need a reason for the supposed release, consider this: Nintendo has said it's showing off Pikmin 3 for the Wii U at E3 this year, and if there's a better way to remind gamers why they love this important series of games, the realease of the second game in the series will do it.

Speaking of E3 2012, allow me to hype G4's coverage for a moment. We will be all over E3 2012, bringing you game previews, news, videos and all kinds of surprises and great stuff.

A product listing for the Resistance Trilogy has popped up on Amazon's French website with a release date of May 16, 2012 and a price of 59.99 EUR (via CVG). It's a collection, gathering together Insomniac Games' three PlayStation 3 exclusive titles -- Resistance: Fall of Man, Resistance 2, and Resistance 3 -- into one package.

• NEWS: Resistance: Burning Skies Multiplayer Mode Revealed

A May 16 release would put the pack in stores roughly two weeks before the May 29 arrival of the PlayStation Vita FPS, Resistance: Burning Skies. Sony has yet to officially confirm the existence of the Resistance Trilogy, but we're checking to see if the product listing is accurate and if fans in the U.S. can expect something similar. 

France's Amazon website also recently outed the existence of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which seems more and more like it's a real thing. Take that for what it's worth.

Has a weapon from the next Call of Duty been revealed? 

Watch the video embedded below. It shows off YouTube sensation FPS Russian demonstrating a "Prototype Quadrotor" with a machine gun attached. Watching the thing blow up manikins and a car is pretty sweet, but the real nougat in the candy bar is a little hint dropped at the end of the vid that might give something away about the next Call of Duty game...

"Looks like the future is going to be fun," FPS Russian says. "But if you can't wait another 15 years, my friends tell me that this baby might just be in the next Call of Duty game which would be the sh*t. As always, have nice day."

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Gamers everywhere are understandably stoked for any news of the long in-development sequel, Half-Life 3. (or maybe it's Half-Life 2: Episode Three). As yet, Valve has never officially acknowledged the game, so it may not even exist. But Valve managing director Gabe Newell had some very interesting things to say on a recent podcast that sure seem to be about Half-Life 3, specifically, what's taking them so long to put it out.

On a recent episode of Seven Day Cooldown, Newell spent a long time talking about the development process of "Ricochet 2," which is most likely a coded way of discussing the next Half-Life. The reasoning for not just discussing the game outright is fascinating. Newell feels that exposing fans to the ongoing heartbreak and toil of a game's development does them a disservice, but he still wanted to discuss "Ricochet 2," which is, hypothetically, Half-Life 3 (or Half-Life 2: Episode 3. It's all very convolution, as I'm sure you've noticed.)  Anyway, under the "Read More," you'll see Gabe's entire quote, and I suggest you pore over it and read it like psychics read tea-leaves for any clues or hints as to when we'll see Half-Life 3 and what sort of game it will be. 

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Sony Santa Monica isn't happy working on just one major game, God of War: Ascension, they apparently want to work two IPs. Gotta admire that ambition! The studio has just begun a search for a new "Senior Combat Designer." The job listing reads,

"The Sony Santa Monica Studio is hiring for an unannounced new IP!"

The game may very well be a shooters based on the skills required. Experience with 1st and 3rd person shooters is desired, as well as experience developing vehicle combat.

Based off these qualifications, what do you think Sony Santa Monica has up their sleeves?

Source: Gamasutra

There was a collective sigh of relief from Prey 2 fans yesterday when Bethesda confirmed the game was still in development, but the plot thickens as reports indicate Prey 2's developer, Human Head, hasn't worked on the title since November 2011.

According to Shacknews, a source, who was not identified, said Human Head was not pleased with the contract they had with Bethesda's parent company, Zenimax. They were so unhappy they stopped production of the game in November to renegotiate. Without a game in production, several people on the development team were laid off, hoping to be rehired once a new contract was put in place. Human Head's plan seemed to be going according to plan until this past January when ZeniMax had stopped responding.

• NEWS: Prey 2 Not Canceled, But It's Also Not Coming In 2012

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There's a supposedly leaked poster floating around on the web for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, with the date May 2, 2012 situated above text that reads "Return for debriefing." The image came first to Kotaku by way of "a retail source."

Evidence continues to mount that Activision's 2012 edition of Call of Duty, which puts the series back in the hands of Black Ops dev Treyarch, is a sequel to the 2010 hit. A listing for the game appeared on Amazon's French site back in February and a Spanish-language website reported shortly afterward that it would be coming to stores in November.

True, reporting on a November release rumor is not a real stretch since that's the month Call of Duty games tend to launch in (they all have since CoD3). Black Ops 2, though! Who's ready to shoot some more zombies?