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

Batman Forever star Val Kilmer will provide the voice of villain Walker Sloan in Spider-Man: Edge of Time. It’s part of Activision’s plans to bolster its Spider-Man and X-Men Destiny multiformat games with Hollywood voice talent. Smallville’s Laura Vandervoort will voice Mary Jane while Katee Sackhoff – who played Lieutenant …

Batman fans will be able to get their hands on a special Collector’s Edition when Arkham City arrives this October. The Collector’s Edition will include a custom Batman statue, a collectible art book, the game’s soundtrack and a bonus DC Universe animated movie, Batman: Gotham Knight. It will also grant …

It was only a year ago that top-level industry execs were questioning the very viability and future of the console hardware cycle. Now, the move to a new breed of machines is near, it is being claimed. And these claims come from the very top of leading publisher Ubisoft. The …

Short of being caught up in the News of the World phone tapping fiasco, it’s hard to imagine how things could be much worse for retro games icon Mega Man right now. Capcom has confirmed that the in development Mega Man Legends 3 is no more. It’s the second cancellation …

Develop Conference: Games attempting emotional drama 'resemble the inverted baboon in The Fly'

Square Enix has lifted the lid on a massively multiplayer online version of its Championship Manager football franchise. Called Championship Manager: World of Football, the game will of course be free-to-play and will be accessible from any standard web browser. It is being developed by both series stalwart Beautiful Game …

Publisher Square Enix has announced that console RPG sequel Final Fantasy XIII-2 will be released in North America in January 2012. It has already been pencilled in for a December 2011 release in Japan on Ps3 and Xbox 360. There’s no concrete European release date as of yet, but that’s …

Attendees at the Develop Awards this week will be invited to donate towards industry charity GamesAid. A special envelope will be placed on each table at the sell-out event, with guests on the night encouraged to put just 10 each inside. You can alsodonate now onlineto help the games industry’s …

EA Sports has announced it will open a new studio in Austin, Texas that will create around 300 jobs. The studio joins EA Sports’ existing offices in Tiburon, Florida and Burnaby, British Columbia. It’s part of the publisher’s plans to expand its sports game label. "It’s an exciting time for …

Develop Conference: Supercell CEO predicts multi-platform convergence in browsers 'within a year'