MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry

One of the most hotly-tipped free-to-play games will be showcased at London Games Conference. A session on Hawken joins already-announced talks from Twitter, Google, EA Origin, Yogscast, Sega, Disney, IGN, ISFE and Gamesbrief. You can book your place now viawww.londongamesconference.com The high-end free-to-play shooter Hawken launches in December and will …

A victory for girl power, and indeed common sense. Developer Gearbox has acted on the criticism it received earlier this summer and confirmed that playable female characters are to be introduced to 2013 release Aliens: Colonial Marines. The exclusion of playable women was bizarre in itself, but the decision was …

'Non-photorealistic' rendering toolset for 3D art package promises to push boundaries in a different direction

Crowdfunding platform about more than cash and consumer-focused promotion, says VR headset CEO

INTERVIEW: MCV talks to EA COO Peter Moore about a market in transition, the future of discs and his costly Bejeweled habit… Thanks to gruelling media training, most senior games industry execs have been groomed to never say anything off message. Every comment, for most publishers, is on-brand with little …

Develop speaks to Brendan Iribe about why the virtual reality outfit took to Kickstarter and how it plans to change the industry

A release date for the long-awaited Black Mesa Source has finally been confirmed. It will be made available to download on September 14th. The fan-made remake of 1998 classic Half-Life is a frame-by-frame reconditioning” that uses Valve’s more modern Source engine to give the game a visual lift. The release …

NCsoft has claimed a surprising victory in the UK charts with new MMO release Guild Wars 2 debuting at top spot. It’s the second largest launch ever in the UK for a non-World of Warcraft MMO, bettered only by EA’s Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s also the first PC …

Square Enix has announced a third title in the Final Fantasy XIII continuum. FF XIII: Lightning Returns is due out in 2013 on Xbox 360 and PS3 and acts as a standalone title rather than a sequel to FF XIII sequel FF XIII-2. It will also be the closing chapter …

Konami has revealed the next instalment in its popular stealth series – Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes. And furthermore, despite the amazing debut video – which can be seen below – the publisher insists that the game is bound for current-gen consoles. It’s also a multiplatform release, meaning that for …