It looks like Capcom aren’t the only ones thinking along the lines of producing downloadable tie-ins with full retail games, ala their upcoming release of Dead Rising 2 Case 0.
Now THQ have announced that they’re working on a PSN / XBLA title which will arrive as a downloadable link-up with the next Red Faction game, subtitled Armageddon, which is due to arrive in March. If you haven’t seen what the full game is about, then here’s the latest trailer which will bring you up to speed:
Speaking to CVG, Danny Bilson of THQ said about their plans:
“What’s interesting is that we will sell it to the fans, it will have content you can download that is TV show-related, it will build up the new game and also we can use it to drive pre-orders, too; we can give codes and aspects of it, we can give the whole thing away,”
Details on the actual title itself are scarce, so it’s currently unknown what form it will take – but it seems that THQ have no plans to just use this as a one off with Red Faction. Bilson also talks about the same potentially happening with their next Saints Row game.
The one small snippet we do know is that THQ want to have the download title ready three to four months before Armageddon ships to retailers, so we should see it later this year.
The only lingering question I have right now is whether this is just a crafty way of getting people to pay for demo’s of upcoming titles? The danger is, if they’re not handled correctly, then that’s all they’ll turn out to be.
Of course it’s a little too early to be calling that yet, and as someone who was keenly watching both Dead Rising 2 and RF: Armageddon long before the download announcements, it’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
