14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the theme of the videogame world this week has been delay, as more and more games appear to be moving from the fall and winter of 2009 to the greener-looking spring of 2010. Is it fear of the behemoth that is Modern Warfare 2? Is it just a need to put some more work into them? We don't know but this does not change the fact that this fall will be much less packed than we thought.
Monday was about franchises, as Bungie said, again, that Halo Reach might be the last game in the series it worked on. Let's not forget that it stated the same thing regarding Halo 3 during the summer of 2008, so the news needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The other big Xbox 360 franchise, Gears of War, was also set to expand by bringing COG Armor to the Xbox Live Avatars.
On Tuesday, we found out about the release date for Resident Evil 5 on the PC and about the system requirements. Zombies have never looked this good on consoles. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced that it planned to ship its next racer, Forza Motorsport 3, on October 27, right alongside the future Gran Turismo.
On Wednesday, we returned to big franchises, with World of Warcraft getting an in-game team of psychologists ready to assist any gamer that gets depressed upon failing a raid or because of their building addiction to MMOs and with Microsoft detailing something called Halo Waypoint, which is not a new game in the series but an Xbox Live location set to centralize all the information related to the franchise.
Thursday was dedicated to delays and cancellations. Peter Jackson confirmed that the Halo project on which he was said to be working was no longer in development, while further news related to Starcraft II being pushed back to spring 2010 appeared and with analysts saying that there was a possibility that Modern Warfare 2 would have an even bigger release because of the move.
Friday was again about delays, but this time, the news was good as a judge ruling on a suit between Double Fine and Activision related to Brutal Legend means that the game should be arriving this year. Meanwhile, Microsoft was busy talking about how Gearbox, the creators of Borderlands, would not be making the next Halo.
Considering the current trend, don't forget to check out this feature again next week. Who knows, maybe by then, Modern Warfare 2 will be delayed to 2010.