Today, the developers of Two Worlds have announced a sequel to their role-playing game.  Two Worlds II will be released this winter for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (PS3), Windows and Mac platforms.  The game takes palce two years after the events in Two Worlds.

Two Worlds is a large-scale open-world RPG in the style of The Elder Scrolls or Gothic 3.  The game made its debut in 2007 and was fairly successful.  However, bugs in the game, including glitched achievements on the Xbox 360 version, brought a number of complaints from those who would have otherwise enjoyed the title.

Two Worlds II promises to correct these problems with a new game engine.  The announcement explains:

“Two Worlds II” presents a totally new gamer experience, one in which 2 years of intensive development has enabled quantum leaps in all spheres: completely overhauled AI and balancing standards, experienced authors, the active combat system and the brand-new engine all combine to provide an unforgettable experience where excitement, sheer enjoyment and graphics rule.

The game will be out this winter.  More on Two Worlds II as it comes.

With the news of Final Fantasy XIV yesterday, the active player base of Final Fantasy XI has been wondering what’s going to happen with thier game.

Square Enix commented on it briefly today.  The company will continue to put an effort into bringing new content to Final Fantasy XI for about one more year.  The small add-on A Crystalline Prophecy was recently released, and two more similar add-ons are on the way.  No full-sized expansions have been announced, as Wings of the Goddess still needs to be completed (as not all missions are yet available).  It’s unlikely that another expansion will appear.

Once the year is up, the company will stop producing updates for Final Fantasy XI, with the exception of bug fixes.  No new content will be produced.  It’s unclear how long the company plans to keep FFXI online after that, though the game will probably shut down when the player base falls below an economically viable population.

Some players have already made pacts to make the move from FFXI to FFXIV together, with the possibility of entire linkshells moving at once.  Although FFXIV is not a direct sequel to FFXI, it seems that the game will be similar, and even appears to have the same races available to characters.

More on this as we get it.

Square Enix has stepped up to the plate to challenge Sony’s claim that Final Fantasy XIV will be PS3-exclusive.

Sony announced Final Fantasy XIV: Online during their E3 press conference yesterday, stating that it was a PS3-exclusive game.  As an MMORPG, that made little sense, since PCs are still the preferred platform for most players.  It was confirmed later in the day that a Windows Vista version would also be made available.

But earlier mentions of the game, under its code-name Rapture, had suggested that an Xbox 360 version would also appear, and Microsoft also challenged the claim.  Xbox boss Aaron Greenberg said that, as far as he knew, they were still getting a version.

So today, Square Enix talked about the issue during their press conference.  They clarified that, so far, only PS3 and PC versions are in the works, but that an Xbox 360 port of the game is still under consideration.  So it’s not PS3-exclusive… not really.  Looks like Sony got too excited.

Given that their current MMO, Final Fantasy XI, has been available and apparently successful on the Xbox 360 for quite some time, and is only now expecting a PS3 release, it seems unlikely that Square Enix would ignore the console for this title.  After all, they’ve recently given the console a fair bit of attention with Star Ocean: The Last Hope and the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII.

We’ve got new images of Final Fantasy XIV on the site now, so check them out.  It looks… pretty.

Meanwhile, I’ve been busy posting RPG news to the new Galbadia X Twitter account, so follow @galbadiax to get the latest on all of the E3 happenings.

Square Enix announced their next MMORPG at E3 today.  Final Fantasy XIV: Online will be coming in 2010.

The game is not a sequel to Final Fantasy XI any more than the other Final Fantasy games follow each other.  Instead, it will take place in its own world, called Eorzea.

Final Fantasy XIV, as it stands, is PlayStation 3 exclusive in the console world — but there will be a PC version as well, which is vital to MMO success.  Although it was previously said that Rapture (the code name for FF14) would be released on the Xbox 360, it seems that Sony was able to convince them otherwise.

The game is set for a 2010 release worldwide.

Check out the trailer.  It definitely has an FFXI feel to it:

We’ll bring you more as it comes.

News comes from Japan that Square Enix will bring its long-running MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI, to the Sony PlayStation 3.

Final Fantasy XI began in Japan in 2002, and in North America in 2003.  It’s been released for the PlayStation 2 (PS2), Windows PC and, most recently, the Xbox 360.  FFXI has always been a cross-platform title, with players being able to use any of the three platforms, and even switch between them, within the same persistent world.  The PS3 version is expected to provide the same feature, and bring the high-definition graphics provided in the Xbox 360 version.

No specific date has been set for the release.  More on this as it comes.

Richard Garriott, the man behind the Ultima series, and more rectently Tabula Rasa, is suing NCSoft, the company that published Tabula Rasa.

Garriott served as CEO of NCSoft Austin until November of last year.  Shortly after returning from his paid visit to space, as a tourist, he apparently resigned from his position at the company. An open letter to the NCSoft customers and to the MMO community from Garriott was published on the Tabula Rasa forums.

According to the letter, Garriott was leaving the company voluntarily to pursue other interests.  Apparently, visiting space had made him rethink his priorities.

But that’s not really what happaned, at least not according to Garriott’s $24 million lawsuit.  According to Garriott, he was informed immediately upon his return to Earth that his time at NCSoft was done.

The post, the lawsuit says, was not written by Garriott. NCSoft put it up there to make things look good for the company. At the time, Garriott did not see a reason to object.  Now, he wishes he had.

As a part of Garriott’s contract, he had stock options until 2011.  The terms of his contract stated that his options would remain available to him until 2011, even if his position at the company was terminated.  However, if he were to voluntarily walk away from NCSoft, his options would expire after 90 days.

And there lies the problem: Richard Garriott insists that his termination was involuntary, but because NCSoft put up the front of Garriott leaving for personal reasons, they have recorded his departure as a voluntary one.  Garriott attempted to have this status changed multiple times, but NCSoft refused to comply, forcing Garriott to sell off his options at a bad time.  After all, in a recession the options were worth considerably less than they would have been in better financial times.

The lawsuit seeks $24 million in damages from NCSoft, claiming breach of contract, fraud and negligent misrepresentation.  You can see the official details of the lawsuit here.

If the things said in the lawsuit are true, he has a good point.  We’ll have to wait and see what NCSoft says about it.

Game Trailers has delivered us a new trailer for Final Fantasy XIII, which they’ve added to with translations of the game’s dialogue, as well as information about the battle system.  Check it out.

Final Fantasy XIII is due out by the end of the year in Japan, by Spring 2010 in North America, and some time in 2010 in Europe.  Japan will only see a PS3 version, while other regions will see it on the Xbox 360 also.

Square Enix also said that it has no plans to put out a Blu-ray demo of the game in English.  The Japanese demo was released with the Blu-ray release of Advent Children Complete.

The iPhone is growing as a gaming platform, it seems.  EA tells us, by way of Kotaku, that a Mass Effect game will be coming to the handheld device.

Mass Effect: Jacob’s Story will be a prequel to the main Mass Effect storyline, following the story of a biotic-enhanced human, Jacob, who “stumbles across” a terrorist plot.

The game will combine a graphic novel style of story telling with shooter-style gameplay.  Two hours of gameplay/story experience are promised.

Jacob’s Story will be out on the iPhone and the iPod Touch platforms.  No news yet on when the game will surface, but the price tag is said to be only $2.99 U.S.

New details and images have emerged showing off the battle system of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII, after the playable demo surfaced in Japan.

The battles will be entirely in real-time and seamless with the rest of the gameplay.  When a battle starts, the camera angles will zoom in on the action, rather than begin a seperate battle on its own stage.  (This makes it a little more like Final Fantasy XII, which handled battles in MMORPG fashion, rather as than a traditional turn-based RPG.)

All commands in the game consume TP, or time points.  There is no MP in the game.  By allotting the amount of TP available per turn, you can execute multiple smaller commands, or fewer large attacks.  You can enter an unlimited number of commands at any time, which will be executed in order as the TP becomes available each turn.  This allows you to plan out future attacks and maintaining a turn-based feel to a real-time battle system.

Attacking enemies multiple times in a turn will lead to a chain.  If you’re able to deal a certain amount of damage, your character will enter a break state, similar to the limit breaks in various Final Fantasy titles.  In a break state, more damage can be done, and presumably additional commands become available.

Final Fantasy XIII may see release in Japan by the end of the year.  Other releases aren’t expected until April 2010.  The game is set to be released on the PlayStation 3 (PS3) everywhere, and on the Xbox 360 outside of Japan.

Peter Molyneux of Lionhead has revealed to Kotaku that the next bit of downloadable content (DLC) for Fable II is on the way.  Entitled See The Future, the download is due out this spring.

Molyneux said that his company was in a hurry to put out its first download for the game, Knothole Island, but that the next one will be much deeper.  “This time we’ve taken a little bit more time on it, it’s a little bit more story driven,” he says.

Molyneux went on to say that See The Future will relate to what’s next in the Fable universe.  He stopped short of announcing Fable III, but said that the DLC “starts to tease and hint at what it starting to happen in the world of Albion and what is happening in the future.”

“…what I would want to happen is something big.”

More on the DLC’s details, and Fable III, as we get it.