Croteam prepara un juego para PS3

We all remember Serious Sam and the first time we got blasted by screaming guys with bombs for heads. We know how absorbed we were the utterly frantic first-person shooting insanity Croteam was able to create, and we're certainly interested in what they're up to now. Today they've announced an untitled new project to be published by Gamecock Media Group, which will apparently release sometime in North America in 2009 for the PC and "specific next-gen consoles," according to the press release. The new game is being built with Croteam's own Serious Engine 3. Please note, this is not Serious Sam 3, but an entirely new intellectual property.

Unfortunately that's about all we were told. In a follow up email we, got this response from Gamecock leader, Mike Wilson: "The folks at Croteam have spent the last year cranking on their engine and some pre-production for this title. It's definitely in a genre they are familiar with and will exploit their experience. As you can see by the screens, they have made a graphical leap since their last title and given they have a lot of experience in building rich environments, expect all the bells and whistles. These guys also have a strong sense of style and design, so you will find the premise and gameplay intriguing. I wish I could say more, but this title is pretty far out...well, maybe I can say one more thing. You know that the one thing Croteam is the best at - better than most every other developer in the world - is making games that are frantic and, most importantly, fun. This title is definitely both of those things."

Though much of that is marketing-speak, it does strongly hint at a few details. First, it seems the game will be a first-person shooter. From the screens we can interpret the game may have a more realistic focus, but who knows at this point. Gamecock was unwilling to reveal any details regarding story, Croteam's motivations for creating a new intellectual property seemingly set in modern wartime, or even the game's setting. Mike did say the title would be "frantic," but we're apparently going to have to wait and see whether that means Call of Duty frantic or Serious Sam frantic.

Anyway, check out the screens since that's pretty much all we have. We'll let you know more when it's available.

For those curious about Serious Engine 3, here are some technical specs from the press release: "The Serious Engine 3 is a ground-up reworking of Croteam's proprietary game creation system, designed to fully exploit next-generation consoles and state-of-the art PC hardware. The systems' advanced multi-core HDR-rendering graphics system supports full per-pixel lighting and shadowing (including shadowbuffers) and boasts a custom GPU-accellerated baker for GI lightmaps. The system also incorporates a custom multi-threaded physics solver designed for better performance on multicore CPUs and built-in support for action-game models - such as FPS characters - which allows them to naturally interact with other physical objects."