Resistance: Fall of Man 2 - Autumn Release Confirmed!

273w ago - Slipped into the bottom of a press release regarding the extension to Insomniac Games' 'Nocturnal' initiative comes the news that the PS3-exclusive, Resistance: Fall of Man 2 is due out in Autumn 2008.

The text reads: "Insomniac Games is currently developing Resistance 2(TM), which will release this fall, exclusively for PlayStation 3."

This would more than suggest, therefore, that the Easter egg hidden in the video below indicates not only more enemies, but a demo for July.





The news came as a tag to Insomniac's announcement of the second phase of its Nocturnal tech-sharing initiative, "in which it will share elements of its technology source code and presentations free of charge with the worldwide development community".

The technology source code in question is firmly PlayStation 3 focused. The first (R&D) phase was launched in August 2007 and was last updated on the 30th of January this year. The addition to Nocturnal comes in the form of a Wiki. This is described as follows:

"Our goal is to develop an open collection of libraries and utilities for addressing common challenges in game development.

Nocturnal is not a game engine. The libraries provided here are potentially very useful for developing a game engine, but we want to avoid the 'all things to all people' that so often results in overly complex and/or under-performing monolithic engines. Instead, we want to provide a useful toolbox for the professional game developer."

There are continuing arguments regarding how difficult Sony's next-gen platform is to develop for make. Electronic Arts has been in the 'challenged camp', while Activision has said it's not a problem.

Insomniac Nocturnal could certainly help to assist other developers in getting over the challenges. From the look of the Wiki, it could also achieve this in a very sensible manner:

"There are a lot of common problems that are presented during game development. These problems are often solved separately at game studios across the industry. Sometimes the same people end up writing the same solution at several companies throughout their career.

"This is a waste of resources that can be avoided by openly sharing useful foundation code and techniques across company boundaries.

"We feel that this kind of sharing will allow studios to focus more on what sets their games apart and less on the basic building blocks necessary to create a modern game. It is our hope that this will result in studios making better games in less time, and hence benefit the industry as a whole."

It all sounds like outrageous hippydom aimed at undermining the very philosophy of keeping things secret in order to re-invent the wheel and hold games development back... The first big cheer of 2008, therefore, goes to Insomniac Games!