Brothers In Arms goes next-gen

By Tom Bramwell Published 13 April, 2006

PS3, X360, PC - this Christmas.

Gearbox is working on a new Brothers In Arms game for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC, in which you get to "do" Operation Market Garden with old pals Matt Baker and Joe Harstock.

Called Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway, it's going to be out this Christmas and promises new gameplay features and redesigned online stuff - all done up prettily in the Unreal 3 Engine.

There's no word on what those new features are, sadly, but we should hear a bit more about it soon, as Ubi's done one of those pesky mag exclusives in the US. We'd also be surprised if it's not at E3 given it's due out this year.

'Brothers In Arms goes next-gen' Screenshot 1

No wonder they're running - look at his teeth!

In the meantime, here's what Gearbox's Randy Pitchford reckons about it: "With Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway, Gearbox is investing everything to take next-generation gaming to an entirely new level. For Brothers In Arms Hell's Highway, the Unreal Engine 3 powers real next-generation graphics and the most intense, action-oriented recreation of true history ever offered as interactive entertainment."

So, look forward to new levels of World War II later this year.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 6 years ago

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

  • Talha #1 6 years ago

    World War II: The Real Next Gen!! ;-)

  • TedBaker #2 6 years ago

    Next-Gen? Does this mean we see limbs and entrails? Nasty tho the sight of the stuff is, I can't see how much more that can be done to make the WWII experience any different from Last-Gen. If they can put the "I've been hit so I can't react whilst the enemy continues to pump bullets in me" annoyance in this genre, surely body parts is next on the agenda?

  • #3 6 years ago

    Is it just me who thinks that a current-gen engine will never produce a *genuine* next-gen game?
    What do these people even mean by next gen anyway? - It plays just like the old one, but it so pretty you're fooled into thinking it's another step beyond?
    /Sigh
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/06 @ 10:51

  • dr_zoidthrob #4 6 years ago

    Matt Baker? Not the Blue Peter presenter, surely...

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/bluepeter/presenters/matt/

  • #5 6 years ago

    I hear that tucker!
    For me the 'closest' we've come is probably FNR3. A genuinely different way to play games, where the graphical hyperbole and animations actually conveyed the status of your character and the opponent. People who put on the heath bars obviously didn't get the point.
    When will the graphical details in a game actually start conveying more useful information that fjust eye candy!?

  • RedPanda #6 6 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • Carlo #7 6 years ago

    My brother;s a *massive* fan of the series, I've just told him this news, he's going bananas.

    Thanks EG :D

  • trevd72 #8 6 years ago

    best news i have heard all week. love BIA!

  • #9 6 years ago

    Imagine, if you will a 3rdPS where you get shot at and you can see blood oozing out of wounds/ your character looses the ability to use certain limbs/mobility/motor function etc. You can also see individual bullet holes in your body armor etc. The amount of blood reflects how badly you're hurt, you start to degrade and limp even more, on the brink of nausea and passing out etc.

    Now let's go further. When you get healed or heal yourself, you actually plug the wounds with bandages/patch the body armor etc. and you can see them right there. It lets you know that you’ve been badly hurt. If you push the character too hard you start to see them stain with blood, and again the animation tells you that you’ve got to ease off.

    Take it further, you can see from the equipment how many magazines you have left, you can get a close-up of the weapon to see (via the holes we see all the time in anime/films) about how many rounds there are left in the clip. You can tell by what the guy’s got slung on his back what other gadgets/weaponry your character has (obviously wouldn’t work for RPGs unless you had a big droppable sac!).

    This is all possible. But obviously a lot harder than taking an old game, making everything shiny and blurry and calling it ‘next-gen’ (PDZ, I’m having a go at your annoying visuals here).

    These things I described I can imagine appearing on the X360 and PS3, but NOT on the Xbox or PS2. This is why they would truly be next gen.
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/06 @ 11:18

  • TedBaker #10 6 years ago

    @jamesphilp

    Hehe. Sounds like Sony PS3 marketing to me... You been attending one of their "this is what we hope to see on our machines" talks? :) The "Defining moment" of what makes a machine stand out: GTA, God of War etc.

    Though I do agree with your comments about FNR3. Totally appreciate that seeing how your virtual self behaves on screen through their physical appearance does lend more to the experience than a stats bar.

  • Dizzy #11 6 years ago

    >Now let's go further

    Dude.. maybe you just just join the real army ;)

  • #12 6 years ago

    Dizzy,
    No thanks:
    i) I don't want to die
    ii) I don't want to fight for things I don't believe in
    iii) The real army is a lot more dull than most people realise :)
    EDIT: Oh and:
    iv) I like playing games
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/06 @ 11:40

  • #13 6 years ago

    Don't get me wrong though - I really liked BIA. I won't say I enjoyed it, because I actulally found it quite creepy (real locations, scenarios, people etc).
    I do think it's time to move on from WWII though. Not that this will ever happen while America still dominates the market, as WWII is about the only military escapade that they can feel truly proud about; a real enemy, well defined good/bad boundaries, genuine evil-doings going on and a genereally well-fought war with well trained soldiers.
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/06 @ 11:47

  • dbeamish #14 6 years ago

    this pic was on xboxyde about 2 months ago

  • Triggerhappytel #15 6 years ago

    "Getting sick of these glossed up "next gen" ports now."

    My sentiments exactly. I am totally underwhelmed by next-gen so far. I'd rather stick to playing solid current-gen games like Dragon Quest or Shadow of the Colossus for the time being.

  • coojam #16 6 years ago

    re: jamesphilp... did you ever play The Getaway? A flawed game, its true, but it had many of the elements you talked about. No health bars, no direction arrows.

    The character would get more and more bloody and limp around the more damaged he got. No instantaneous medipacks either (Tho he could lean against a wall to regain some health) To tell you where to go while driving, your indicators would tell you which turn to take.

    I really enjoyed these elements, but they're hardly "next-gen"...they're simply a well executed idea by a novel-thinking developer.

    Similarly, Condemned used the feature of checking an ammo clip.

    Just because you remove the health bars and HUD, doesn't mean you have a next-gen game.

  • Helios #17 6 years ago

    Thing with next gen is that you have to wonder where games can go from here. racing games? Shooters? RPGs? People complain that the next generation is not really next gen, but how many amazing advances did we get in the last gen?
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/06 @ 14:46

  • Lukus #18 6 years ago

    re jamesphillip blood etc-
    Wouldn't this take all the fun out of running around shooting people? It's a little too much like hard work having to constantly sew your legs back on. I think it would make a good DS game though

  • Helios #19 6 years ago

    Sorta like trauma center except you cause the trauma?

  • Dizzy #20 6 years ago

    "Is it just me who thinks that a current-gen engine will never produce a *genuine* next-gen game? "

    I thought real next gen was pre-rendered movies????
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/06 @ 16:05

  • Lukus #21 6 years ago

    @ Helios- pretty much yes (:

  • #22 6 years ago

    coojam,
    good points, well made.
    I have never played that game, but yes that does sound like some of the stuff I'm talking about. And I forgot about that thing in condemed (though you only ever had to count to 5!)
    It certainly is hard to define the "gen" we're in!
    But a era where no games have heath bars and everything is so intuative you just know what's going on without prompts or stat bars would be a different "gen" i guess.

    Certainly I think if a developer wanted to put the correct ammount of effort in, build things from the ground up and really define this new generation of consoles' benchmark the opportunity is right there, and a lot of people are waiting.

    Suffice to say that a cross-platform BIA sequel will only be called "next gen" because it will be co-currently developed for the PS3/360. I doubt it will include any real next-gen content, but hey, I'd love to be proved wrong!

    I think we have reached a level in gaming now (with PS2 and xbox) where a lot more people are starting to realise that a lot of "new" games are in fact simply tarted-up copies of old gameplay mechanic, and actiually it serves no additional purpose to have graphics better than a well-implemented xbox game (beyond definition of course). People are looking for gameplay innovation more and more it seems, and I guess this is also Nintendo's POV with both the DS and Rev.

    And yes, a touchscreen in the middle of the controller where you can tie knots for bandages etc would be ver cool! :p
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/06 @ 17:03

  • Spanker #23 6 years ago

    Let's hope it is "next gen" enough that one can actually climb 2 1/2 foot fences in the next version, and everything is not layed out in neat squares like Pacman for the AI, and it is not so linear as the last one.