Merely a few days after the announcement that Shadowbane will be free for all to play, Ubisoft hands pink slips to all Wolfpack Studios employees and sends them packing. Reason for the closure is that Ubisoft is refocusing its efforts on the console market with the new fiscal year. Shadowbane launched 3 years ago as the first MMO to offer a Dynamic World Model, in which players' actions and decisions permanently change the history, politics and landscape of the game. What will happen to the actual game/servers is unknown at this point.

Silent Hunter 3: Seawolves adds sixty new cities across Europe, North America and the Pacific, new campaigns & missions (22 sp, 4 mp), and plenty of other enhancements. This v1.01 patch updates campaign files and a few other tweaks.

id Software has released the v1.1 Win32/Linux SDK tools allowing the mod community to make their own content for Raven's FPS Quake 4.

Blizzard has released the German, French and UK versions of the new update for its MMORPG World of Warcraft. This v1.10 update adds weather effects, new armor, and a massive slew of bug and crash fixes, as well as balance tweaks.

GMX Media/Tri Synergy have released the first patch for Gameyus' upcoming modern warfare tactical 3D RTS Will of Steel. This update brings your retail game to v1.21 and resolves more pathfinding and AI issues.

Another Tuesday, another batch of games shipped to stores. Instead of giving them all their own posts, we grouped them, and so far there are announcements for:

• Beatmania (PS2)
• Kingdom Hearts II (PS2)
• Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers (PS2/Xbox/PC)
• True Crime: New York City (PC)
• Daemonica (PC)
• Rumble Roses XX (Xbox 360)
• 
  
  We will update this throughout the day when new announcements become available. Read more for details...

EA announced today that World Champion Pittsburgh Steelers Coach Bill Cowher will be on the cover of NFL Head Coach, the first-ever 3D sports strategy game where you can experience the emotional rollercoaster of coaching with the most true-to-life and authentic sports strategy game ever created.

In Crysis, shooter fans will face a new kind of gameplay challenge requiring adaptive tactics and customisation of weapons and armour in dynamic, hostile environments as mankind struggles to survive in the face of a horrific alien invasion. EA informed us that Crysis has been delayed from its original winter 2006 release to Q1 2007, most likely caused by the Windows Vista delay.

EA has released yet another new Battlefield 2 patch. This update brings your retail game to v1.22 and improves server stability, makes a few weapons tweaks, plugs a few exploits and fixes Lock on error on certain Oil towers.

2K Games signed an exclusive worldwide agreement with Sony Pictures to publish and distribute current generation console video games based on the highly-anticipated The Da Vinci Code film by Oscar winning director Ron Howard, which is based on Dan Brown's best-selling novel.