The July issue of EGM will soon begin spawning in subscribers' mailboxes, so we're here to blow the lid off the latest gaming gossip from resident rumormonger Quartermann. He's been on a roll lately (especially now that tempestuous BioShock-on-PS3 drama has finally been resolved), so don't take his scuttlebutt nuggets lightly just because they sound far fetched....
First up, he's heard that Microsoft-owned developer Rare is currently hard at work on a new Killer Instinct offering for Xbox 360 tentatively titled Killer Instinct 3D: Death, Destruction, and Doom. Word has it that the plasticized 2D visuals and mash-happy gameplay have been wisely bulldozed in favor of fully 3D graphics and a more refined combat system. Our Q-spies in the U.K. report that the game looks "rather early" yet "promising," and tell us to expect a hasty denial from the cheeky lads at Rare.
Qmann has also heard some juicy new tidbits for all the first-person shooter fans out there. Allegedly, Activision's upcoming Call of Duty 5 won't make it to store shelves in time for this fall's holiday gaming season and will instead deploy across multiple platforms in February 2009. We're actually shockingly OK with this delay -- with all the pressure on developer Treyarch to match the quality and success of Infinity Ward's phenomenal COD4, they could certainly use all the extra time to polish up the game. Electronic Arts isn't ready to concede the murder-simulator genre to its competitors, though: Look for a new Medal of Honor game in 2009 that's set in war-torn Afghanistan. If that's not enough shootery for you, 2K Games also seeks to revive its former budget-bin hit Spec Ops as a top-shelf next-gen offering with a new installment set in the fashionable Middle Eastern city of Dubai.
All of these musings and many more from Quartermann can be viewed in full in the July issue of EGM, which should be hitting subscribers' mailboxes in the next week and newsstands shortly thereafter.
