Spotlight
VideoHydrophobia Prophecy footage surfaces
PS3, Steam version shows off upgrades.
FeatureHydrophobia: We did get a few things wrong
Dark Energy Digital on fixing its baby.
Water into whine.
VideoHydrophobia - first 15 minutes
Drench warfare.
Key events
28th October 2011
26th January 2011
20th December 2010
30th September 2010
23rd September 2010
17th September 2010
23rd August 2010
23rd September 2008
Hydrophobia developer to enter administration, staff claim
Some staff unpaid for 3 months. New company to pick up pool game.
UPDATE Several Dark Energy Digital employees have contacted Eurogamer to stress that the source quoted in the original story does not in fact represent the opinions of current employees.
Hydrophobia Prophecy PSN release date
Aquatic adventure drops next week.
Downloadable adventure Hydrophobia Prophecy dribbles onto PlayStation Network next Tuesday, complete with optional Move controls, developer Dark Energy Digital has announced.
Hydrophobia Prophecy is a revision of Hydrophobia Pure, which is a revision of the original 4/10 Hydrophobia, released on Xbox Live Arcade last autumn.
"It's Hydrophobia 1.5, really," Dark Energy managing director Deborah Jones previously told Eurogamer. "It's also not the original and it's also not Pure."
Hydrophobia dev releases Darknet video
Promises to improve game further.
Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital has released a video showcasing its new Darknet technology, which allows it to receive player feedback in real time.
VideoHydrophobia Prophecy footage surfaces
PS3, Steam version shows off upgrades.
PS3, Steam version shows off upgrades.
Steam, PS3 Hydrophobia Prophecy revealed
"We've got there in the end."
Downloadable action game Hydrophobia is coming to Steam and the PlayStation 3, Eurogamer can exclusively reveal.
Hydrophobia Listening Post launched
Will aid development of future games.
Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital has launched a website designed to gather gamer feedback it'll use to aid the creation of future Hydrophobia games.
The Hydrophobia Listening Post allows users to rate every feature of Hydrophobia Pure, the new and improved version of Hydrophobia released December last year.
The information gathered will help the Manchester studio develop future games in the Hydrophobia universe, it said this morning.
Title update promises to change the game.
Manchester-based developer Dark Energy Digital wants gamers to give watery Xbox Live Arcade game Hydrophobia a second chance – and to help convince them it has announced the release of a title update it reckons completely changes the game.
The title update, due out tomorrow, 21st December, coincides with a price drop from 1200 MS Points to 800 MS Points. The Trial has also been extended. New and exclusive screens are below.
Pure, as it's called, introduces new button mapping and improved controls, combat, cover and camera systems.
FeatureHydrophobia: We did get a few things wrong
Dark Energy Digital on fixing its baby.
When Xbox Live Arcade game Hydrophobia was released to disappointing review scores, Manchester developer Dark Energy Digital hit back. Now, three months after release, DED has slashed the price of the game and prepared what it believes is a "quite remarkable" update, all with a crystal clear message: We have listened.
"We have listened."
Poor Xbox Live Arcade game Hydrophobia could be in for a revamp after its creators teased a Monday announcement.
"Raises the XBLA bar," DED insists.
Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital has urged gamers to play its water-based third-person action game with an open mind and not like a Gears of War clone.
Water into whine.
Water, that most precious of all life's commodities, is the highest prize of virtual worlds too. Land, in its immovable dependency, has always been a straightforward task for game artists. Water, by contrast, is a creature of ten thousand different forms.
So water has become an artist's calling card and a benchmark of computer performance. Turn on a tap in a videogame and you can tell a great deal about its world, the men and women who built it and the hardware that fires it. If the water's good, chances are the same care and attention runs through the rest of the experience.
Judged on this asset alone, Hydrophobia represents a high bar for the medium. As with BioShock, this is a game world straining to hold back the sea and failing. The Queen of the World, a giant ocean liner city which finds itself the stage for a terrorist attack at the game's opening, is riddled with holes: leaks that cause water to drip, stream, slosh and wash about its insides.
VideoHydrophobia - first 15 minutes
Drench warfare.
Drench warfare.
VideoHydrophobia gameplay trailer
Latest footage leaks out.
Hydrophobia, Super Meat Boy dated
XBLA release schedule revealed.
Microsoft has unveiled its Xbox Live Marketplace plans for the next couple of months, detailing all add-ons, Arcade titles and Games On Demand releases.
Twenty ways to kill a Malthusian.
Titanic troubles.
Xbox 360 release is "timed exclusive".
Dark Energy Digital boss Pete Jones has clarified his company's long-in-development water-based thriller Hydrophobia will indeed appear on the PC and PS3.
Hydrophobia will be a "trilogy"
Three instalments within 12 months.
Hydrophobia developer Dark Energy Digital has told Eurogamer that episodic releases are still 'the plan' but that the term doesn't accurately represent the amount of content on offer.
MS grabs XBLA game Hydrophobia
Watery action game bobs back up.
Dark Energy Digital has revealed this morning that Microsoft will publish watery action game Hydrophobia as an XBLA exclusive.
Back on radar as 360 exclusive.
Back on radar as 360 exclusive.
Hydrophobia is now episodic XBLA game
No word on other formats or date.
Dark Energy Digital's Hydrophobia has been split into a three-episode Xbox Live Arcade series with no word on other formats or a release date.
Blade's Christmas present for you.
Blade's Christmas present for you.
Hydrophobia gushes to March 2009
Blade opts to self-publish action title.
Blade Interactive has told Eurogamer that its watery action game Hydrophobia has spilled into March 2009.
Hydrophobia already set for a sequel
But still without publisher or date.
Blade Interactive has already revealed plans to make a sequel to watery puzzler Hydrophobia, despite the first game still being without a publisher and release date.
"Actually, the sequel to [Hydrophobia] is set in a drowned Boston," Pete Jones, boss of Blade, told PS3 Attitude. "So we do have plans for an expansion of the Hydrophobia world."
Hydrophobia - in development for PC, 360 and PS3 - is a ship-based survival action game, with a clever engine which allows water to be used to solve puzzles and even take out enemies.
Swept away with Blade's kingdom by the sea.
The real star of Hydrophobia isn't female lead Kate, but the water that rapidly floods the environments and influences almost every aspect of gameplay. This isn't about pretty water reflections that merely slow a characters' movement, nor is it about taking games back to that period where every adventure game had to have an underwater level, just because it could. The water in Hydrophobia is more than that - it acts as a weapon, a key, transportation and an entire control system that the player uses to influence, change and conquer the environment.
Water way to go.
Blade Interactive has finally taken the wrapping off its next-generation project Hydrophobia, which is due for release sometime next year.
Watery puzzle action game.
Watery puzzle action game.
Next-gen must deliver "qualitative difference" - Blade
Talks up Hydrophobia.
Blade Interactive, developer of World Snooker Championship, believes that expensive next-generation consoles must provide a significant "qualitative difference" - and this is precisely what they aim to deliver with new title Hydrophobia.
Snooker dev's next-gen opus.
World Snooker Championship developer Blade Interactive is working on a next-generation title called Hydrophobia.
