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As part of the litigation between Activision and former Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella, the publishing giant was forced to reveal terms of its publishing agreement with Bungie to launch its new franchise, Destiny.

While it's possible the contract has since been altered from its original signing date of April 16, 2010 - considering elements such as the industry's further knowledge of the next generation of consoles - we wonder how closely it resembles what Bungie and Activision have finally revealed to the public.

Using information received during our recent meeting at Bungie's Washington headquarters, we compare what we now know about Destiny and what the 2010 contract promises.

#destiny Bungie, the studio behind Halo is today revealing its next saga, Destiny, to be published by Activision. This is the first documentary describing the new sci-fi world the studio is creating. More »

#destiny The creators of Halo aren't leaving their face-shooting skills behind. Destiny, Bungie's first new game since they parted ways with Microsoft, looks and sounds like a first-person shooter—even if they don't like calling it that. More »

Within the hollowed-out remains of a former bowling alley and movie theater, the creators of the Halo franchise huddle en masse at their headquarters in Bellevue, Washington, working on a new project. Inked to a decade-long agreement with publishing giant Activision - and dodging rumors and leaked documents for nearly two years - Bungie has finally revealed Destiny.

A first-person console shooter set within a persistent world, Destiny takes place in a future-vision of our own solar system: A great peace beamed across the system, after civilization spanned the galaxy.

"But it didn't last," a teaser trailer featuring concept art revealed.

Hit by an unknown force that nearly wipes out all of humanity, Earth's survivors take salvation under a mysterious orb that hovers over a part of the planet. This orb, referred to as "The Traveler," is roof to the final safe haven for humans. But as time passes and humanity begins to lift itself out of extinction, they learn they are not alone.

"Strange, deadly creatures have occupied our old worlds. And they're pressing hard against the city, probing for a weakness, trying to stamp us out for good." As a Guardian of Earth's last city, players will be able to wield some of The Traveler's power and set out to rid the galaxy of aggressors.

"If you can find a way to save the city, to reclaim all that we have lost, you will become legend. If you fail, the last light of civilization will go out."

After nearly two years of rumors and leaks, the Halo franchise architects at Bungie have finally lifted the veil on their next project: Destiny.

Part of a 10-year publishing deal with Activision, Destiny is a persistent-world console shooter where players create and customize their identities and gear in order to venture across a future vision of our own solar system on quests to gather loot and defeat evil.

"If you fail, the last light of civilization will go out," a teaser trailer featuring concept art at the reveal event promised. The world of Destiny doesn't rely on a single hero for salvation, but a community of Guardians, all exploring the galaxy in an effort to save the system and craft their unique legends.

Bungie has made significant investments in the game's multiplayer component to emphasize cooperative play. Single-player purists will be able to quest as a Guardian throughout the galaxy; however, in order to "realize the vision of the game," Destiny will require a constant internet connection on all platforms regardless of play style.

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg says that maintaining the vision of Bungie's shooter is key to the always-on requirement, adding "that's the only reason for that restriction." As for player investment to enter the world of Destiny, Hirshberg says that there are "absolutely no plans to charge a subscription fee."

We mine every bit of info we can from Destiny's first assets.

#fineart Nivanh Chanthara is a French concept artist who works at Beenox, a studio that's worked on a bunch of games for Activision over the last few years. His latest project is an "unrevealed" AAA project. More »

Cannon Brawl is dropping off an alpha version, available to download and play for free on PC. The game is a 2D mix of multiplayer action and real-time strategy, in which you control a little zeppelin that can build structures and fire cannons.

Unfortunately, this is an early version of the game, so it likely has plenty of bugs, performance issues, and other compatibility problems. But the devs want to get the game in your hands, so if you're in the forgiving mood you can download it starting now.

Cannon Brawl has also appeared on Steam Greenlight, and is aiming for the Xbox sometime in the future.

The Deadpool game from High Moon Studios and Activision is creeping up on us, now with an official release mention of "summer 2013." The Deadpool Bugle spotted an ad for Deadpool in some comics last week, complete with the launch window right in everyone's faces. We previously heard half of that - the "2013" part - so it looks like things are narrowing down.

We've contacted Activision to clarify the launch window for Deadpool.

The last vestige of Guns N Roses lead singer Axl Rose's lawsuit against Activision has been dismissed, reports the San Marino Tribune. Originally filed in 2010, Rose's suit alleged that Guitar Hero 3 associated the song "Welcome to the Jungle" with former GNR guitarist Slash. According to Rose, the association constituted both fraud and breach of contract.

The judge tossed the fraud claim out of court last year, as the statute of limitations had expired. According to today's report, Judge Charles Palmer has dismissed the breach of contract claim as well.

Thus ends another case in the litany of lawsuits filed against Activision over its music games. Let's recount, shall we?

• Gibson: Lost, countersued, settled
• No Doubt: Settled
• Courtney Love: Nevermind
• Adam Levine: Marooned?

Oh, and as for the Guitar Hero franchise itself: Dead.

#thewalkingdead This is the first official trailer for The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, aka that Walking Dead shooter that has absolutely nothing to do with the Walking Dead games that everyone loves. Survival Instinct is out March 19 for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. March 26 for Wii U. More »

We know Deadpool is joined by Cable, Death and Domino in the High Moon Studios game set to launch this year, but he's bringing along some more friends, as shown in the gallery below. We don't know their names, but we'd wager they're something like "Swordy One", "Swordy Two" and "Super Blammo-Maker."

See the mix and match trailer for Spryo and friends' next big adventure.

Bungie and Activision's new IP, Destiny, will be the subject of a session during this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Dubbed a "Brave New World: New Bungie IP," the talk will cover the studio's approach in putting together Destiny's original setting, "a place where the next ten years of great Bungie adventures will unfold."

The Destiny leaks last year suggested a "fun and accessible" multi-platform project, set in the future and featuring a large-scale war between man and alien (bearing a strong resemblance, in other words, to Halo). Having been teased with Destiny and its iconography for months now, we expect some insight into just how Bungie's new universe is shaping up.

The Game Developers Conference runs from March 25 until March 29. The time and date of Bungie's panel has yet to be announced.

#destiny We can expect to hear something official, and soon, about the game Bungie is building for Activision, rumored to be a sci-fi epic titled Destiny. GameSpot reported today that the studio is scheduled to give a talk about its new game at Game Developers Conference in late March, which would indicate a more formal reveal by the publisher is coming before then. More »

#biden This afternoon, U.S. vice president Joe Biden met with video game representatives to talk about the Sandy Hook shooting. Here's a picture of the meeting in action. Hopefully it went well. More »

#angrybirds More »

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick settled a lawsuit with former employees Frank West and Vince Zampella, both now at EA, in May. Kotick fired West and Zampella in 2010, after learning they were going to bail on their contracts to join EA, Kotick said, and from there, his job was easy:

"You find out two executives are planning to break their contracts, keep the money you gave them and steal 40 employees. What do you do? You fire them," Kotick told The New York Times in an extensive profile. West and Zampella sued Activision for royalties they said they never received from Modern Warfare 2, and though the terms of the settlement were never disclosed, the case's conclusion had West smiling.

Kotick's NYT profile extended from his high school years, when he would pick up friends in a chauffeured limo to visit Studio 54, to his time in college and to the present, when he fended off offers from Hollywood to turn Call of Duty into a high-budget film. Kotick said movies based on games rarely do well with fans and could blemish the Call of Duty brand.

He might be on to something there.

#activision Today's New York Times profiles Bobby Kotick, the boss of Activision Blizzard and longtime bête noir of many a longtime gamer, many of whom have created unflattering portrayals of him quickly found by Google Image search. Well, he wants you to know this doesn't help his game. See, he's divorced and on the prowl. More »

Guitar Hero 7 was a game that existed, at least in a development phase, until Activision canceled it in early 2011, Kotaku reported, citing an anonymous source.

Guitar Hero 7 had only a guitar, ditching the drums, mic and bass that surfaced once Rock Band entered the market. The guitar saw some changes, however, and had a full six strings and an extra button in the neck. It was expensive, unresponsive and development was, overall, a "disaster," Kotaku said.

Vicarious Visions, the team in charge of developing Guitar Hero 7, had some great ideas about creating a morphing, unique music video for each song. The songs themselves posed a problem: "The game had all of the worst hits from the 1990s," Kotaku wrote, quoting its source. "They realized that, with our lack of budget and time, they couldn't get quality music so they bought bargain-basement music like 'Closing time' and 'Sex and Candy.' There were some songs in there that had been used at least three times in the GH franchises before."

The music video idea quickly became unwieldy, too, and development fell apart. Guitar Hero 7 was canceled in the middle of an expected two-year development cycle. Just think, we could have had a new Guitar Hero on our GOTY lists this year. Maybe.

Maybe not.
[Pictured: Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock]

Activision has announced today that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has grossed $1bn in the 15 days since it has been on sale, breaking Modern Warfare 3's previous 16-day record.

"There's no doubt that that space faces challenges. They are more directly competitive with what's going on in the tablet and mobile space and there's a lot more overlap there, to be honest.

It is a challenging market, and challenging in a number of ways. From a gameplay immersiveness standpoint, from price point and business model standpoint, I mean it's $40 for some of those games and you can get great experiences - not necessarily comparable experience, but great nonetheless - for seven dollars on a tablet.

Our relationships with Sony and Nintendo are important and we continue to support them by creating games on both [Vita and 3DS] platforms. Beyond that the market's going to speak ultimately as to the viability of those products." - Greg Canessa, vice president of mobile development for Activision

I think Activision utilizing the mobile space is a good thing. They can put out all their crappy licensed content on iOS devices, then hit up 3DS with the good stuff!

Terminal Reality's The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct is a first-person shooter based on AMC's television series, which is of course based on The Walking Dead comic series from Robert Kirkman. It's the first new-media extrapolation to be based on something based on The Walking Dead, rather than on the graphic novel itself, which is probably a smart move when a game directly from the comic has already proven extremely successful.

All that said, Survival Instinct integrates AMC's TV show directly, grabbing Norman Reedus, the actor who plays Daryl Dixon, to voice the main protagonist.

"Norman is super-cool, generous, and a real joy to work with," writes Terminal Reality Creative Director Drew Haworth. "And man, does that guy deliver! He gets the scene, the line, and what you're going for instantly and then doubles down on it, effortlessly 'Darylizing' lines for maximum punch. He's the kind of actor that really makes writers look good."

From our own experience with the TV show, we have to agree with that last statement. No one on The Walking Dead nails "looking dramatically at another cast member, in silence, for five whole minutes" quite like Reedus.

Brian Fay, the creator of the impressive Arthas statue, has been commissioned by Blizzard again, this time to summon the demon Diablo in premium-priced novelty form. The polystone sculpture pictured above stands 22 inches atop its base, where it commands a fearsome hand-painted visage and imposing $349.99 price tag.

Statues are available for pre-order through manufacturer Slideshow Collectibles' website right now. Statues are expected to ship starting in June of 2013.

SPOILER ALERT: Be warned, there are spoilers for seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead TV show in this post, so if you haven’t watched them, steer clear!

When we first decided that The Walking Dead videogame would be built around a single-player action-adventure prequel to AMC’s insanely popular series, there’s only one character that checked every “must have” slot. We needed somebody who was rugged and capable of surviving alone in the ruins of civilization, but also sympathetic to the needs of others in a world where it only makes sense to help yourself. We needed a protagonist who is tough enough to take on a swarm of raging walkers, but smart enough to know that there are probably safer alternatives. Finally, we wanted a fan-favorite character who you can’t wait to learn more about.

Photo by Scott Garfield/AMC

Welcome to the stand, Mr. Daryl Dixon. Really, who else would you want to play as in The Walking Dead? We’ve spent a lot of time with Daryl recently, really getting to know him. We’ve reviewed every scrap of his series footage, pored over interviews, and most importantly, gotten insight and guidance—but still no Season 3 spoilers–from the ultimate authority, actor Norman Reedus.

It’s been surprising for some of us to dive deeper into a character we thought we knew from the show. Did you know that even though Daryl has pulled a gun (and crossbow, and knife) more times than you can count, the only living person he’s actually killed is Dale, in a very clear-cut mercy killing? That’s the kind of attribute we’re interested in exposing beneath the leather-tough exterior.

I traveled to Atlanta recently with our Audio Director Kyle Richards in order to work with Norman Reedus, who plays Daryl on the show. He recorded Daryl’s in-game dialogue during a pair of recording sessions. We’re big fans of the series, but once you work with an actor in the flesh you really get to know him. Norman is super-cool, generous, and a real joy to work with. And man, does that guy deliver! He gets the scene, the line, and what you’re going for instantly and then doubles down on it, effortlessly ‘Darylizing’ lines for maximum punch. He’s the kind of actor that really makes writers look good. When you finally hear the lines you’ve been shaping and reshaping in your head for months spoken in that voice – and sounding way better than you even hoped? Well, that makes for a pretty good day. And he really got into the game, which is especially gratifying.

Kyle, our audio director, wanted to chime in here as well:

“Norman’s a badass. One second you’re talking to this cool, laid-back guy, and then he clears his throat, and there’s Daryl, larger than life. You’re suddenly checking your back to make sure walkers aren’t creeping up on you. This is actually the first video game he’s ever worked on, but you’d think he’d been doing it for years! Also, he has excellent taste in motorcycles.”

Our goal is to shape Daryl authentically, chronicling everything that happens to him from the initial Wildfire Global Outbreak until he joins with Rick Grimes’ group at that quarry near Atlanta. And on the way, we’ll reveal a couple of our own interesting backstory surprises that fans haven’t already gleaned from the series.

Photo by Scott Garfield/AMC

As a bonus, we get to recreate that original dark blot of violence on mankind, Merle Dixon. The relationship between the Dixon brothers is complicated, to say the least. We get to illustrate from Daryl’s point of view the conflict created when the toughest, most capable-of-surviving-zombie-apocalypse person you know is also the most volatile, uncontainable force of nature left on the planet. Also: he’s your older brother. All fun all the time!

What I find fascinating about AMC’s The Walking Dead is the way that they’ve been able to take an epic, global story and focus it on the human equation. The main story arc involves the outbreak of walkers, but the show is really about morality and the choices people are forced to make in unusual circumstances. How far would you go to protect your family? Is life still worth living and protecting? Who do you trust and how much is that trust worth? These are all questions that drive the story and while there is a visceral thrill in watching the interaction with the walkers, there is an emotional connection with the characters that really forms the heart of the show.

We’re really looking forward to letting everyone see how we’ve taken our appreciation for the series (and Daryl in particular) and turned it into an interactive experience. Players will have the opportunity to meet some interesting characters and have a hand in deciding their fate.

Oh, and there are some really cool zombies.

An IGN reader has provided the site with a bundle of Destiny screenshots and story materials that it says were compiled by an ad agency. Destiny is the long-rumored secret project that will serve as Bungie's followup to the Halo series. The screenshots show an Earth in a future "littered with the ruins of man's Golden Age," according to the materials, with a huge alien ship sitting above the planet. There are also shots of various soldiers and war vehicles, along with a more final logo similar to the one we've seen before.

And now Bungie has added to the collection with its own official screenshot above. On the official Bungie blog, the company vaguely confirms the leaks, saying, "Go ahead. Take a peek. It's alright. We weren't quite ready, but we will be soon, and we can't wait to finally show you what we've really been up to."

The leaked documents describe Destiny as "fun and accessible to all," and say the property's goal is "to create a universe as deep, tangible and relatable as that of the Star Wars franchise." That leaked contract between Bungie and publisher Activision about the project suggests that this title will involve four games, as many DLC releases, and stretch across the next console generation, so it's possible that this art reveals the very first step in what might be a long journey forward.

It’s something of a Herculean effort that has seen me get far enough through Family Guy: Back To The Multiverse (you can tell how proud people are of this – there’s no official site, and developers Heavy Iron don’t mention it on their site) to be able to let you know wot I think.

(more…)

Eurocom, which most recently worked on 007 Legends, experienced massive layoffs today. GamesIndustry received a statement from the developer that it let go of a majority of over 200 employees today.

"We've fought to try and save as many jobs as possible, but the steep decline in demand for console games, culminating in a number of console projects falling through in the last week, left us with no option," the statement to GI.biz reads. "Eurocom has retained a core staff of just under 50 employees and will be focusing mainly on mobile opportunities moving forward."

007 Legends was not well received by critics, with a current Metacritic of 45. Prior to that, Eurocom made the Goldeneye 007 remake and Dead Space: Extraction, which will always hold a special place in Joystiq's heart for giving us Dead Space Girl.

Treyarch updated Call of Duty Black Ops 2 on PC and Xbox 360 this week, and now the patch notes for both updates are out in the wild.

According to the patch notes, the Xbox 360 title update brings improvements to live and playback video streaming, as well as addressing a number of exploits and minor errors. The PC update increases the maximum field-of-view setting to 90 degrees, improves dedicated server matchmaking, and bundles in a few other fixes too.

The PS3 version received a patch across the weekend targeting freezing and console shutdown issues. Activision is still receiving post-patch reports of in-game freezes.

The Xbox 360 version of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has received an update, and while the full patch notes won't be available until tomorrow, we do know some details thanks to Treyarch design director David Vonderhaar's Twitter account.

Specifically, we know that an issue preventing Dragonfire drones from deploying correctly has been corrected, in addition to an error that caused Escort Drones to attack their owners and Theater Mode UI Error #226117, whatever that is. The bouncing care package glitch, which supposedly causes care packages to bounce wildly away from their drop location, is still being investigated and will not be corrected with this patch.