New release date for Haze

By Robert Purchese Published 13 November, 2007

Out this year. Apparently.

Ubisoft has said that Haze will be out this year on PS3 - 14th December if you're asking.

A slightly baffling choice - mid-December releases have a sketchy track record, although it perhaps demonstrates that Free Radical is working down to the wire to launch it this side of Christmas.

There is also no sign of the 360 or PC offerings (if they exist, etc and so forth), although we expect them to show up on the schedule in 2008 - maybe lending extra significance in releasing the 'lead platform' version this year.

Haze is a first-person shooter with squad elements and four-player co-operative play. The idea is that you are an ex-member of a global military company that outsources its soldiers, and also uses a powerful drug called Nectar to keep itself on top of the market.

Key to differentiating Haze from the FPS pack is how you exploit the effects of Nectar with your rebel forces. For instance, soldiers high on the drug will become arrogant and ignore you playing dead, or you can simply sever their feed-tubes so they overdose and start killing each other.

It is an interesting premise and one David Doak has previously used to describe the title as a "thinking man's game".

Pop over to our Haze gamepage to make your own mind up.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • NickyJD #1 4 years ago

    lol some guy just posted this over at Neogaf within like two seconds, even included the Eurogamer link.

    Pretty sad, you would think he would comment on it here first before running off to Neofaqs.

  • jiveguy #2 4 years ago

    Rushed game? For Christmas? This could all end in tears.

  • DjFlex52 #3 4 years ago

    who cares about Haze?

    Not me...I just read that the 360 fall update will include downloading full xbox games like Halo & Burnout 3 from the marketplace and finally, video marketplace is coming to Europe...wow!

  • rhinoxious #4 4 years ago

    'who cares about Haze?'

    Probably people who are posting ON TOPIC on a story about Haze. So stop trolling and get back to 360 story where you belong.

    I'm really looking forward to this, as Free Radical have made some great games in teh past, but the december date does look iffy admittedly.

  • Dizzy #5 4 years ago

    >who cares about Haze?

    Then don't post here. We already have enough troll fights.

  • mkreku #6 4 years ago

    This is one of those games that sound much better when talked about than when looked upon. I like the idea of Nectar and how you can use it to your advantage in various ways.. but when I look at the released gameplay videos it looks a bit dull.

    Guess I'm waiting for the review.

  • Xerx3s #7 4 years ago

    who cares about Haze?

    I do. Not to the extend of H3 i.e. but still a lot. It has 4p coop you see...

  • mattigan #8 4 years ago

    It better be good, Sony has a lot riding on it

  • SBfistfun #9 4 years ago

    sb likes a lot riding on it

    GODAMNN!

  • moggsy #10 4 years ago

    Will there be a demo?

  • M83J01P97 #11 4 years ago

    Seeing as this game was almost universally panned at E3 and Leipzig, I thought they would have taken some time to clean it up a little, so either it's been rushed through the final stages of production or they just haven't bothered to address any of the concerns a lot of people had with the title.

    Although I suppose in all fairness they could have been showing an early copy of the game during the summer.

  • miiiguel #12 4 years ago

    It's good to see that PS3 has all the alternative games, in a charismatic artistic approach.
    None of that FPS bullshit...

  • jlaakso #13 4 years ago

    This is the one PS3 game I'm actually looking forward to a lot. Free Radical know their stuff. And the art direction is really very good.

  • SageFrancis #14 4 years ago

    360 fans when it was multiplat:

    "omg haze l00ks AWESOME fap fap fap"

    360 fans when it became PS3 exclusive

    "omg who cares about Haze? Halo fap halo fap"

  • reddevil93 #15 4 years ago

    @ moggsy

    Theres a demo later this month(14th?) on the EU store AFAIK.

  • bodypopper #16 4 years ago

    There's a chance it could run into UT3 which could be bad news for Free Radical.
    I'd like to see some vids which demonstrate that Haze's enemy actually have some challenging level of intelligence as sadly, they show very little of that in what I've seen so far. Odd from the team that made Timesplitters.
    Edited by 1 at 13/11/07 @ 16:15

  • Darren #17 4 years ago

    I haven't seen a lot from Haze bar the two gameplay trailers on the PSN but it was enough to get me interested. I was never a big fan of the TimeSplitters series, they were OK but nothing special beyond the humour and neat weapons. I also disliked the art style of those games which was carried through to the so-so Second Sight but Haze looks like a massive improvement.

    I wasn't aware that this game got panned at E3 though. Why was that? It looks pretty decent from the footage I've seen.

  • M83J01P97 #18 4 years ago

    With the likes of Crysis, CoD 4 and BioShock all being shown alongside Haze back during the expo season, Haze came out with numerous "generic", "nothing new" and "clunky" comments from a lot of the press.

    Don't get me wrong, I love Free Radical, but Haze just like a bland attempt at trying to imitate what everyone else has been doing with FPS games over the past few years and not a delightful burst of originally like the Timesplinter games were for their time.

  • Triggerhappytel #19 4 years ago

    I love FRD - I think TS2 is legend and Future Perfect is still immensely enjoyable (didn't like TS1 and Second Sight was decent but hugely flawed), but I've been really unimpressed by everything I've seen of Haze so far. I hope it's good because Free Radical are one of my favourite development studios, but let's just say I'm not holding my breath on this one.

  • Dizzy #20 4 years ago

    "360 fans when it was multiplat:

    "omg haze l00ks AWESOME fap fap fap" "

    Haze has always been called pretty generic run of the mill FPS. We haven't seen anything yet that shows otherwise. And yes... these comments where made when Haze was still multiplatform.