Jaffe explains how Heartland came to be and came to not be, as the game was a bad fit with the Warhawk developer from the get go. The intended follow up to God of War was planned as an emotional response to the Bush administration, but at the core, Jaffe says "what we really wanted to do was create the definitive shooter for the PlayStation Portable." That, obviously, didn't happen, and it doesn't sound like it ever will.

Inside David Jaffe's Heartland [The Escapist]

We just released an expansion on Warhawk in September, and we'll release another one in April.

Sure, you could do that with text or voice chat, but it sounds like the developers have gone the extra mile to make planning your battles even cooler.

Using a three-dimensional "sand table" replication of the level, Warhawk players are said to be able to lay out their strategies in a properly scaled space. They'll even be able to place little army men avatars around the map to envision their formations, something we hope they can also do with teeny tiny Warhawk planes, tanks and Jeeps.

The Warhawk war room is said to also serve as a launchpad for games, thankfully, so jumping into a match shouldn't require leaving the Home interface.

This is one of the coolest additions, in my personal opinion, to come to Home and the kind of thing that we hope is replicated and improved upon by other developers for their team-based titles.

More details and poor grammar choices at ThreeSpeech.

WARHAWK EXPANSION PACK SOON COME! [ThreeSpeech]

SCEA today confirmed what we reported yesterday: The company has signed an exclusive game development deal with a new studio formed by David Jaffe and Scott Campbell. Their first Playstation game will be released in 2008.

Jaffe, the developer of GOW and other games, and Campbell, founder of Incognito, formed Eat, Sleep, Play in Utah under the SCEA Santa Monica Studios banner. As part of their multi-year-multi-title deal the studio will be creating Twisted Metal(R): Head On for PlayStation 2, which is scheduled to be released this winter. Twisted Metal: Head On will feature lost levels from the never released Twisted Metal: Black(R) Part II and a documentary on the series.

"We are extremely pleased to be working with David and Scott and supporting them in their new endeavor," said Shuhei Yoshida, senior vice president, product development, SCEA. "Through hit after hit, they have established themselves as two of the most talented individuals this industry has ever seen, and I look forward to seeing what kind of further gaming innovation they can bring to the PlayStation brand through our new development deal."

Hmmm, I hope Jaffe has more light to shed on this news. I'd love to hear what the new studio's first big project will be. Release after the jump.

Sony Computer Entertainment America Announces Exclusive Game Development Deal With 'Eat, Sleep, Play(TM)'

New Development Studio Formed By God of War(R) Creator David Jaffe and former Incognito Entertainment Chief Scott Campbell

FOSTER CITY, Calif., July 27 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc. (SCEA) today announced an exclusive game development deal with Eat, Sleep, Play(TM), a new software development company formed by legendary game creators David Jaffe and Scott Campbell. Under the agreement, Eat, Sleep, Play is signed on for a multi-year, multi-title deal to create titles for the PlayStation family of products, with the first slated for release in 2008.
Based in Utah, Eat, Sleep, Play is a newly formed company founded by David Jaffe, a former creative director for SCEA's Santa Monica Studios; and Scott Campbell, the founder of Incognito Entertainment, a dedicated development
studio also under the SCEA Santa Monica Studios banner. Jaffe is perhaps best known as the co-creator and game director behind the multi-million PlayStation(R) platform franchises Twisted Metal(R) on PS one(R) & PlayStation(R)2 and God of War(R) on PlayStation 2. Campbell, a long-time collaborator with Jaffe and co-creator of the Twisted Metal titles, is currently receiving industry praise for Incognito's PLAYSTATION(R)3 PS3(TM))-exclusive online air and ground combat game Warhawk(TM). Additionally, Jaffe and Campbell recently collaborated efforts on Calling All Cars(TM), a popular exclusive downloadable title for PLAYSTATION(R)Network.
In addition to the multi-year, multi-title deal to create titles for the PlayStation family of products, the company will also be creating Twisted Metal(R): Head On for PlayStation 2, which is scheduled to be released this winter. Twisted Metal: Head On will feature lost levels from the never released Twisted Metal: Black(R) Part II and a documentary on the series.
"We are extremely pleased to be working with David and Scott and supporting them in their new endeavor," said Shuhei Yoshida, senior vice president, product development, SCEA. "Through hit after hit, they have established themselves as two of the most talented individuals this industry has ever seen, and I look forward to seeing what kind of further gaming innovation they can bring to the PlayStation brand through our new development deal."
In conjunction with today's news, SCEA confirmed that the core members of the Incognito team responsible for Warhawk will remain within the SCEA Santa Monica Studios fold, headed up by Dylan Jobe, and will continue to produce content for this highly-anticipated title. Jobe, game director for Warhawk, is known for his work on the popular hit titles War of the Monsters(TM) and Twisted Metal: Black(R) for PlayStation 2.

Ever since David Jaffe hinted at a big announcement on Friday I've been chewing at my nails, trying to figure out what it is. Sorry, I'm just one of those people you can't say that you've got a secret to tell them... tomorrow.

I haven't been able to completely nail it down, but I have multiple sources confirming several aspects of Jaffe's big announcement. The tip of the iceberg is that Jaffe is forming a new studio with Sony Computer Entertainment of America's backing and that the studio will, among other things, develop Playstation Network titles. This new studio will be mainly peopled by the team that worked with him on Calling All Cars. I suspect, though no one has confirmed this, that the games he works on will lean very heavily toward episodic titles.

More to come, all official like, tomorrow.

Hopefully, Sony and Incognito will open up the beta to other PlayStation Undergroud members as it did with Home beta invites for GAP members. We'll let you know.

Thanks, SG! Michael McWhertor

The gang at 1UP got word from the kids at SCEA who now say that Incognito's multiplayer shooter is coming to the PlayStation Store and will see a Blu-ray disc retail release. Not that strange, as Phil Harrison broke word that GDC hit LittleBigPlanet would also see a double release.

Choice. Convenience. Warhawk. That's what we want. Michael McWhertor

Warhawk Will Be on Blu-ray and PS Network [1UP]

There was this moment, just seconds after I sat down between Phil Harrison and David Karraker, when the entire table of bloggers, PR people and developers at Sony's Blogger Congress were quiet.

Then Dylan Jobe, Warhawk game director for Incognito, spoke up.

"Before we get started, I have something for Brian."

I noticed Jobe had a small box on the table in front of him. He is a big fan of Kotaku and was impressed with what the site did last week over the whole Sony Home dealio.

So he said he wanted to give me a present to thank me. Opening the box he revealed: A set of brass balls. Brian Crecente

Yes, the game will be multiplayer only, currently supporting 32-players via dedicated servers. Yes, the game will be a download through the PlayStation Store (despite telling us otherwise), with possible expansions to come.

Additionally, Drew Bradford, associate producer for the game, reveals that both SIXAXIS and analog stick controls are available for players to use.

And on the multiplayer-only front, Dylan Jobe, director of the game, said that "Warhawk has all of its attention focused on making a triple-A online experience. Phasing out the single player allows the team to really polish multiplayer." He later added, "Single player just wasn't up to par."

Shots of ground and air combat, as well as a look at character customization are available at IGN. Michael McWhertor

IGN Weekly Ep. 38: Warhawk Exclusive, THQ Gamers Day, and NY Comic Con [IGN]

Jaffe and crew's upcoming PLAYSTATION 3 download Calling All Cars hasn't quite sold me yet. While I trust the team at Incognito to ultimately deliver a solid game, my eyes just kind of glaze over when I watch this. Still, the online multiplayer, 1080p at 60 frames per second graphics, and copious fart sounds might sway my opinion. Michael McWhertor

What Warhawk has apparently evolved into is a multiplayer-only title featuring ground and air combat that'll be downloadable from PSN. That's definitely not the Warhawk experience I'd imagined when I first saw the trailer two years ago. But that's not to say I've lost excitement over it, either — for all I know, it could still be pretty freaking cool — it's just not what I expected.

Yeah. I didn't expect that either! I even wrote "I'm still expecting to see a retail release" last month. Sam spins the Warhawk decision in a positive way, but I can't help feeling a little disappointed that we won't get a "real" Warhawk sequel. Michael McWhertor

Preparing for Warhawk [1UP]

So I got an interesting invitation from Sony Computer Entertainment America and Incognito Entertainment today: They want me to head out to Utah to blow shit up.

From the invitation:

Primary Mission Objective: Complete Warhawk aircraft, vehicle, and infantry training with distinction, and receive instruction from top creative talent at critically acclaimed developer Incognito Entertainment (creators of the Twisted Metal franchise - on-camera interview opportunities to be available on site).

Secondary Mission Objective: Blow $#!% up.

Like real $#!%? Because that would be fun. I have to figure out how to go about doing this. I can't take free travel or such and need to figure out if it's something I would write up for just us or the Rocky as well.

Also there's this whole thing about my fear of heights and flying. I typically don't let either stop me from doing stuff. I fly all the time and during my career as a police reporter I've trained with SWAT (including rappelling down buildings), fire fighters (including climbing up burning buildings), wildfire fighters (flying around in really tiny planes to places that were on fire) and helicopter ambulances (flying around in helicopters taking off and landing in places God never wanted a helicopter), so it shouldn't be a problem.

More details as they come. Brian Crecente

As producer Dylan Jobe explained, the development team knew for awhile to expect something surprising from Sony with the new controller, and it came up with design ideas over a long period of time, but it was only in the past 10 days or so that it was able to actually physically implement the idea and get the game running with the new control scheme.

The wording on this statement is a tad vague, but what Incognito seems to be claiming is that they were warned by Sony ahead of time that there would be some undisclosed change to the controller, then found themselves forced to mock something up at the last minute. Which they did, but apparently it will only be usable within the confines of steering Warhawk's vehicles... there aren't any plans to introduce the motion sensitive controls to out-of-vehicle game play. Probably for the best... it may be intuitive to steer in a given direction by tilting a controller when speeding along in a virtual vehicle, but moving a joystick around feels more natural when you're perambulating along.

Incognito talks up Warhawk [1UP]