The E3 party is over. There are a handful of key titles that we thought we could expect for this year#DY#s holiday season but didn#DY#t show up in the exhibit. KOTAKU rounded up for you a complete list of this year#DY#s no-shows and the hype that preceded them, and then tried to get to the bottom of their conspicuous absence.
The details are as below:
The Game: Alan Wake
The Hype: Max Payne developer Remedy announced the "action thriller" way back in 2005, promising to unveil it at E3, but the game#DY#s skipped every event since then, while the developers denied cancellation rumors.
The Facts: A recent story referring to a Windows-branded contest that suggested the game would be shown at this year#DY#s Tokyo Game Show turned out to be old news from last year. Remedy posted on its Alan Wake forums that the team#DY#s just gotten back from a bit of holidaying, and that they "haven#DY#t had time to chat with Microsoft on upcoming shows/showings yet." We contacted Microsoft, and got a "no comment."
The Game: Tekken 6
The Hype: Back in 2006, some less-than-impressive E3 screens surfaced for the sixth Tekken title, and in early 2007, unconfirmed rumors suggested the title would launch on Xbox 360 after a period of PS3 exclusivity. When? All we heard is "after Soulcalibur IV", that#DY#s this month, and with no show at E3, that seems pretty unlikely.
The Facts: It#DY#s been out on Namco#DY#s Japanese arcades, the ones modeled on PS3 hardware, since November 2007, and that#DY#s the only place it#DY#s been seen since then. We#DY#ve got no comment from Namco as of press time.
The Game: APB (All Points Bulletin)
The Hype: Dave Jones of Realtime Worlds, the team behind Crackdown, first unveiled APB at GDC 08 in February, wowing audiences with the Counter-Strike-inspired MMO that featured character customization with so many choices that Jones demoed a battle featuring modded FFVII characters. It must have inspired investors, because only a month later Realtime Worlds scored an eye-popping 50 million dollars in venture capital to support the game#DY#s development.
The Facts: After the developer bought full rights to the game back from Korean company Webzen, rumors abounded that the developer was angling to sell the game to Rockstar, to create a GTA IV-branded MMO. No such deal surfaced, and early in June the developer said they were in alpha, heading for a full public beta.
Realtime Worlds president Tony Harman told Kotaku that the investment, plus the changing of hands, is the reason behind the no-show at E3: "This year we would have had an exciting presence with APB at E3 if we had continued with Webzen as our publisher," Harman said. "But, given that we re-acquired the rights to APB just this spring and closed a very large fundraising round (50,000,000 USD) to secure APB#DY#s future, the timing just wasn#DY#t right to attend E3."
"RTW is very excited with APB#DY#s progress and we have used our fundraising as a means to invest even more heavily in the APB development team. RTW hopes to release more information later this year with regards to gameplay details and beta plans."
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