2011 has been a landmark year for BigWorld. Our team has expanded, we’ve made some major improvements to our product, and we’ve seen our clients leverage our technology to do some amazing things. We hope yours was as fruitful as ours, and we wish you an excellent 2012.

So, from all the BigWorld cells scattered across the globe, we wish you a happy new year.

Thisisgame.com, one of the leading video game news websites in Korea, recently caught up with Gavin to discuss upcoming BigWorld Technology shininess, including the iOS client demonstration.

The article is in Korean, but here’s an excerpt:

Another main driver of BigWorld’s success in China has been the support it has provided for its clients, as well as the stability of its server. For some of its earliest clients in China, BigWorld provided a secure solution, both with a developed client and integrated server solution. “The core server-client solution makes it significantly easier to create and publish content to your MMO,” explains Gavin Longhurst, VP of Business Development at BigWorld.

Our friends at Develop Magazine have put their iPad app up on Apple’s Newsstand Service, and BigWorld is sponsoring its launch.

The app provides access monthly to each issue of the game-dev-focused publication.

As well as offering access to a wealth of video content, the Develop iPad app also includes outbound links throughout each issue, caters for searching every edition, includes a comprehensive contents and navigation tools, and provides a number of social sharing options.

BigWorld is also proudly sponsoring Develop’s online digital edition, available here.

Austin, Texas – Thursday, November 10, 2011

Video Trailer: http://bgwld.co/uPP3uZ
Beta Launch Aircraft Party Video: http://bgwld.co/teFbSq

Chinese internet giant NetEase (NASDAQ: NTES) is using BigWorld Technology to power its newest MMO, Tian Xia III (天下3), which has now entered beta. The game offers new quests, environments and features to build on the rich tapestry of Chinese mythology and innovative MMO design established by its predecessor, Tian Xia II, one of the most popular MMO’s in China. On beta launch day, thousands of players filed into Tian Xia III servers and a limited-edition box release sold out in less than 30 minutes.

Tian Xia III takes place in an immersive fantasy world full of ancient Chinese mythology and philosophical undertones. The game features fast-paced combat that mixes twitch and dice-roll styles, as well as uncommonly deep narrative integration into quest chains and a visual aesthetic that draws on the architectural and tonal history of China. The game strongly emphasizes the creation of family structures between avatars, including marriage, utilizing a unique family system. As in most MMO’s, players benefit from collaboration, but NetEase intends to improve upon that by introducing mechanics like multi-passenger mounts, as well as content that can only be generated by multiple users working in concert.

“Feedback from the alpha player community has indicated that NetEase has expertly wielded the BigWorld Technology tool suite to create another rich and immersive MMO, and we’re proud as ever to be powering the game” says Lei Guo, Director of Greater China Region at BigWorld.

NetEase originally chose BigWorld as its middleware solution because the technology offers an end-to-end solution for MMO development. Unlike traditional game middleware that offers only on the front-end client, BigWorld offers an end-to-end solution. BigWorld Server is a highly scalable back-end solution specifically optimized for the BigWorld Client, tools, plugins, instrumentation, and the rest of the BigWorld suite. BigWorld Server made it possible to scale rapidly to support bulging beta server with no down time.

NetEase Director Michael Tong says “we have found BigWorld Technology to be extremely flexible and robust. Our artists and world builders have found BigWorld’s content creation tools intuitive and very powerful …and the technical support is excellent. The good experience with BigWorld leads us to extend the BigWorld technology empowered product line.”

# # #

About BigWorld

BigWorld Pty Ltd was formed in 2002, and has offices in Australia, Europe, USA and China. BigWorld Technology provides developers of online games a competitive advantage by significantly reducing risk, cost and time to market. The BigWorld Technology Suite includes a highly scalable and stable server, robust next-gen client, content creation tools, a library of 3^rd party plugins, full support, and other accompanying tools. Multiple licensing options are available. More information at www.bigworldtech.com

# # #

About NetEase

NetEase was founded in 1997, seeing its first major successes as a search engine provider. The company operates 163.com, a popular and heavily-trafficked web portal that was the 28^th most visited site in the world in April 2010, according to Alexas’ internet rankings. The company expanded to develop MMO’s, developing titles like Fantasy Westward Journey. NetEase became one of BigWorld’s first Asian customers when the Australian middleware developer first entered Asia over ten years ago. The company has since developed multiple successful titles on the technology, including Tian Xia II and Genesis: Journey to the West. More information at http://tx3.163.com/

# # #

Contact
BigWorld Pty Ltd
press@bigworldtech.com
+13133554347

Austin, Texas – October 6, 2011

BigWorld Pty Ltd, enVie Interactive™, LLC, and BitRaider come together in Austin for this year’s GDC Online to discuss the successful integration of their three properties.

VIE™: Virtual Island of Entertainment™ is a 3D virtual world with social game elements developed by enVie Interactive. The studio has licensed both BitRaider and BigWorld technologies to help facilitate VIE’s development process. BigWorld provides the end-to-end game development middleware technology and support that has allowed enVie Interactive to focus their efforts on the actual design of their virtual world without needing to dedicate resources to internal tools development.

“We’ve been happy to see how enVie Interactive has leveraged our tools, client and server technology to create their rich 3D world, and are thrilled to see BitRaider’s streaming solution actively making the experience even more frictionless and enjoyable for their users,” says John De Margheriti, CEO of BigWorld.

BitRaider equips VIE with cloud-based asset streaming, allowing users to progressively download the virtual world’s assets as they play, instead of downloading one large package installer. Other BitRaider features include progressive patching during gameplay and character movement prediction about twenty times per second to ensure the game world quickly streams from the cloud to the end user.

“VIE has been an excellent showcase for BitRaider streaming technology,” said Royal O’Brien, CEO of BitRaider. “The very smooth launch where VIE starts playing in minutes and patches while it’s played is a great testament to an excellent partnership.”

enVie Interactive’s adoption of these two technologies has enhanced the quality of experience for guests on VIE and has broadened appeal by increasing the speed at which guests can enter the world.

“By integrating BigWorld Technology, we are able to make VIE the most visually immersive 3D virtual world experience,” said Stacey Hirata, President of enVie Interactive. “BitRaider has helped us accelerate the delivery of this experience to our guests and we’re thrilled by the results from these amazing partnerships.”

# # #

About BigWorld

BigWorld Pty Ltd was formed in 2002, and has offices in Australia, Europe, USA and China. BigWorld Technology provides developers of online games a competitive advantage by significantly reducing risk, cost and time to market. The BigWorld Technology Suite includes a highly scalable and stable server, robust next-gen client, content creation tools, a library of 3^rd party plugins, full support, and other accompanying tools. Multiple licensing options are available. More information at www.bigworldtech.com

# # #

About BitRaider

BitRaider MMO, LLC. is a Baton Rouge, Louisiana company that licenses a disruptive game streaming technology to publishers who want to provide a superior player experience faster, more easily and without the pain of current download and patching methods. More information at www.bitraider.com/

# # #

About enVie™ Interactive LLC

Based in Sunnyvale, California, enVie Interactive LLC is a ground-breaking developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment. Players can sign up for enVie’s flagship product, VIE: Virtual Island of Entertainment at www.viethegame.com, join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/viethegame or follow us on Twitter @viethegame to receive additional information.

# # #

Contact
Matt Daly
Social Media Director
BigWorld Pty Ltd
mdaly@bigworldtech.com
+13133554347

Wargaming.net has released a new batch of screens for recently-announced, BigWorld-powered World of Warplanes.

Take a look.

Aeria Games is today launching BigWorld-Powered Realm of the Titans into closed beta. This landmark caps the extensive design, development and alpha testing of this DotA-inspired, isometric, free-to-play action/strategy game.

Testing has thus far garnered positive feedback from the testing community and press, and the BigWorld team is proud to see the title mature so quickly.

Whet your appetite with this video and go sink your teeth in!

Wargaming.net has released patch 0.6.5 for its flagship game, World of Tanks.

Among the big changes is an entire U.S. Tank Destroyer line from tiers 1 through 9, two new maps and the introduction of the top-tier M46 Patton main battle tank.

Wargaming.net recently announced that World of Tanks has surpassed 3 million registered players!

2 million are now registered in Russia alone, while Europe and the US host over a million players and climbing fast. With the release last month in China, we’re certain that this is just the beginning of World of Tank’s meteoric rise.

“At the very beginning of development for World of Tanks, we were assuming that the maximum number would be around 600,000 players worldwide. Now, we have 2 million registrations in Russia alone, not to mention the Western audience and its immense growth,” said Wargaming.net CEO Victor Kislyi. “With the tremendous number we’ve reached in Russia as well as the dynamics of community growth in Europe and North America, we are looking forward to the many more milestones to come.”

We’re seeing news popping up everywhere regarding Kingdom Heroes’ upcoming Xiaoshu expansion.

The Xiaoshou expansion is one of the latest content updates for Kingdom Heroes and consists of two new areas for exploration and plenty of new soldiers for battle.

Take your pick of outlets:

Develop Magazine

Gamasutra

MMORPG.com

Aeria Games

OnRPG

N4G

Kingdom Heroes is a fantasy MMO, based on the mythology and history of ancient China. The game weaves a rich tapestry of folklore, magic, myth, and history, and is most noted for its huge, dynasty-warrior-style battles. Userjoy, the game’s developer, has been one of BigWorld’s most faithful and successful licensees. They’ve also exhibited some of the most powerful use-cases for BigWorld server’s proprietary load-balancing mechanism, an offering that isn’t rivaled in the industry. We congratulate Userjoy on the continued success of and expansion of Kingdom Heroes.

… also need to take the opportunity to mention Userjoy’s newest BigWorld-powered game: MOEGO (it has animal castles)

We’ve been watching the VIE (Virtual Island of Entertainment) blog over the past few weeks, as they’ve been using posts to unfold a still-fairly-mysterious narrative about travelers landing on VIE island and trying to find each other. The reason we mention this (besides the fact, of course, that VIE’s a BigWorld-powered game) is because we’re intrigued by the superimposition of narrative in unique ways onto the substrate of a virtual space… and it furthers the overall world concept pretty awesomely.

Pretty cool, worth a few minutes of your time probably.

A new player class in BigWorld-powered, DotA-inspired Realm of the Titans has been unveiled. Nevetira is a wrangler of elements, utilizing weather systems to lay waste to her foes. The backstory is that she was raised in a mountain village, constantly tormented by bad weather. Most of the time that kind of environment breeds good weathermen, but she seems to have stepped it up, having learned how to actually manifest thunder balls, winds, thunder and so forth.

Some would say she’s “electrifying”… ahem.

• Thunder Ball — Cause damage and stun for 0.1 second. Light target’s surroundings within a range of 1400 for 3 seconds. Thunder ball has 1800 Movement Speed.
• Howling Wind — Force enemies within range to turn around. Prolong their turning duration for 3 seconds.
• Wind Blessing — Restore ally unit’s Mana for 20 seconds
• Thunder Clap — (Ultimate) Throw some thunder balls, which collect energy in the air and target nearby enemies. Each ball causes 120 damage to targets it hits directly, 80 Area Effect, and 0.1 second of stun.

Realm of the Titans is one of the newest BigWorld-powered games to be developed and published in the Western market. It’s inspired by Defense of the Ancients, probably the most popular game mod of all time (Warcraft).

Come join us in open Beta.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” it’s on to the cat pet. It’s becoming increasingly clear, with each passing video, that the order of things in Moego tend toward: player joins/creates family, recruits various animal castles, which then release pets of the same animal type out of the gigantic building on their back. It looks like the animals and animal castles come out to fight… but, what we can say for sure is that this little guy carries a pipe and/or large ladle… which endears him to us greatly.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll take a little-bo-peek (unavoidable, sorry) at another acquirable pet: CRISPY SHEEP. We’re still not entirely clear on the meaning behind this little buddy’s name, nor are we totally clear on the “100%” bib that he/she is born wearing, but we love it. The video below showcases pet upgrading pretty well.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” here’s a couple more character classes: The Swordsman, y El Soulkeeper. A note on aesthetics: we’ve enjoyed the contrast of simple, strong tones on world assets, which provide a nice, clean canvas upon which characters in increasingly complex and awesomely-designed garb can run around doing their thing. We think this video exemplifies this pretty well.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” another look shall be had the legions of animal pets that the player will acquire through the course of the game. This time, it’s a Rabbit. We’re extrapolating here that the now-infamous animal castles (building-sized animals with buildings on their backs) are the source of pets in Moego. This is depicted in the video below, wherein a gigantic rabbit animal castle basically poofs a new rabbit in front of the bowing player character.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll peek at two character classes: The Monk, and Le Priest . Comprising the more spiritual side of the character class array, these short video overviews demonstrate some of the unique abilities and tendencies that these two exhibit. Our particular favorite, visible below, is the massive flying fist of doom that the monk throws around with reckless abandon… or is it controlled abandon? Do or do not, there is no try.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

BigWorld-powered Kingdom Heroes has seen alot of growth since its release. The game, developed by one of our favorite partners, Userjoy, is most noted for its large, Dynasty Warriors-style battles within a persistent MMO space that follows Chinese history.

Soooo, it’s great to see the internal development they’ve been doing with BigWorld Technology to release their new Xiaoshou world expansion. New additions will include an increased level cap, new gear, and new boat and siege weapons (one of our favorite elements of the game).

And, for anyone who hasn’t watched yet, take a look at the trailer for the upcoming Kingdom Heroes 2, also powered by BigWorld Technology.

To provide some context to non-players, the video below demonstrates Kingdom Heroes, pre-expansion.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” it’s time for our first look at one of the key ingredients of the game’s unique hyperbolized world: PETS. In particular, you’ll find a video below featuring Dog… who is apparently a crack shot in a gentleman’s duel.

In Moego, once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Aeria games, who runs BigWorld-powered Realm of the Titans, has begun a machinima overdubbing contest.

It’s an interesting approach toward user-generated-content. Download the original video here, sign up at the forums here if you don’t already have an account, and submit.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll now run through a couple of the game’s more domestic, albeit equally well-designed activities: Farming & Fishing.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Paul Hyman over at UBM TechWeb recently interviewed Gavin Longhurst, BigWorld’s VP of Business Development.

They discuss the new production considerations for casual games. as well as game development in China, and BigWorld’s place in all of that.

Have a read.

Ultimately, getting people into your game, engaged, and paying for the experience is what it’s all about. The key to adoption is a mitigation of entry barriers like copious clicks, security/system mods, reboots, and huge downloads. Many players download a game but abort the download costing the publisher bandwidth money. Some users will finish a download, but won’t install the game. This might be attributed to install complexity, security, or “onerous” registration requirements. The onus is on the developer to lessen entry barriers; the success of their game depends on it.

enVie, the developers of BigWorld-powered VIE: Virtual Island of Entertainment have released a short interview with their lead artist. He elaborates a bit on the aesthetic direction of the game, as well as some of the technical requirements for developing on a platform like BigWorld’s.

On top of the style and quality of the asset we also take into account how the player can use these assets to show their own personal style in their living space. Sometimes that’s just finding a fun and quirky object like that chair that’s shaped like a hand. Sometimes It’s offering different color combinations or patterns on the asset. We’re also looking to add more assets that show off personal interests or include game play. But that’s secret stuff right now. More to come in those monthly updates!

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll peek at two character classes: The Knight, and Ze Archer.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

Victor recently visited a tank museum in Finland, where he describes the release of Wargaming’s World of Tanks as a sort of “tanksgiving.”

Victor’s a pretty entertaining interviewee/presenter, so you should mosey on over to this interview in the tank yard by Dome.fi writer Jukka O.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we’ll take a look at one of the two opposing kingdoms in Moego: The Western Penguin Kingdom. Also shown here is the character creation screen for players who choose Penguin allegiance.

Also featured prominently in this video is the kitty animal castle, which will kill you with cuteness…. don’t turn your back on it.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,”, we have reached the point in the show were we take a look at… ANIMAL CASTLES. By far our favorite awesome anomaly to come out of the Userjoy collective brain, the animal castle is a superstructure riding on the back of a gigantic, but nonetheless adorable, uber animal. Undoubtedly, depending on which kingdom you fight for, your family will have access to the appropriate mobile animal castle, an entity that can be upgraded progressively over time. The strategic benefit of having a building-sized animal holding a building on its back should be, at the very least, moderately clear.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

David Saito-Chung over at Investors Business Daly, writes a bit about Netease’s approach toward expansion as a means toward growth and continued engagement for its users.

Netease, who uses BigWorld’s platform technology, has grown to prominence through web development services, game development, and its 2009 licensing of World of Warcraft for China.

Among the company’s recent successes has been the BigWorld-powered MMO Tianxia 2 (Video of one of the expansion trailers).

MOEGO is a “community-ceentered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

The Metaversum team has released a whole slew of new martial-arts themed content for their BigWorld-powered Virtual World/Mirror World.

Twinity is a 3D mirror world based on real cities and real people. A few added benefits to being in a mirror world, however, is that you can run around London or Berlin in a Karati Gi and no shoes, and not get arrested… Well, maybe a bit more applicable to London than Berlin, but still! Go take a discerning peek.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

PC Gamer has released some exclusive details on the skill system underlying Aeria Games’ Realm of the Titans, a BigWorld-powered, DotA-style game.

These include Meditation, Frenzy, Fireball, Purify, Teleport, Draining Power, Power transfer, and others.

Go have a read.

Continuing our exclusive coverage of the recently-announced, BigWorld-Powered, Userjoy MMO “Moego,” we unveil the Ninja Character Class.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others.

We’re ecstatic to begin our exclusive coverage of the newest entry in the BigWorld-powered game library: Userjoy’s MOEGO.

MOEGO is a “community-centered free-to-play MMORPG,” with all the expected accoutrement, as well as some very unique offerings in the MMO space. These include family groups, “animal castles,” pet armies, and a few others. Eastern closed beta starts late April, with Western access to follow in May.

From what we’ve been able to get our hands on, the game’s look and feel includes themes of anime and Shinto, featuring a wide array of fantasy environments filled with humans and anthropomorphic flora and fauna. There are also animal castles (we’ll get to that).

Suffice to say it looks stimulating

Moego’s characters live in a massive, persistent space, where a war is raging between the Penguin (Western) and Panda (Eastern) kingdoms. Players join families, at which point they can begin to amass small armies of absurdly cute pets, aforementioned “animal castles” (yes, we’re getting to it), and basically act out a Miyazaki film (note: Userjoy and BigWorld are not claiming any official connection to Mr. Miyazaki whatsoever)

The game seems to have a strong crafting system, as well as a plethora of minigames like fishing, cooking and farming, but it also throws a few thematic and mechanical anomalies into the mix. A bit more on some of the game’s unique features:

The Family Structure

At the core of the game’s mechanics is the family structure. In order to access advanced and unique features of the game such as pets, foes, areas, and “animal castles” (still getting to that, promise).

Pets

Once players have joined or created families, they are able to begin recruiting and raising pets. These furry little cuties, whose titles include “crispy sheep” and “fancy raccoon,” act as your personal posse, laying down adorable pain on your adversaries. Each pet is upgradable, and also has a unique crafting and item upgrade ability, so progression through the game will largely depend on your pet platoon.

Animal Castles

Right, so we promised we’d get to this. The best we can extrapolate from the limited information we have at this point is that the “animal castle” is a major function in the game. Depicted pretty clearly in the video above, the animal castle is a superstructure riding on the back of a gigantic, but nonetheless adorable, uber animal. Undoubtedly, depending on which kingdom you fight for, your family will have access to the appropriate mobile animal castle, an entity that can be upgraded progressively over time. The strategic benefit of having a building-sized animal holding a building on its back should be, at the very least, moderately clear.

Besides all that, the game has 30something instanced dungeon-like environments, open PvP zones, 6 main “theme parks” (presumably islands), and 8 player classes (knight, archer, ninja, soul keeper, etc.) Western closed beta starts in early may.  We’re psyched to see this kind of fully-fleshed, extremely unique game developed on BigWorld Technology, and we’ll continue coverage over the coming months, with new videos, screenshots, and feature updates.

With the recent closing of an amazingly successful Beta, and the global convergence of gamers into the recently-released World of Tanks official release servers, Wargaming is making steps toward expanding its development capabilities with this partnership.

The team at BigWorld is very proud to be a part of this awesome game. The horizon seems to be filled with exploding muzzles.

Read the full press release here.

Wargaming.net, the award-winning videogame developer and publisher behind world-famous franchises (Massive Assault series, Order of War, and World of Tanks) along with Lesta, one of the leading Russian videogame development and video production studios with Elements of War, Pacific Storm, and Aggression: Reign over Europe under their belt, announce today their exclusive strategic partnership and signing of a long-term co-development agreement.

War has broken out… video from the front lines

World of Tanks, one of the BigWorld-powered games that we’re most proud of, is now officially live.

Congratulations to the team over at Wargaming!

The BigWorld-powered World of Tanks MMO has been receiving quite a bit of press attention recently, but this one surprised even us.

Behold the latest development in a long string of awesome emanating from Wargaming Studios in Minsk: La Gargantua.

The massive “treaded fortress” apparently sports a long-range impulse rail turret, mine-laying capabilities, and a host of other yet-to-be-revealed functions.

This news has the BigWorld team questioning a number of its assumptions about reality, but also whether or not this signals a new change in the theme of the until-now period-based tank warfare game. Should we be expecting even more futuristic tech appearing from vortices across the WoT world? Steampunk, anyone?…. anyone?…. Bueller?

Still, rumors suggest that this may be the work of an independent faction or individual using the BigWorld Indie development license.

At the very least, the WoT player community can’t complain any longer about Russian tanks being overpowered. This unprovenonced beast now takes the cake… and basically anything else it wants to take….

Yikes.

La Gargantua

In the following video, the Wargaming team convinces us with little-to-no arm-pulling to sign up for the EU or North American open betas.