Tired of traipsing around the Elder Scrolls universe all by yourself? Reinforcements are on the way. Today Bethesda Softworks announced that The Elder Scrolls Online, an MMO set in the sprawling fantasy worlds of games such as Skyrim and Oblivion, is currently under construction. Details are sketchy at the moment, but it was revealed that the game will be available for PC and Mac, and has been in the works for several years. ESO game director Matt Firor says that he and his colleagues have been “working hard to create an online world in which players will be able to experience the epic Elder Scrolls universe with their friends.” Firor has set the bar high for ESO: “The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made – and one that is worthy of the Elder Scrolls franchise.”

Gaming website Mass Luminosity today announced that Gaming Tribe, the company’s in-development social network portal for gamers, has moved into Beta 2. The new version of the site features many improvements, not the least of which is its independence from Facebook. Members can now see an accurate count of the number of Tribe members, a list of giveaways in which they’ve participated, and an archive of their messages. You can also see the current status of recent giveaways. In the future, Gaming Tribe will be running promotions reserved exclusively for its first 25,000 members. Currently the site lists just better than 15,000, so you still have time to get in on the action. Cooler Master is sponsoring the first event on the Beta 2 site on May 8. Click here to sign up.

Linux gamers are a hardy bunch. One can only play Nethack and BZFlag for so long. After years of rumors, the unthinkable is finally happening: Steam is coming to Linux. Along with it, Valve is porting their Source engine, so you’ll be able to play your favorite Valve games without dual-booting. Can Valve do for Linux gaming what it did for Mac? Valve hasn’t talked about release dates, but you can expect it “when it’s ready.”

Source: Phoronix.com

Apparently reports of the death of Prey 2 have been somewhat exaggerated. Developer Bethesda announced today that the sequel to Human Head/3D Realms’ 2006 shooter has not been canceled, but it will not meet its originally announced 2012 release date. Work on the game is reportedly not proceeding as quickly as first anticipated, so Bethesda has decided not to release it until the quality of the product improves.

Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International and creator of the Commodore 64, died on April 8 at age 83, according to Forbes. A concentration camp survivor, Tramiel came to America after World War II and opened a typewriter repair business in New York City before moving to Toronto, Canada, where he formed Commodore International in 1954. He introduced the Commodore 64 in 1982, and later purchased Atari and created the Atari ST. He is survived by his wife and three sons and their families.

Source: MSNBC

If you haven’t loaded up Mass Effect 3 recently, be prepared for an update when you finally return to the final act of BioWare’s space epic. A new patch has been released, the highlight of which is to fix the problem many players had when they tried to import their Shepard’s custom facial features from the previous two games in the series. Most of the other fixes involve possible crash bugs; a complete set of patch notes is available here. And before you ask: no, the ending hasn’t been changed.

Junction Point creative director Warren Spector has announced that Mickey Mouse is headed to the Nintendo 3DS in Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion, set in the world of the 1990 Sega Genesis side-scroller Castle of Illusion Starring Mickey Mouse. Mickey continues his battle with Mizrabel the Witch, but this time you can help him out by drawing items on the touch screen. “We’re honored to be able to pay tribute to this classic video game by creating a title that truly takes advantage of the unique capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS,” says Spector, an accomplished game designer with the Wing Commander, Ultima, Deus Ex and System Shock series on his resume. Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion is scheduled for a fall 2012 release.

Source: Gamesindustry International

Nerd god Marcus Persson (aka “Notch”), creator of the indie gaming juggernaut Minecraft, is reaching for the stars (literally) with his new project, 0x10c. According to the game’s official site, it’s an adventure in a sci-fi setting, 281 trillion years in the future, when a software glitch traps a group of space travelers in hypersleep for millennia. The game is promised to include space battles, loot-filled ships to plunder, and duct tape (?). A multiplayer mode will be available, but it will likely carry a subscription fee. Development of the game has just started, so no release date was announced.

While rumors continue to fly about the new consoles from Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo is quietly gearing up to beat both of them to the stores by a year. Time Magazine has seen a memo from a Japanese retailer that puts the release of the WiiU on November 18, 2012. But some developers who’ve had experience with Nintendo’s new hardware are expressing doubts about the console’s graphics quality and performance. One such developer (who requested anonymity) says that the WiiU’s graphics are “…not up to the same level as the PS3 or the 360. The graphics are just not as powerful.” Speculation is that an effort to keep the retail price of the unit down is causing Nintendo to stay just short of state-of-the-art, especially considering that the much-hyped LCD tablet controller shipping with the WiiU is not a cheap item. Expect official news about the WiiU launch at Nintendo’s E3 press conference this year.

Source: Gamesindustry International

It seems that Sony isn’t planning to be late to the console release party this time. Sources have reportedly told VG24/7 that the Japanese electronics giant plans to have their new gaming console ready for store shelves before Microsoft releases theirs, possibly around the 2013 Christmas holidays. The gaming website’s unnamed source indicates that Sony believes they have the jump on their Redmond, Wash., rivals, and that the order in which they present their 2013 E3 keynotes will have some significance (Microsoft is usually first out of the gate, presenting their E3 conferences as early as the day before the summit convenes, so this might not be as important a factor as the source believes). Few details have been leaked concerning the new Playstation, code named “Orbis,” but it’s believed that the console will drop the PS3′s Cell processor in favor of an AMD chipset, and will use their competitor’s API, DirectX, instead of a proprietary solution.

Details about the new Xbox console are slowly and steadily leaking out, but how reliable they might be is anyone’s guess. According to VG24/7, the new hardware will include a Blu-ray player, something that Microsoft has denied in the past. Also inside the new box are rumored to be two graphics cards, a CPU with four to six cores, and built-in Kinect devices. And the icing on the cake: it will also require a constant Internet connection, which will likely raise the blood pressure of the anti-DRM crowd. Microsoft has said that they will not be featuring the new console at this year’s E3 summit, and conjecture is that the machine will arrive in stores for Christmas in 2013.

Andy Davidson, who created the Worms franchise in 1995, then dropped out of the games business three years later to pursue other opportunities, has decided to return to developer Team 17 to help them bring the newest entry in the series, Worms Revolution, to the finish line. “It’s nice to be back at Team 17,” says Davidson. “There’s been a revolution in the studio itself — there’s a real creative buzz about the place.” Originally created for the Commodore Amiga computer, Worms has become one of the great gaming success stories, with almost two dozen titles published on almost every available platform.

Source: QTE Gamers

Avalanche Studios is positioning itself for a spot at the table with other developers trying to attract the attention of Microsoft and Sony, who are poised to bring the next generation of gaming consoles to market in the next few years. Avalanche founder Christofer Sundberg says that their Just Cause franchise would be a perfect fit for the new hardware. “We would obviously like to see a very bright future for Just Cause,” Sundberg recently said to Pikigeek.com. “My opinion is that the JC IP is perfect for everything that next-gen has to offer.” Avalanche is currently staffing up in its New York and Stockholm studios in anticipation of the good word from the hardware manufacturers.

Do you have young World of Warcraft players under your roof? Perhaps it would be a good idea to give your credit card statements a quick look. BillGuard, a service that helps consumers find and deal with fraudulent credit-card charges, has listed the Blizzard MMORPG as one of the top 10 sources of questionable transactions. Apparently a player can pay for their subscription using a service known as PaymentOne PhoneBill, which simply requires them to enter their telephone information on the site. According to BillGuard, “Given the young age and lack of credit card availability to some of [the game’s] users, this option has a high potential for unwanted and unauthorized purchases by young family members.” Blizzard did not immediately respond to MSNBC’s request for comment about their story. If you’re surprised to see “Blizzard Ent Wow Sub” on your bill, then you might want to have a chat with your young warriors.

Fans of the Witcher RPG series should be pleased about the news revealed by developer CD Projekt Red in their annual spring video conference today. One thousand copies of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings for the Xbox 360 are being offered a week early to players who want to write their own review of the game and post it on the CD Projekt Red Facebook page. Interested prospective reviewers can find information here. Players who already own a copy of the game for the PC can pre-download the new patch on April 11 (it won’t be applied until April 17), and they can obtain a free digital backup of the software on the Good Old Games retail website. Also, Mac gamers will soon be able to buy the original Witcher game for $9.99 (PC players who own it on Steam will receive a free copy of the Mac version). And a comic based on the series is being released for iPads. Witcher 2 arrives for the Xbox on April 17.