Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

CM5 slips to 2005, Shellshock sequel underway

Eidos confirms that Championship Manager 5 won't be with us until next year, while its Vietnam shooter series looks set for another (hopefully better) instalment.

Championship Manager 5 will not be released until the first half of 2005, Eidos said today, confirming its prediction in mid October that the game might not be finished in time for Christmas.

However the company is pleased with the response to ShellShock: Nam '67, with shipments to date of around 800,000 units, and says "A sequel is already underway" - an interesting comment given that original developer Guerrilla Games has been signed up by Sony to work exclusively on the PS2. No further details were offered.

Speaking up about ChampMan, the publisher said it would "now release, closely followed by the platform [we assume meaning console] and online versions, in the second half of FY05 on a date to be announced in due course."

Since Eidos's financial year ends on June 30th, it seems fair to say that means we'll get to see what upstart Beautiful Game Studios has produced under the famous banner sometime between the start of January and the end of June.

Whether it'll eclipse sales of Football Manager 2005 - the PC game that original ChampMan developer Sports Interactive released through publisher SEGA Europe earlier this month - remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Eidos said that it planned to ship hotly tipped FPS Project: Snowblind, and Pyro Studios' Imperial Glory, in Q3 of its financial year (Jan to March), while Just Cause, 25 to Life, Commandos Strike Force, and new instalments of Hitman and Tomb Raider are all due out before the end of June 2005.