Category: Gaming & Collectibles

Australia, everything I hear about you further validates my theory that you are the Most Hardcore Country, and now I find out you’re making werewolf money.

As part of their Mythical Creatures series, Coin Club Australia has released a limited edition coin featuring that most financially solvent of Mythical Creatures, the werewolf. The coin was commissioned from The Perth Mint and contains 1oz of 99.9% pure silver (what else?) in proof quality (that’s a good thing, I looked it up). It has a monetary denomination of one Australian dollar, but it’s only legal tender in Tuvalu, and regardless of its value or its cost, only a drongo would try to spend a coin like this.

The Coin Club web site has a delightfully thorough description of the coin’s art, which displays Queen Elizabeth II on the front, and on the reverse, a “werewolf fiercely prowling in a dense forest beneath a full moon. A medieval banner displays a silhouette of a werewolf and the $1 monetary denomination, with the inscription ‘werewolf’ also featured on a stylised scroll.”

Whoah. I was listening to this while I read that description, and the combination was pretty intense in an “awesome airbrushed van” sort of way. On second thought, perhaps a coin this epic could be spent on food items to enhance your Punch and Kick abilities.

The Werewolf coin has a limited mintage of 5,000, costs $90.86 AUD, and one dollar of each purchase is donated to UNICEF-Australia. It’s housed in a “contemporary brown” presentation case and custom-designed shipper, and is accompanied by a numbered Certificate of Authenticity. Many thanks to Werewolf News reader John for sharing!

IGN’s Destin Legarie hangs out with Dave Verfaillie (Design Director at Double Helix) and a mystery man identified only as “Rich” as the latter two show off Sabrewulf from the new Killer Instinct game, available exclusively on the Xbox One. This video is from July, but I didn’t see it until this past #WerewolfWednesday, courtesy of @hamstertoybox. The game (and the system it’s playable on) launch today, with Sabrewulf as one of the six initial  characters, and holy shit does this tweaked-out medical experiment of a werewolf look good. And by “good” I mean “rabid killing machine”.

Throughout the 12-minute video, Dave explains Sabrewulf’s combat style and unique attributes (quickest dash in the game!) and discusses the design decisions behind his appearance and his stage, The Alchemical Lab. Despite Sabrewulf’s efforts to regain his humanity – enhancements like bionic arms are gone, replaced by bandages and other vestiges of medical equipment – they played up the “animal within” angle, which is obvious from the ragged panting, shuddering twitches and sprays of drool that make up much of his animation.

I’m going to level with you. I never played the original KI in the arcade or on the SNES, and I’m still more likely to get a Wii U than an Xbone or a P Ess Four, but there’s something about the gameplay, animation and sound design in this video that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Did you get an Xbox One and this game today, and if so, what’s your opinion? Should I take my credit card over to Amazon and buy myself an early Christmas gift?

If you liked stalking the hills of Skyrim as a werewolf, I’ve got some good news: Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax Online Studios are working on the next Elder Scrolls game, and the playable werewolves are even more elaborate than Skyrim’s lycanthropes. The Elder Scrolls Online is a MMORPG set in the continent of Tamriel, a millennium before the events of Skyrim. The game is currently in closed beta, but in the months leading up to the game’s release, Bethesda is sharing a lot of material about the game’s planning and development, and one of the latest news posts gives us “a peek at the creation of the player version of the werewolf”.

The werewolf’s model and combat animations need to convey a sense of unrestrained savagery. Werewolves use their incredible strength to leap through the air towards their unfortunate targets; they devour them with fervor. They often hunt in packs, destroying everything they can hunt down. We used references like video of hyenas gorging on a zebra to get the feel just right, adding touches like bloodstains on the muzzle after a good feast.

I’m not the biggest fan of digitigrade legs or oversized tails, but overall I really like the character design! He looks nasty in all the ways a werewolf ought to be nasty.

For more details, including the effort that went into making the werewolves’ sound design appropriately bestial, check out the news post on the game’s official site. The Elder Scrolls Online comes out in Spring 2014, and will be available for Windows, OS X, Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

I’ve mentioned the game Blood of the Werewolf before, but it’s not out yet, and like any good Internet denizen, I tend to talk about things I want until I have them. Further whetting my appetite for the promise of this punishingly difficult side-scroller is the enthusiasm of the game’s progenitor, Nathaniel ‘Than’ McClure. I’m gonna quote from an email he sent me late last week:

Last year I started on a dream project that our studio owns outright, Blood of the Werewolf. Blood of the Werewolf is my love letter to the games that we grew up playing. It doesn’t have the most features and it has little to no marketing budget. What is does have is heart. The game shines propped on its key design pillars of challenge and mastery.

I have a lot of love for people who put their hearts and souls into the things they make, especially when the thing they’re making is right up my alley, so I want to help Than get BotW out there.

• Go click the “yes” button on the “Blood of the Werewolf” Steam Greenlight page. If you have a Steam account, it’s literally a single click. If you don’t have a Steam account, I suggest you get one, click “yes”, and then let me know so we can play Borderlands 2 forever.
• Pre-order the game today, directly from Scientifically Proven, and get it for 50% off ($5 instead of $10).