You may remember Singularity as the game Activision wanted to forget. Developed by Raven Software - formerly the creators of Heretic, Soldier of Fortune, and Jedi Outcast - Singularity was released in 2010 with minimal fanfare. It received mostly respectable reviews but sold poorly, in no small part because Activision kicked it out of the door with so little support it made Universal Credit look like winning the lottery.
UPDATE: Or maybe Raven is just reflecting upon its 25 year anniversary.
UPDATE 03/23/2015 10.24pm: It appears that this teaser may just a celebratory reflection upon Raven Software's 25 year anniversary. The studio's recent Facebook post said, "From the Time Manipulation Device to the multiple factions in multiplayer, Singularity became a cult hit that continues to have a rabid and vocal fan base. This week is a celebration of all things Singularity."
Poor sales of Bizarre's racer Blur and Raven Software's shooter Singularity between April and June were offset by the continued gargantuan success of Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, publisher Activision Blizzard has said.
"Singularity fell short of meeting what is an exceptionally high bar within the shooter genre," said chief financial officer Thomas Tippl during an investor call last night.
"Fortunately, Call of Duty was the title that raised that bar and shortfall of Singularity was offset by Call of Duty's catalogue and DLC performance.
When did it stop being OK for first-person shooters to be silly? Once upon a time you just rocked up, ran down some corridors with increasingly powerful weapons and shot guys. Most of those guys chose to defend themselves by dancing left and right, and they came from places like Stroggos.
Not these days. These days you have to wrestle with mentalist ideologues and make choices with profound repercussions. BioShock gave us Randian objectivism and attacked our notions of free will in video games. Modern Warfare 2 was about... Well, nobody knows what Modern Warfare 2 was about, but you shot some civilians in an airport, which was a bit weird.
Meanwhile, Raven Software has been making Singularity - the first new IP to come out of the studio in a decade. It's about a guy who is sent to a secret Russian island, Katorga 12, where mad scientists experimented with a rare element called E99 in the 1950s and it all went wrong. Now it's full of mutants, zombies and, predictably, angry Russian soldiers.
If you've received your education exclusively by playing videogames - and what better education is there, Professor Kirby? - you'd be forgiven for thinking that shadowy soviet experiments almost always end in disaster. In the real world, Russia was launching dogs into happy orbit (granted, where they then expired) long before the US was capable of creating a rocket that did anything other than wobble uncertainly towards the sky at a strangely rakish angle before crash-landing into the forecourt of a nearby KFC.
Activision has released the first details of sci-fi shooter Singularity.
The PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 game will be set on a mysterious island occupied by Russians during the Cold War, according to the February Game Informer teaser. And it's here that a US pilot uncovers the terrible secrets behind the element E99 tests of the 1950s.
We've no idea what they are, but the central theme involves using time as an aid and a weapon. Apparently enemies can be rapidly aged and decomposed on the spot.
