GSC E3 line-up.

Kiev, 05.05.06



GSC Game World a leading East-European computer game developer and publisher announces its titles to be presented at the upcoming E3 trade show in Los Angeles. Two titles, currently under development at GSC are to be on display during the expo on May 10-12: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and Heroes of Annihilated Empires.

Heroes of Annihilated Empires is going to be for the first time demonstrated publicly in North America. The presentation of the latest game build will be held throughout the entire show at the booth of CDV (the North-American distributor for the game) in Kentia hall booth #7007.

This trilogy game is a unique opposition of two popular genres - a real-time strategy and a role-playing game. Heroes of Annihilated Empires episode one is set in a distant epoch yet unexplored by mankind when our planet was inhabited by fairy creatures abounding present-day legends and fantasy novels. The gameplay allows winning the game by favoring one of the two full-fledged genres - RTS or RPG, so as blending them. The player can build settlements, recruit armies of many thousands units or develop a single hero and make him strong enough to oppose entire armies alone. The game storyline is created by Ilya Novak awarded the best European debutant author at Eurocon 2005 (Glasgow). All the storyline twists are described in detail in the five novels by Ilya Novak, to be released alongside the game.

Heroes of Annihilated Empires is published worldwide by GSC WORLD PUBLISHING, a subdivision of GSC Game World.

After a year's break S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, published worldwide by THQ (but for the territory of ex-USSR), is to be demonstrated at E3. The press-only presentation featuring a live singleplayer demo will be held at THQ booth (South Hall booth #1324).

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a Survival FPS set in the near-future Chernobyl exclusion zone. The player, as a stalker, is to go through 30 sq.-km area of the Zone exploring it, learning about its dangers and inhabitants, surviving deadly anomalies, radiation, collecting valuable artefacts, but ultimately solving the mystery behind the Zone: what caused it to existence, what's controlling it etc. The opponents will include mutated animals, weird creatures, rival stalkers, the military and more. The complete freedom of actions coupled with A-life system implemented in the game will provide for unique experience for every player and the unlimited replay-ability. Building up relations with NPCs, playing different roles in the game, making friends and foes, collecting information will all impact the ending that the player comes to in the game.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was awarded 'Most Wanted Game of 2006' (Gameland Award) in ex-USSR and has been a highly anticipated title worldwide.

Heroes. Beta-version. Patch v. 1.1.

We are happy to report the players' extensive feedback and very active participation in testing of the recently launched beta-version of Heroes of Annihilated Empires. In the heat of the testing process, we would like to highlight the goals which we primarily pursue with this open beta test effort.

Beta testing goals:
1. To demonstrate the current state of the game, specifically theengine, graphics and the gameplay basics. This in mind, we had assembled a separate, non-game mission to represent the above-mentioned elements on one map. It should be noted that by far not all of the game mechanics were demonstrated, while many elements present in the version are rather abridged too:

The mission has incomplete upgrades system, no flying units, fleet, walls, which the full game will provide;
There has not been activated the possibility to select enemy units, view their vulnerable spots, characteristics and abilities;
The mission does not have AI in the sense of "choosing the weakest target spots", "maneuvering", "evaluating enemy strength", "base build-up".
2. Due to the game being done on the new engine - to test the game version compatibility with various non-standard configurations (which are very common as the test proved);

In response to the feedback and multiple requests of the players to have tried the beta version, we have prepared the first patch fixing a considerable number of technical and game bugs, so as improving the performance drastically.

Patch fixes:
Critical! 1. Black screen bug, aka blinking screen bug fixed (a problem with wrong display drivers so that the game does not understand the maximal usable screen refresh rate). The options added to the launcher (HeroesOfAE.exe) allow you to choose in between safe mode or higher refresh rate.

Major! 2. Pathfinding improved (but still to be improved in further versions).

Major! 3. Arrows and 2-3 fps bug fixed (arrows no longer stay on the ground).

Major! 4. Performance considerably increased owing to new shadow quality option added (low).

Major! 5. Fog of war method completely redone (panoramic view (PageDown(View) + high zoom out) looks stunning).

Minor! 6. Minor change in mission script. AI increases power through time by carrying out zombie upgrades. It gets tougher to play now on later stages of the game.

Minor! 7. Zooming function changed to allow deeper zoom-in + no need to constantly press the zooming button, the stances switching now (zoom-in, standard view, zoom-out).

Minor! 8. Game logic changed to increase the performance (enables performance boost on virtually all machines)

Minor! 9. Smaller balance tweaks.

Info! 10. In-game hint with hot-key info added

Surprise!!! 11. Interface redone (new styling).

Patch (10.3 MB) can be downloaded here: www.heroesofae.com/en/

About GSC Game World:

Founded in 1995 in Kiev, GSC Game World is the leading Kiev-based computer game development company in Ukraine. Up to 1997 GSC Game World was preoccupied with creation of multimedia encyclopedias and edutainment programs, which gained wide popularity in Ukraine and Russia. Since 1997 the company has been putting its efforts purely into game technology and computer game development. The very first commercial game project of GSC Game World was the critically acclaimed and hugely popular historical real-time strategy game Cossacks: European Wars, released in 2000.

The launched projects developed by GSC Game World, among others, include Cossacks: The Art of War, Cossacks; Back to War, American Conquest, American Conquest: Fight Back, Codename: Outbreak, Alexander (based on the recent movie by Oliver Stone), Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars. GSC Game World currently works on highly anticipated S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and Heroes of Annihilated Empires titles. The latter is the first game to be self-published by GSC worldwide.
Official web-site: www.gsc-game.com

About GSC World Publishing:

GSC World Publishing is the publishing branch of the biggest Ukrainian PC games developer GSC Game World, founded in 2004. The first games released by the publishing house were Alexander, a tie-in of the Oliver Stone's movie (in 2004) and Cossacks II: Napoleonic Wars (in 2005). Both of them were released by GSC World Publishing in the territories of ex-USSR. Heroes of Annihilated Empires is the first game to be published by GSC's publishing branch outside of ex-USSR.

GSC World Publishing's practice of self-releasing PC games outside Ukraine is unprecedented in the history of Ukrainian games industry.

Official web-site: www.gsc-game.com