Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

With 38 Studios’ goods for sale, who will make Kingdoms of Amalur 2?

Anthony John Agnello
By
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The saga of 38 Studios will come to a close on Oct. 23 when the SJ Corio Company holds its second and final auction of its material assets in Providence, Rhode Island. The goods going up on the block range from the mundane to the exceedingly valuable, at least by video game development standards. 38 Studios office furniture will be sold alongside its servers, graphic design, and motion capture equipment. Just who will buy up the pieces of 38’s legacy is an interesting question facing the gaming industry. While we know that Microsoft is anxious to prevent the sale of the Xbox development kits seized from 38 Studios, who else in the industry might be interested?

Epic Games’ newest studio Impossible Games certainly has a vested interest in the remnants of 38 Studios’ operation. Impossible is comprised primarily of developers from former 38 Studios subsidiary Big Huge Games, that team behind that company’s only release, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The first auction of 38 assets being held on Oct. 16 in Timonium, Maryland has a selection of gear and other games like a “video game library” that could be valuable to the team at Impossible, especially if it plans to renew work on the planned sequel to Reckoning it was making when 38 Studios was shuttered by Rhode Island.

Recommended Videos

It looks as though that won’t happen though. Whether or not Impossible’s staff attempts to repurchase lost goods from its old office, it won’t be to complete Kingdoms of Amalur 2 since Epic will not be pursuing the IP when the state of Rhode Island sells it. “We don’t buy IP, we make IP,” Epic told Digital Trends, echoing president Mark Rein’s statements following the formation of Impossible Games.

Related

The Kingdoms of Amalur IP may simply fade into obscurity. Electronic Arts said in July that it would be interested in revisiting the series even though the first one missed sales expectations. It did not, however, commit to trying to buy the series’ rights.

Who else might be digging through the detritus? We contacted Sony to see if it was also attempting to reclaim development tools from the state just like Microsoft, but as of this writing the company hasn’t returned our inquiries. Development kits for video game consoles aren’t purchased by developers, they’re licensed to them. As Microsoft said told Polygon, “Xbox 360 development kits (XDK) are the property of Microsoft and are only licensed to authorized studios and may not be assigned or sold to any third party without the written consent of Microsoft.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Anthony John Agnello
Anthony John Agnello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…
Is Manor Lords multiplayer or co-op?
A medieval market in Manor Lords.

You can easily lose hours designing your village and appeasing your citizens in Manor Lords all by yourself. There are so many different avenues to achieve victory, but the only competition or help you can normally find is in the form of NPCs. Other factions around the map can be helpful or harmful depending on how you play, but what if you wanted to team up with a friend to combine resources, or perhaps compete to see who can crush the other first? Many strategy and city builders thrive on multiplayer components, but does Manor Lords offer those same modes? Make sure you know the answer before making your purchase if that's your intention.
Is there multiplayer or co-op in Manor Lords?
To cut to the chase, the answer is no. Manor Lords is a purely single-player experience through and through. There are no cooperative or competitive modes in the game at all, so there's no way to interact with anyone else either on PC or console. This game was just released out of early access, and there is plenty of content on the way, however, we regret to inform you that multiplayer is not in the plans for the time being.

One developer took to the Steam forums to release an FAQ on the game. One question specifically asked if there is any multiplayer or cooperative gameplay in the game. The response said that "he focus is on a refined single-player experience, with no multiplayer or cooperative modes planned at the moment."

Read more
All console commands and cheats for Fallout: New Vegas
The courier holding a gun with a welcome sign in the background in Fallout: New Vegas key art.

From the moment you begin your adventure in Fallout: New Vegas, you've already cheated death. Your first playthrough of the game should be done as the developers intended, though maybe with a couple of mods to make the experience a little smoother, but nothing that breaks the game. That said, it's been over a decade since the game came out, so odds are you've already played through the intended way at least once. This is when you can have some fun tinkering with the game and play using console commands and cheats if you're on the PC version of the game. There are a ton of commands you can input to manipulate your character, the world, objects, and more. Here's a full rundown of all the cheats there are and how to activate them.
How to enter console commands
Opening up the command console to type in your cheats is just a single keystroke away. While in the game (not paused), hit the ~ key located below your escape key. This will remove your HUD and bring up the prompt to type in any of the below cheats.
All Fallout: New Vegas console commands and cheats

Because there are so many console commands, we're going to break them down into general categories to make it easier for you to find what you're looking for based on what you want to do.
Faction and reputation cheats
addreputation <form id> <variable> <amount> -- Increases your reputation with a faction.

Read more
How to get a gun in Another Crab’s Treasure
Kril has a gun

Another Crab's Treasure no doubt looks like a kid-friendly game, but hiding beneath its charming and cute exterior is a challenging soulslike experience that can test the mettle of genre veterans. Those who either can't or don't want to engage with such intense difficulty throughout this underwater adventure can make great use of a variety of assists. Among these is a rather shocking, but hilarious option that can completely negate nearly all of the game's challenge while providing some laughs along the way. Here's how to get a gun in Another Crab's Treasure.
How to get a gun
To give yourself a gun in Another Crab's Treasure, head over to the Settings menu. Navigate to Assist Mode at the bottom of the menu, then scroll to the bottom once more to a setting called Give Kril a Gun. Toggle this on, then back out and resume your game to find that Kril now has a massive pistol on his back in place of a shell.

This new gun on your back provides you with more than just a funny visual, though -- it actually allows you to shoot and kill any enemy in a single hit, nearly eliminating all of the challenge from the game. Additionally, if you're after trophies or achievements, the first time you shoot a crab with the gun will also unlock "This Kills the Crab."

Read more