BLACK WIDOW GAMES

Preview - February 7, 2008

STOLEN SECRETS

Once again, undercover PC Gamer editors managed to infiltrate our security and expose never-before-seen details about They Hunger: Lost Souls production. These revelations are part of a special edition featuring zombie games, which appears in PC Gamer's March 2008 issue. Check it out here and here.

Preview - August 27, 2007

ZOMBIES!

PC Gamer magazine's August 2007 issue has an insightful article concerning some design decisions behind They Hunger: Lost Souls' zombies, along with our zombiefied buddies at Left4Dead. Read it here.

Preview - April 9, 2007

THE SECOND ENCOUNTER

Planet Half-Life has just published the most detailed and in-depth coverage yet concerning They Hunger: Lost Souls, including further information about our development status. You can read all about it right here and here.

News - January 4, 2007

ALIVE AND KICKING

Sorry that They Hunger: Lost Souls release is taking so long, but the entire development team has been working really hard on additional content and further improvements based on feedbacks from internal testings. Our ongoing "crunch mode" has not allowed much time for interviews or publicity.

Unfortunately, a few major web sites have interpreted our lack of news as a sign that the project was cancelled, which could not be any further from the truth. We are currently in contact with them to rectify this information. After investing so much time and effort on this project, it would make no sense to cancel it at the final stages of development, but it also wouldn't make sense to rush it out of the door until we can be sure you will fully enjoy it!

We will not be announcing an official release date until the game is close to release. In the meantime, we will continue focusing exclusively on finishing this game. Thus if you don't hear from us too often, it only means we are still busy improving the game.

News - October 28, 2006

THE END IS NEAR

After almost two years dedicated exclusively to the game development, without much time left for news or publicity, They Hunger: Lost Souls is now very close to release. Further details about the game status can be found at FiringSquad.

News - April 5, 2006

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

They Hunger: Lost Souls has now entered alpha stage. All level development is finished and refined. We are now focusing on final resources and content, which basically means integrating scripting, dialogues, additional models and animations.

Sorry for the scarce updates, but we've just been too busy working on the game. It's coming along very nicely and we believe your patience will be rewarded!

Preview - January 2, 2006

FIVE DAYS OF FEAR

Planet Half-Life is currently featuring a five-day series of articles, interviews and exclusive screenshots of They Hunger: Lost Souls. Also featured is a nostalgic look at the classic They Hunger mod trilogy. Check it out here.

Interview - October 25, 2005

GAMECLOUD INTERVIEWS "THEY HUNGER: LOST SOULS" DESIGNERS

The first interview with Neil and Einar concerning They Hunger: Lost Souls has been published at Gamecloud.

Press Release - October 19, 2005

BLACK WIDOW GAMES ANNOUNCES "THEY HUNGER: LOST SOULS"

Black Widow Games announced today the development of They Hunger: Lost Souls, its first commercial PC game powered by the award-winning Half-Life 2 Source engine from Valve Software. Based upon the highly popular They Hunger mod series, the upcoming title features a completely new horror-survival adventure. In North-Eastern Europe during the early 1960's, strange anomalies culminate with dead corpses rising from their graves. As a tourist recovering from a tragic accident, you seek shelter in an ancient monastery overrun by bloodthirsty zombies, and become involved in an escalading cascade of calamities.

"They Hunger: Lost Souls is a first-person action game planned to take full advantage of the superior graphics, physics and new gameplay possibilities provided by the new Source technology," said designer Neil Manke. "Without the previous technical restrictions of the now seven years old Half-Life 1 engine, we have been able to produce a brand new game far more exciting and creative than any simple sequel or remake could ever be. Fans of the original series should still recognize the basic gameplay style, although this is an independent story with no previous knowledge required."

The new game is currently 75% complete after being secretly produced for almost a year, and a release date will be announced shortly. Regarding the adoption of a commercial model for this production, Neil explained "Next generation game engines are so complex and detailed that we would never be able to invest so much time and resources for such an ambitious project any other way. Right now we are still working out the pricing and distribution options, but our goal is a low cost alternative so it can be available for just a fraction of other commercial games." Additional information about the game and further news will be available at www.blackwidowgames.svencoop.com.

About Black Widow Games: Since 1997, Black Widow Games released 14 contract-work game projects for the Quake and Half-Life technologies, freely distributed as promotional material for the marketing campaigns of a TV series, game magazine, web news site and a theatrical movie. Recent productions include the Half-Life mods USS Darkstar, They Hunger trilogy and Underworld Bloodlines, all released on time and on budget, obtaining wide media coverage and immense popularity.

About They Hunger for Half-Life 1: Originally produced as a series of freely distributed mods contracted by PC Gamer Magazine, They Hunger trilogy resulted in about 2/3 the size of the original Half-Life 1 game, featuring 64 levels, 83 monster types, and over 20 hours of gameplay. According to CNET Gamecenter, it was "the best horror-themed first-person shooter since the original Blood." IGN News named Neil Manke as "the Spielberg of video game level design," and PC Gamer elected They Hunger one of the "10 Scariest PC Games Ever", side-by-side with best-seller commercial games such as Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil, Aliens vs Predator, and Doom.