Killer Freaks from Outer Space is a first-person shooter in development by Ubisoft for the Wii U, and if this post is to be believed, there are art assets from the game that can be found after the break. But, while these assets are gorgeous, the versions you see within the game itself will be at a lower poly-count (meaning, less detail), but you can use the art to have a get a general sense of what it’ll all look like.
The LinkedIn profile for a Senior Online Engineer with Ubisoft has revealed there will be an online, multiplayer mode in Killer Freaks from Outer Space. This isn’t a big surprise. The first video we saw of the game featured an interesting local, multiplayer mode. But it’s still nice to have the confirmation.
Note: There seems to be confusion about this article, but to clarify, the point isn’t that the screen on the controller can’t run at 1080p or 720p. That was never going to happen. The point is that there will be many games that can’t run at 1080p via the television because of the way the controller is used.
It was confirmed at E3 2011 that the Wii U will support 1080p. But the word “support” doesn’t mean “all games will run at 1080p”. It just means that, in theory, they could run at the higher resolution. And according to a post on NeoGAF, developers may need to take advantage of this fuzzy language, since it may be difficult for them to make their games playable in 1080p without shunning the touchscreen controller (or lowering the frame-rate to the point of near-unplayability).
Killer Freaks from Outer Space was one of the first games announced for the Wii U. And, in an amusing anecdote, Guillaume Brunier shared that they:
…worked with the early Wii U dev kits before E3, but even we hadn’t seen the actual device until a day before the show. So, they were working with a controller that would have worked in a similar way, or something like that.
But it still amuses me that it was so last-minute to see the hardware they were building the game for. You can click here to watch footage from the demo they showed during E3.
;)
Killer Freaks from Outer Space from Ubisoft is one of the known exclusives for the Wii U. Many people have remarked that the enemies within the game are similar to the Rabbids that have starred in many of Ubisoft’s other titles. This is no coincidence as Rabbids were, at some point, within the game but were removed once Ubisoft realised the targeting wasn’t right. Probably because this game is meant to be violent, bloody, and “hardcore”, while Rabbids embody the exact opposite of all of that.
It has also been mentioned the game was originally proposed for the Xbox 360 and PS3. We’re not sure exactly why it made the leap to the Wii U, but an exclusive is always a good thing to have either way.
Guillaume Brunier, the producer of Killer Freaks from Outer Space believes the Wii U’s controller makes turning easier in an FPS. The ideas is that you can turn 180 degrees in the physical world and because the controller has a screen you can shoot the bad guys who were behind you. This is how Brunier explains it:
We’ve used the accelerometer feature. If you move very fast the game will know and adjust movement speed. Those familiar with FPSes know how difficult it is to go around 180 degrees. With these new controls it’s a thing of the past.
This just sounds clunky though. There’s that initial “cool” factor I guess. But for the most part I think it’d break the immersion that less intrusive controls can provide. It’s the subtler uses for the controller that will make it the most useful.
Ubisoft will be the company with the most games available on the Wii U at the launch of new system next year. That’s just how they roll. But I do like that they’re working on unique content such as Killer Freaks from Outer Space. They also have another game in development, but they’re keeping it under wraps for the time being.
Yves Guillemot, the CEO of Ubisoft has said that “We will announce one game that we want to launch day one that is a new type of game, which should be interesting.” Vague, sure, but I do like new things.
And as much as I hate Ubisoft when it comes to their rabid exploitation of system launches, they do know how to entice me with grand promises. Clever buggers.