We are pleased to announce Rebellion Music, a new division within Rebellion dedicated to releasing our beloved video game soundtracks to the music-loving community on platforms including Spotify, Apple Music & iTunes, Deezer, Amazon, and YouTube Music.
After our TIGA Award-nominated remaster of Battlezone (1998), we know that many fans of the pioneering FPS-RTS hybrid have been asking for its acclaimed sequel, Battlezone II: Combat Commander, to receive the same treatment. Well…
Developed by Big Boat Interactive and published by Rebellion, BATTLEZONE COMBAT COMMANDER remasters Battlezone II with slick new visuals, mod support for the game’s two-decade old modding scene, cross-play online multiplayer between GOG & Steam for up to 14 players, achievements, cloud saves* and more!
A mysterious alien force threatens humanity itself. In this galaxy-wide war, you are in command of the resistance. Leading from the front, you take to the battlefield in thrilling first-person combat, piloting futuristic, customizable war machines including hover-tanks, colossal mech walkers, lightning-fast mortar-bikes and more.
But you don’t just fight from the front – you are in total command! A gripping singleplayer campaign will test your mettle as you learn to plot strategy, construct bases, form your armies, deploy defenses and call in airstrikes. Achieving victory is no mean feat in this remarkable blend of classic real-time strategy and first-person action.
To save humanity, you must prove yourself a true combat commander!
BATTLEZONE COMBAT COMMANDER is coming to Steam & GOG.com in 2018.
PC • PS4 • Xbox One • Switch • Meta1-4May 11, 2017
OUT NOW on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and VR devices!
Strap into the cockpit of the Cobra – the most powerful tank ever built – and experience first-person tank combat across neon-scarred sci-fi landscapes in an explosive campaign for 1-4 players.
Load your tank with a wide range of devastating weapons and power-ups, and blast your way to a colossal final showdown.
FULLY PLAYABLE IN VR – For the ultimate Battlezone experience, strap in using your VR headset to gain true battlefield awareness, a monumental sense of scale and breathless combat intensity. Compatible with PS VR, Meta, and Steam VR.
DEVASTATING ARSENAL – Unleash destructive weapons and awesome special equipment, from laser-guided missiles and artillery to EMPs and shield boosts.
LIMITLESS SOLO & CO-OP PLAY – Experience a thrilling campaign for 1-4 players where different environments, enemies and missions blend together across a procedurally generated campaign. No two playthroughs will be the same!
CUTTING-EDGE UPGRADES – Unlock more powerful tanks, weapons and special equipment and pick from hundreds of deadly combinations!
FIGHT WITH STYLE – Customise your tank’s look, with various skins, bobbleheads, and horns, all included in the Gold Edition!
CLASSIC MODE – Experience where it all started with Classic Mode – featuring original two-track controls and worldwide leaderboards to test yourself against!
It’s with a great deal of excitement that we can announce that Battlezone 98 Redux will be getting its first DLC drop this summer in the form of the popular: The Red Odyssey.
With war escalating in the wide reaches of space, the Americans take to Jupiter and its moons in pursuit of the Russians and powerful technology. On the previously quiet satellite of Ganymede, the US forces discover an unexpected threat, with the power to carve its own place in history…
Featuring new campaigns, factions, multiplayer maps, and a whole host of new vehicles and building units, we know that The Red Odyssey has been sought-after by Battlezone fans, due to the fact that the original expansion never saw a release outside of North America! Like the base game, The Red Odyssey will also be receiving the same loving remaster treatment, courtesy of Mike Arkin and the team at Big Boat Interactive.
As well as this, we’re extremely happy to announce the arrival of a DRM-free edition of Battlezone 98 Redux on GOG.com.
The Red Odyssey expansion will launch simultaneously on Steam and GOG.com later this summer!
Firstly, thank you so much for all the great feedback we’ve received following the unveiling of our Battlezone reboot for virtual reality devices.
Having to keep quiet about something we’re crazy excited for has been
a challenge, so to finally showcase it at E3 and see so many people
just as excited for the game was really gratifying.
As our teaser trailer revealed, our VR version of Battlezone is very
much a reboot of Atari’s 1980 arcade classic, a game we’re very fond of
at Rebellion. However, we also know that a number of you are fans of the
1998 and 1999 Battlezone games released by Activision that re-imagined
the franchise as a groundbreaking hybrid of FPS and RTS gameplay.
Naturally when we made our announcement last week some of you asked,
“But what about the newer Battlezone games? What are you doing with
them?”
Well, we’ve read your comments, articles, emails and posts and we’ve
seen your love for these games – so we wanted to make another brief
announcement:
We’re very pleased to reveal that we’re also working on a remaster of the 1998 Battlezone for PC.
It’s still early days but when we’re ready to show you more you’ll be
the first to know. All we can say for now is that whichever vision of
Battlezone you love, you’ve not been forgotten!
Thanks for reading
The Rebellion team
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To keep up with Battlezone news and all things Rebellion, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and through our newsletter!
Last week was a momentous one for Rebellion – after all, it’s not every week you reveal your first ever game for virtual reality devices! At the E3 Entertainment expo in Los Angeles, the biggest trade show in the games industry, we were right at the forefront of the excitement with our world debut of Battlezone, the Atari classic rebooted for next-gen VR.
Not only did we announce Battlezone for Project Morpheus and PC, but we also showed the game to expo-goers on the show floor and behind closed doors – more on that later in the week! For now, in case you missed it, last week our CEO Jason Kingsley put down his thoughts on Battlezone for the PlayStation Blog. Here’s what he wrote:
Well, what can I say? Rebellion may have been formed in 1992, but this will easily go down as one of the most exciting weeks in our history. After all it’s not every day that you have your new (and top secret) project debut at E3, let alone seeing it running on something as exciting as Project Morpheus.
But, before I get into all that, let’s start with a little history quiz!
I know, that’s probably not what you were expecting — it’s E3 after all, I should be asking you to coo at our very first screenshots, right?
Well, yes and no!
For a lot of you, Project Morpheus and virtual reality gaming marks a new and exciting shift in gaming tech. E3 is a celebration of incredible artistry and creativity so it’s only natural that VR plays an important part at this year’s show.
But E3 is also mainly about the future of games, and sometimes we just need to take stock and look at gaming’s past. The industry may not be as old as film, theatre, and other arts, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t respect our cultural heritage!
The truth is, VR is not really new, it’s just been continually evolving — breaking in waves and troughs, until 2015 where it finally sits on the cusp of launching into the mainstream.
But anyway, back to that history quiz!
So when was the first virtual reality game?
Early 2000s? Nope. The ’90s? Guess again. Well it has to be the ’80s then? Well, yes but only just — it was 1980, in fact. 35 years ago.
Like hundreds of thousands of gamers in 1980, my brother Chris (Kingsley, Rebellion co-founder and CTO to this day) and I went to our local arcade to be transported to another world — a virtual one.
That world was a video game made by Atari called Battlezone.
Its famous green and black vectors and tactical tank combat weren’t what made it so special though — it was the arcade housing itself. Players looked into the game world from the perspective of a tank commander by using a periscope viewfinder built into the unit. Combined with the game’s pseudo 3D graphics, Battlezone is now considered by many as the first ever virtual reality game.
It was both rudimentary and revolutionary. The isolation from the world around you, the perception of depth and “being” in that world — even a simple one — was like nothing else at the time. And without Battlezone and that sense of wonder and unlimited possibility, Chris and I might never have started making our own games, or formed Rebellion.
Skip forward to 2013 and Atari announced that it would sell off much of its household IP at auction, and Chris and I were there. When it finished, Battlezone was ours. We couldn’t believe it! Here was our chance to work on one of our most beloved games of all time, and play our part in a new era of VR gaming.
Earlier this year we tasked a team at our Oxford studio to reboot one of gaming’s seminal titles for a new generation of virtual reality games. VR of course, is an exciting challenge — you have to throw so many traditional game design rules out the window and start afresh. In this respect PlayStation gave us some fantastic support — providing us with plenty of Morpheus development kits and chatting with our coders and designers on a regular basis to help us develop on this new platform.
If we can capture the same revolutionary thrill of the original Battlezone for a whole new generation of gamers, then we’ll have done gaming history proud. It really is impossible to truly describe a VR gaming experience with words — or even video — so I encourage you to go “heads on” with Morpheus at upcoming events, and jump into Battlezone’s Cobra cockpit and test drive the galaxy’s most powerful vehicle for yourself!
We’ll have plenty on Battlezone in the coming weeks and months here on the Rebellion blog, but in the meantime you can find out more on the brand new Battlezone website.
