Sunset Overdrive

April's Games with Gold - i.e. free games for Xbox Live Gold subscribers - has one of the service's best offering's yet.

The final add-on for Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive launches on 1st April, developer Insomniac Games has announced.

Microsoft is selling off its white Xbox One and Sunset Overdrive console bundle for just £279.99 a pop.

Sunset Overdrive and the Mystery of the Mooil Rig will be the first story-based expansion to Insomniac's in-your-face open world adventure.

Due on 23rd December, this DLC add-on will feature an all new area, the titular oil rig, along with new mechanics like the ability to dive into and jump out of water indefinitely. You'll even be able to slam into the sea then bounce out of it, propelling you higher into the air. Of course this doesn't make sense, but that's sort of Sunset Overdrive's MO, and it does look fun. Better yet, these new moves will transfer to the full game.

The Mooil Rig DLC will also contain loads of new missions, weapons and amps, but these have yet to be revealed. In the meantime, take a gander at The Mystery of the Mooil Rig in the following video hosted by Xbox Live director of programming Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb.

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Sunset Overdrive developer Insomniac Games has released its first pack of new weapons for the game.

Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive will be free to download and play for all Xbox Live Gold subscribers tomorrow.

Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive has scored a second place entry into the UK top 40.

Sunset Overdrive is a game that dares to be different to other third-person shooters, turning its back on the overly serious tone of today's top-end releases in favour of a bright and colourful aesthetic, with gameplay clearly influenced by Sega's Jet Set Radio and Sucker Punch's inFamous. With flashy aerial acrobatics and wacky cartoon-like shooting, Sunset Overdrive is a breath of fresh air, putting the fun factor ahead of complex storylines or laboured attempts at grim and gritty realism.

You can tell a lot about a game by the first thing it chooses to teach its players. Sunset Overdrive doesn't kick off by baffling you with a bunch of pointless upgrades and unlockables that you couldn't care less about. It tells you how to pull off a dodge roll, a punkish splinter of weaponised evasion that gets to the heart of the game's deliriously pleasing traversal system. Then it baffles you with a bunch of pointless upgrades and unlockables that you couldn't care less about.

Seriously, though, that dodge roll. After a wobbly period of grit and grime, a kind of thematic pebble-dashing of the CV, Insomniac's latest is set in Sunset City, a breezy and laudably colourful metropolis where a new fizzy drink has turned everyone into breezy and laudably colourful mutants. There's a bit more plot beyond that, but not much. The most important thing the game's story has to do is dunk you into a compact yet cleverly designed playground filled with former people to kill.

This is one of those open-worlders where your character is just a blunt avatar to be dressed up in whichever stupid haircuts, samurai helmets and pyjama bottoms you can find along the way, and where each wipeout sees you warping back into the mayhem via Bill and Ted's phone booth or a Portal portal. Inevitably, late on in proceedings, the plotting tries to give you a bit more depth; Christopher Vogler would be proud, but the graft doesn't stick. At most, you're a clothes rack and a shadow here. At best, you're sheer forward momentum.

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A new PlayStation Network ad uses what is unmistakably the font from the upcoming Xbox One-exclusive action game Sunset Overdrive.

Sunset Overdrive's official Twitter account pointed out the cribbing/mistake/possible friendly competitor nod in the ad - picture below - with the following tweet: "Hey @Playstation. Nice font. Glad you guys are excited for @SunsetOverdrive too."

Just to be clear, the font was made available to the public by Sunset Overdrive developer Insomniac Games. You can download it here. "The font is called 'Overdrive Sunset' was made based off our original logo, and is public/free w/ our blessing," the developer later clarified.

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Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive is a little different. It's a shooter, but instead of firing realistic weapons from behind the safety of a waist-high wall, you're firing harpoons from a gun called Captain Ahab while grinding rails. This is a game where you have to keep moving to survive, not play whack-a-mole against enemies who conveniently poke their heads out of cover every few seconds. It rekindles memories of Jet Set Radio, that fantastic, much-loved Sega classic. Play it for five minutes and you'll see why.

UPDATE 23/9/14 4.45pm Microsoft has officially confirmed its new Xbox One price to Eurogamer and said that, at the moment, it was a UK-only move.

Sunset Overdrive is getting a Season Pass that will include two campaign expansions, a Weapons Pack, and a few exclusive Season Pass launch goodies such as six character outfits, two Amps and two Traps.

Microsoft used its Gamescom 2014 briefing in Cologne to announce three new bundles for its Xbox One hardware, including a new ceramic white model being made available to the public for the first time.

A French retailer listed then removed a white Xbox One and Sunset Overdrive console bundle, priced at €399.

Insomniac has revealed the first footage of its upcoming open-world action game Sunset Overdrive's co-op mode, Chaos Squad.

Available for up to eight players, each person votes on a mission for the gang to embark on together. This eventually culminates in a mission type called Night Defense where all eight players work together to guard a stash of Overcharge energy drinks from mutant zombie monster things. The more mayhem you create during the Chaos Squad missions leading up to this, the more difficult the Night Defense climax will be.

Succeeding Night Defense will reward players with cash, weapons, and other loot to be used in either single-player or multiplayer modes.

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Sunset Overdrive developer Insomniac Games has had a playful dig at Ubisoft over Assassin's Creed: Unity's lack of female characters.

One of the breakout hits of this year's E3, Sunset Overdrive's blend of bandy-legged acrobatics and toonified gunplay drew some of the longest queues of the show. It's just the sort of vibrant exclusive Microsoft needs, but - given Xbox One's performance issues with the similarly effects-heavy Dead Rising 3 - can the console actually deliver this anarchic visual style at a stable frame-rate? As well as analysing Microsoft's E3 conference footage, we go hands-on with the game's show-floor demo to evaluate the state of its current build.

Sunset Overdrive, the forthcoming Xbox One exclusive platforming-shooter from Insomniac, will be getting an eight-player co-op mode called Chaos Squad.

You can die a million different deaths in games, but you generally have much less control over how you're born. I'm not referring to that weird bit in Assassin's Creed 2 where you're suddenly a tiny baby learning to kick your arms and legs about, but rather those everyday births most video games offer - the simple, frequently unglamorous business of arriving on the screen at the start of a level, or after a nasty accident involving knives, guns, or teleporting cyber ninjas.

Neon streaks of colour are the new black and brown, don't you know? At least that's what a look at some of this year's biggest games would suggest, and there's none more colourful than Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac's forthcoming Xbox One exclusive. Coming off the back of the forgettable Fuse, it's a pleasant surprise to see the developer seeming back on top of its game so suddenly, and there's a real pep to the open world acrobatics and gunplay.

Insomniac's upcoming Xbox One-exclusive parkour shooter Sunset Overdrive has revealed its first gameplay footage.

Set in 2027, Insomniac's follow-up to Ratchet & Clank and Resistance looks a bit like Jet Set Radio and Crackdown met up with Saints Row at a pub, got smashed, and decided to make a game. There's the typical open-world platforming parkour we've seen in games like inFamous, but there's some neat touches like inventive respawn animations where you get deposited from a flying saucer, tossed out of a van, or rise from a crypt before doing a goofy mummy impersonation. Sometimes it's the little things.

Like Ratchet & Clank before it, Sunset Overdrive will feature some truly astonishing weapons like a bowling ball cannon, or guns that shoot LPs, roman candles or teddy bears strapped to sticks of dynamite (we're not convinced that the teddy bear serves any practical purpose here, but it adds character). There will also be a magic system, but these tornado and explosion-summoning powers are called "amps" to make them edgier and more in line with the contemporary setting.

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Sunset Overdrive is Insomniac Games' offbeat, high-tempo take on the post-apocalyptic open-world shooter that's set for release on Xbox One later this year.

The walls of Insomniac Games' LA office reception area are lined with magazine covers depicting the firm's 20 year history. The dynamic duo of Ratchet and Clank peer down from a great many of the of them, while the less-cuddly, four-eyed Chimera of the Resistance series are plastered across others, and Spyro's smile is dotted throughout. All serve to celebrate Insomniac's past glories but they also represent successful franchises that Insomniac has created and developed but ultimately does not own.

Ratchet & Clank and Resistance developer Insomniac's upcoming Xbox One-exclusive open-world, parkour-based shooter Sunset Overdrive has been confirmed for a 2014 release.

This tidbit of info is buried in the latest Xbox Wire post, where it listed Sunset Overdrive as a 2014 title, alongside Titanfall and Project Spark. Insomniac later confirmed this release year on Twitter.

Little is known about how Sunset Overdrive will play as Insomniac has yet to release any actual gameplay footage. We do know it'll have an offline campaign, though. With any luck, it'll be a return to form after Insomniac's last title, Fuse, failed to ignite much passion.

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Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive has an offline campaign in addition to a multiplayer mode, developer Insomniac has confirmed.

"Our intent is that you will be able to play the single-player without an online connection," Insomniac chief Ted Price told Game Informer.

But, as you'd expect, if you want the game updated with new content, you'll need to connect. "The game will be updated with content we expect that all players will want," Price added. "You won't be able to access that without an online connect."

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Resistance and Fuse developer Insomniac has announced an exclusive Xbox One game called Sunset Overdrive.

It's a stylised open world shooter that's along the same lines as Borderlands 2 and Brink.

A CGI video showed a lanky lad running and jumping across rooftops, pursued by some horrid monster things. He's overwhelmed but gets timely help from some friends - no doubt hinting at the co-operative nature of the game.

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