Yes, if you drop a copy of Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway (which depicts events from Market Garden, obviously) into your 360 and sign into Xbox Live before midnight (so while it's still September 17), you'll be rewarded with 50 GP. You don't even have to play the game, just spin up the disc.

You stay classy, Ubisoft.

[Major Nelson @ Twitter]

We've heard from multiple sources that Gearbox Software has laid off a number of its employees today, with lower than expected sales of Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway being blamed for the cutbacks. Estimates for those affected range from as little as 15 to as many as 26 staffers, on top of the 15 to 20 let go earlier in the month. Another factor said to be contributing to staff reductions by one source was the alleged cancellation of Gearbox's Aliens project for Sega.

Aliens: Colonial Marines was announced in 2006 as one of two games using the Aliens license that would be published by Sega. The project has been relatively quiet since then, with Sega dropping details on the first-person shooter in February of 2008 and a teaser trailer sneaking out in the early Fall. The title was planned to ship at the end of 2008 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, but retailers are currently listing it for a mid-2009 release.

The second Aliens project, a role-playing game, is in development at Obsidian Entertainment.

According to an anonymous source, Sega has cut funding on the Colonial Marines project amid concerns that the project couldn't be delivered on time and on budget. Gearbox is said to have shifted its development focus to Borderlands, the open world sci-fi shooter it is working on for 2K Games.

We haven't confirmed any of this with Sega or Gearbox yet, but are actively attempting to do so. While it sounds suspicious that Sega would nix the game this late in development, it wouldn't be unheard of. Consider the updates on Aliens as well as Gearbox's staffing situation as rumor for now. We'll update when we hear more.

Update: Gearbox president Randy Pitchford provided the following statement:

In 2005, after having a lot of success with games from Half-Life: Opposing Force to Halo on the PC to our original Brothers in Arms Road to Hill 30, we embarked upon a strategy where opportunity in the industry and the ambition of key talent here was driving a lot of growth for us. The strategy has been amazingly transformative for us. We’ve been growing *very* fast – more than doubling in size between 2007 and 2008 and outpacing general industry growth in staff and revenue by an order of magnitude. This growth has catapulted us to become one of the most powerful independent studios in the world.

Our mission has always driven us to always want to strive to do better and better. Our experience has never been greater and we love applying our experience to the benefit of our games. Over the last six weeks, we’ve been adjusting our internal strategy to move from being about Opportunity, Ambition and Growth to a strategy that is oriented towards Quality, Focus and Performance. A number of recent tactical decisions here are a reflection of this new commitment and strategy. The timing of these tactical decisions relates more to natural maneuvering that all studios should only consider after they finish a big effort than anything else. I know there is a tendency in the press to get the maximum value out of a story, but unless we have a *lot* more fans that are *much* more rabid about what we are doing than I thought we did, I don’t imagine there to be much of an exciting story here after all.

But, since we do seem to be getting some attention this evening and I am flattered by that and I may as well use the attention. While our commitment to focus and quality may slow the speed of our growth in numbers, we are, in fact, currently hiring. We have exciting, exciting things going on that offer tremendous opportunity for us and our interest is for the best talent in the world to join us and be a part of it. Borderlands is shaping up to be astonishingly fresh and I am very excited to reveal more about that soon, Aliens: Colonial Marines is very exciting and I look forward to the right moment we can more fully unveil our efforts there and we have other incredible unannounced projects in development and a lot of opportunity for the future – a future I am increasingly excited about.

We attempted to clarify with Pitchford the status of the Aliens: Colonial Marines project. He told us that, yes, the game is still in production but couldn't provide an update on its ship date.

"But I will say that I am as eager as anyone for us to reach the point where we should reveal it with more detail," Pitchford added.

Explains the frequence of the money shots, at least. They also say that having such extreme violence in the game is necessary if they're to stay faithful to the source material, as "you can’t talk about war and not have it". Hrm. The fact remains, the game will contain those zoom-in, gore-filled money shots. Would a GI fighting in 1944-45 have been treated to an on-rails camera tracking his bullet - in slo-mo, no less - as it flew 100 yards and burst a German head like a pineapple?

Gearbox Carefully Defends ‘Brothers In Arms’ Extreme Violence [MTV]

Gearbox Explains Why ‘Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway’ Has Taken So Long [MTV]

The party is open to everyone, but you have to be 21 (Samba De Amigo is pretty racy) and you have to RSVP at the website before heading out. They've still got slots open, so if you're in the Dallas area tonight or just a really big DJ Jazzy Jeff fan with airfare money to burn, hit the link below to sign up!

Gearbox Software Victory Party [Gearbox Software - Thanks Connor!]

A free haircut and video game apparently seemed like a sweet deal to a lot of people, even if it did turn them into walking billboards. There was a line. A long, long line. For this.

While Hell's Highway doesn't reinvent the wheel, I found that it offers up enough changes to make checking it out worthwhile, especially if you've ever been a fan of the World War II shooter.

Just a heads up this video does have some offensive language in it so viewer discretion is advised. In this latest trailer for Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway we get an inside look at the story development. I am pretty excited to see that they are putting so much time and effort into building deep characters. It's very rare that character development pulls me in enough to the point where I become somewhat emotional, unless we're talking about MGS4. Regardless, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is shaping up nicely and will be out to feed your WWII shooter needs in late September. Video after the jump.

"We don't even think about them," Heller noted, giving his opinion about the other WWII hold out. "They're not a game we even think about when we're playing, we think about the best shooters, we play [Call of Duty 4] Modern Warfare, we play... Gears of War, we play Halo, you know, that's the competition. We want to look at the games that do great storytelling."

Heller sums up, "We don't want to look at someone who's just making a crappy war game." Guys, guys, take it easy. Can't we all just get along and agree that you can both make crappy war games? There's enough to go around.

Just kidding, Gearbox! How's that new Halo game coming along anyway?

Update: The friendly mudslinging was originally and inaccurately attributed to a Treyarch senior producer, but is actually employed at Activision as senior producer. The headline has been updated!

Exclusive: Call of Duty: World at War - Interview [Eurogamer]

After spending some time with Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway earlier this month my opinion hasn't changed much, though I was impressed with some of the visual work Gearbox Software is doing on the franchise.

In this latest version of the series you continue to play with Sgt. Matt Baker and the rest of the 101st Airborne Division. I played through a couple of encounters in the game and noticed a few changes.

This time around Brothers In Arms has some destructible cover, which can play a pretty big role in the firefights. There are also a few new commands you can issue, like snipe or destroy.

One of the neat visual tweaks is the inclusion of occasional cinematics which are triggered by certain events. For instance, I was behind cover with my squad shooting it out with some Germans and I popped up and landed a quick headshot. The game slowed and the camera angle switched to show my bullet blasting through the guy's eye. Pretty impressive. It helps that Hell's Highway is running on the Unreal Engine 3.

I also loved the weather effects. For the section I played through it rained constantly, and the rain effect actually cut down on my ability to spot enemies.

Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway was fun enough to play, I just don't know if tweaking commands, adding destructible environments and a couple of new units is going to be enough to help this game stand out from the pack.

There are some screens after the jump, too.

From the trailer we can see this game intends to impress upon us the bonds formed by soldiers, as well as the real confusion and blood-pumping terror that attends to live combat. There's a quality of suffering in the fighting scenes that is painstakingly detailed, down to a stray round dislocating someone's fingers. It sounds engrossing, and I love period pieces and historically accurate simulations. But could I feel good about myself telling someone I had a hell of a time playing this game? Dunno.

There's a huge list of rumored and confirmed features on the game's Wiki. And here are 5 more screens.

These brand new shots from recently delayed, but still anticipated Gearbox shooter Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway just landed on our doorstep. I like the moody lighting.

I like how the video shows the effects gunfire has on a picket-fence. I hope the rest of the environment is as interactive. In general, I'm not really caring much about this particular generic World War II shooter. Brian Crecente

Say it ain't so! Game site Xboxic reports that super-cool-looking PS3/360 title Assassin's Creed and Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway have been pushed back until mid or late 2007. Ubisoft released its quarterly earnings, which show this titles in third or fourth quarter next year, instead of in the first quarter as originally planned. Better than releasing an unfinished product, but still very sucky. I think I can safely speak for all when I scream: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Brian Ashcraft

No Creed Early Next Year [Xboxic]

According to an interview Randy Pritchford did with our stinky arch-nemesis, IGN, Gearbox is definitely planning on supporting the Wii.

"Gearbox Software is enthusiastically supporting the Wii," said company president Randy Pitchford. The company head had no comment on what Wii projects it could be working on, saying only that, "At this time, we don't have any announcements to make about specific games we may be developing for Wii."

Still, with Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway making its way to the PC, PS3 and 360, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the title will be Wii-ified. Supporting this theory, a leaked Ubisoft document hit the web a few months back, listing the title for the Wii.

So no news here, really. "We'll see." Man, we hate the slow summer months.
Florian Eckhardt

Gearbox Backs Wii [IGN]