THQ drops Devil’s Third, Itagaki gets rights to IP – Video games Update
THQ announces that it has dropped Devil’s Third and transferred the Intellectual Property rights back to Valhalla Game Studios, who are now probably looking for a new publisher.
THQ had picked up the rights for Devils’ Third, a game being developed by Tomonobu Itagaki’s Valhalla Studios. Itagaki was a former boss of Tecmo’s Team Ninja, the studio behind the famous Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive fighting games.
He resigned from the company in 2008 right after the launch of Ninja Gaiden 2 for the Xbox 360 and sued Tecmo for unpaid royalties to him and his team for the work they did on Dead or Alive 4, which was an Xbox 360 launch title. When he left Tecmo, he took
the majority of the Team Ninja staff with him to form his own development studio called Valhalla Game Studios.
Devil’s Third was first announced at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 and was supposed to be published by THQ. The game was being developed on the Darksiders 2 engine, but there has been no news so far if Valhalla will still be using the same engine as
THQ has now dropped the game.
"THQ confirms that the company will not be publishing Devil's Third, All of the game's IP rights have been returned to Itagaki-san and the Valhalla team," stated the publisher in an interview with Eurogamer. The reason why THQ dropped the title was because
of the financial crisis the publisher is facing right now and Devil’s Third did not fit into the publisher’s portfolio anymore.
Devil’s Third is a third person Action game which combines game-play elements of Gears of War and Ninja Gaiden and just like the inspirations for this game, Devil’s third is excessively violent and full of gore as seen from the two trailers released for
the game so far.
Itagaki describes the game as a breakthrough in the shooter genre and stated, “It's not taking a hack and slash game and tacking on some ranged weapon combat. We feel we have a lot to learn as we make this, but we also feel confident in our experience and
the fundamental elements of head-to-head competition in [our previous] games."
Devil’s Third currently has no release date as Valhalla searches for another publisher. Tecmo perhaps?
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