Nordic Games, developers of the immensely fun cult hit, Pain Killer Hell and Damnation, and helped publish the other massive underground hit title, Alan Wake, have decided that its time to remove Games for Windows Live from their game Red Faction: Guerilla.

While the game proved to be nothing special and was rather divisive amongst gamers and critics alike, didn’t just get the Games for Windows Live portion of it removed, Nordic Games also saw fit to downgrade the game by default. It normally made use of DirectX 10 by default, but that has been changed to DX9.  “DX10 created a lot of problems and resulted in performance drawbacks.”

This means open public testing for bugs and glitches as well as the full integration of Steamworks which I think we can all agree is in every way possible, better than Games for Windows Live. The PC gaming community shed a collective tear when GFWL was removed from Bioshock 2, lets just hope more games follow suit soon.

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As Games for Windows Live winds down, the question of what will happen to games that depended on the service for their online infrastructure looms large in many people’s mind. Today, we got at least a partial answer to that question, as Capcom confirmed that three of its more high profile PC releases- Dead Rising 2, Dead Rising: Off the Record, and Resident Evil 5- will be migrating over to Steamworks early next year to provide a framework for online play.

“With the global popularity of the Steamworks platform, we’ve seen high demand from fans to bring these highly requested titles to this platform,” Capcom said.

“Moving to Steamworks will allow more fans across the world to enjoy these games.”

If you already own the games, they will automatically be transitioned over to the new platform, so you don’t need to worry about rebuying the titles, or adding non Steam games to your library.

There also indications that this project will be releasing for Xbox One and PS4 with applicants to “support a team embracing the latest technology on the next generation hardware”. The requirement for Xbox Live, PSN or Steamworks experience along with experience programming on consoles seems to indicate as much too.

It also seems that Yager will be working with Unreal Engine, with the listing stating that applicants “will work closely with engineers, content creators and designers to get the best out of Epic’s latest technology and extend it where needed to deliver our shared vision of the game.” Could that “latest technology” mean Unreal Engine 4?

Considering that Spec Ops: The Line’s multiplayer was considered tacked on and heavily panned by Yager itself, it would be interesting to see what is done with this latest title. What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.

Steamworks has been chosen this time around for other reasons though, namely due to installation issues for the GFWL service that players have experienced in the previous two games and for the multiplayer component, which will be introduced into the series for the first time.

Batman: Arkham Origins is a prequel to Arkham Asylum/City, developed by Rocksteady Studios, and will see Batman in Old Gotham taking on Black Mask and eight assassins hired to kill him on Christmas. Enemies such as The Joker and Penguin will be making an appearance as well, along with Deadshot, Deathstroke, Copperhead and other villains including Anarky. Robin will also appear in the game, although he will be playable outside the main storyline.

Batman: Arkham Origins will release on October 25th for Xbox 360, PC, Wii U and PlayStation 3 worldwide.

Or it could just be the first Steam Software Store titles. Regardless, the Software titles now available via Steam are:

– ArtRage Studio Pro
– CameraBag 2
– GameMaker: Studio
– 3D-Coat
– 3DMark Vantage
– 3DMark 11

Many of the launch titles will be taking advantage of popular Steamworks features, which according to the PR release includes, “easy installation, automatic updating, and the ability to save your work to your personal Steam Cloud space so your files may travel with you”. A lot of these software are quite interesting, especially in that they’re used to for graphical benchmark tests on GPUs. Of course, GameMaker: Studio is the most compelling release.

Valve’s Steamworks currently supports only the PS3 in the console market, and now, if recent reports are anything to go by, it might be making its way to the Xbox 360 too.

Steam users discovered an “XBOX Support” section in Steam’s online support forums (pictured above). This could very well be a minor slip-up on Valve’s part, but the company has expressed support in bringing their support over to MS’ console as well in the past.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt, we’ll keep you updated.

[SixthAxis]

Activision has confirmed Steamworks support for their upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, and they have also announced that the game can now be pre-order via Steam.

The game will ship with day one dedicated servers for the PC version, with both, the digital and retail copies sold.

MW3 releases in November on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii and DS.