You know Techland, right? No no, not that weird Discovery Zone ripoff your Dad used to take you to when you were a little kid -- the Polish developer! You know, the comany that makes Call of Juarez and ... ummm ... not much else. Anyway, while speaking recently with G4TV, the company's international brand manager, Blazej Krakowiak, confirmed a second title from the developer, albeit one announced way back in 2007, named Dead Island.

Unfortunately, the game's website tells us little to nothing about the game's current status. So, we emailed Techland this afternoon and Krakowiak told us, "As far as Dead Island goes, nothing has changed regarding our media silence .... the game's worldwide publisher is still waiting for their best moment to strike and reveal the awesome stuff we're preparing for zombie fans and gamers." He also confirmed to us the game's still in-development status, saying, "The game's still alive (or better yet, still Dead) and doing great."

As G4TV rightly points out, when the game was shown last it was without a publisher, so if anything, this means good things for Techland's zombie game. After all, we're still wondering what happened to the company's open-world FPS game, Warhound ...

We've heard about the impressive capabilities of the in-beta Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools -- and recently, we've seen the SDK's fantastic handiwork -- but we haven't had a chance to get our hands on it yet. Luckily, Valve is dropping an update for the zombocalypse sim on Steam next week; one that will give everyone access to the authoring tools, and allow everyone to play the community's homegrown campaigns.

The level hunting process sounds simple enough -- amateur level designers bundle all their maps, posters, models, and textures into a single .VPK file, which players must download and drop into the game's "addons" folder. Voila! Now you have access to even more Witch/car alarm shooting ranges err ... survival zones.

Update: It's here.

[Via Evil Avatar]

Poor Valve, it just can't catch a break. At this year's E3, it revealed what should have been one of the more pleasant surprises of the show in Left 4 Dead 2, only to have a bunch of angry folks cry "boycott." Then, it put out box art for the game, only to have the ESRB flip out over something as silly as two chewed-off fingers.

As you can see above, Valve had to dial the gore back, with the two offending fingers now bent back. Oddly enough, there were no issues with the thumb, which makes us think the ESRB is composed of a bunch of Steve Oedekerk haters.

The Left 4 Dead 2 announcement at the Microsoft press conference gobsmacked us this morning (didn't they just release Left 4 Dead like last November? What is this, Madden?), but apparently the sneaky folks at Rock Paper Shotgun weren't surprised: they've already seen the game in action. We're hoping to see it this week ourselves, but until then, here's a few juicy zombie tidbits to hold you over: the game takes place in the Southern United States, and the five campaigns will take you on a Southern odyssey from Savannah to New Orleans. There are four new characters also: a rough high school coach who's used to taking charge, a female cable news reporter, a rustic Southern mechanic type, and a Sawyer-style con man. The characters keep the snappy dialogue, and the campaigns will tell an overarching story as you move through them.

We weren't sure what to expect when we rolled up to the first annual Knight News Game Awards, wearing our finest armor and eager to graciously accept our much-deserved award for sharpest swords. It turns out the ceremony, named for its sponsor -- the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation -- is designed instead to recognize a new genre of games, namely those that are "journalistic and enhance people's ability to make decisions in a democracy." Boy, were our faces red, not that you could tell beneath our newly-polished helmets.

The awards presentation is set to kick off as part of the Games for Change Festival this week, which runs from May 27-29 in New York City. Event organizers today announced the finalists for the awards, which include a handful of socially-conscious games including Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City, Play the News and the controversial September 12th – A Toy World. Our pick: The Budget Maze, where players navigate a dungeon while quizzing zombies on city or state budget processes. Who better to consult on financial planning than the undead?

"Sure, the rooftop portion of No Mercy is intense," you often explained to your Left 4 Dead-playing cohorts, "but you know what it needs? More Tanks. Eight or nine more, at least." Your friends attempt to dissuade your mad-eyed vision, but ultimately find it futile -- after all, it's not like you have the ability to summon these hulking meatwalls from the ether, right? ... right?

Tremble in fear, zombocalypse Survivors -- Valve just released the Left 4 Dead Authoring Tools it used to create the core campaigns to the general public. Using these grim mechanisms, players are able to "create your own campaign maps, character skins, 3D models, sound effects, and music and load them into the game." Best of all, Valve will be updating the matchmaking system to include player-made levels in the coming weeks. If your interest in L4D is waning, brace yourself -- the game's getting a huge booster shot.

[Thanks, Dan!]

We just thought you should know.

[Via MTV]

Nothing says love like a chainsaw on a stick. Unless it's two chainsaws on a stick, which is just one of several implements Dead Rising 2 protagonist (and loving father!) Chuck Greene uses to cut a swath through Fortune City's pesky zombie infestation. A new video showing off Greene's hatred of the walking dead has made its way onto the sprawling internet -- we're certainly not above sharing the love after the break.

[Via CVG]

It appears that Zombies!!! is in search of new brains to develop its video game adaptation. Speaking to Big Download, Zombies!!! license holder Twilight Creations stated it is currently looking for another company to develop the game and "cannot disclose the status of [former developer] Big Rooster."

Wait, what? Who asked about Big Rooster?

Big Rooster is the Madison, Wisconsin, developer that had the video game adaptation of Talisman pulled from it, publisher Capcom later stated there was a "misfire" in its development. We've reached out to Big Rooster to find out if the company had any comment, but apparently Big Download had the same experience contacting the developer as we did, with emails yet to be returned and the phones being "disconnected."

During a GDC presentation about the bolstered graphics engine powering Dead Rising 2, Izmeth Siddeek, the game's character art lead, made a fairly startling proclomation: "Dead Rising 2 deals with the rendering of the greatest number of characters ever seen in a video game," he said. In other words, the massive amounts of on-screen zombies featured in the original Dead Rising will apparently increase by a huge margin in the sequel.

The enlarged zombie processing power can be attributed to developer Blue Castle's implementation of new visual technology called Mental Mill, which is capable of rendering large groups of characters without sacrificing graphical quality. Mental Mill product manager Laura Scholl claimed the new software will allow over 6,000 zombies to appear on-screen, providing undead multitudes that will be easy on the eyes, but rough on our formerly uneaten brains.

2.5 million copies of the online survival FPS game, Left 4 Dead, have been sold according to Valve project lead Michael Booth. This figure covers both the retail PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game, and surprisingly omits any sales from Valve's Steam platform.

If you haven't shot any zombies lately, you may want to jump back in soon. Valve is releasing the free Survival DLC pack next month for Xbox 360 and PC owners.

Valve has announced that the price of its upcoming Left 4 Dead DLC, which includes a new "Survival" mode and "Versus" mode support for two more campaigns, will be set at ... zero dollars for both the PC and Xbox 360 versions.

Wow. Our posts are really short when we can't find anything to complain about.

For a few hours on Monday morning in Austin, Texas, it seemed as if the world was coming to an end, as two road signs warned of "Nazi zombies!" KXAN has a full report, but apparently doesn't have any gamers on staff, as it completely missed the Call of Duty: World at War reference. Come on mainstream media, y'all missed a great opportunity to blame games for something.

The "hackers" who changed the signs committed a class C misdemeanor, which in the state of Texas automatically carries the death penalty ... no, that's not true, but we're sure branding is involved. Check out the full news report after the break.

[Thanks, Rick]