Earlier today, the dream of many Harry Potter fans around the world, yours truly included, seemed to be finally nearing a reality. A leak of a full fledged AAA Harry Potter game, which included you being able to make your own character, attend Hogwarts, go to class, and hang out with other students, started making the rounds, which is literally everything that a Harry Potter fan would ever want from a game based on the property.

However, the initial report stated that the game may be developed by Rocksteady, known best for their Batman: Arkham series of video games. We know they are working on something new that they’ve kept secret all this while, but we haven’t know what it is, so the supposition that they could be working on this highly vaunted Warner Bros. property made total sense. That said, according to Eurogamer, it’s not Rocksteady who is working on this game.

Rather, it is Avalanche Software, which we briefly mentioned in our earlier report as well. No, not Avalanche Studios, whom you are probably thinking of, and the folks who hare currently developing Just Cause 4 and RAGE 2, and who have previously worked with Warner on Mad Max. Avalanche Software is a Utah based developer, who is best known for its work on Disney Infinity. Following the cancellation of that project, they were acquired by Warner, and have since been working on a “AAA RPG for consoles”, which “needs knowledge of British culture and grammar”. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty Harry Potter sounding to me.

Eurogamer also reports that the game in question may be called Harry Potter Magic Awakened or Harry Potter Magic Forever, neither of which are good names. Which means they’re probably real.

We’ll keep you posted on more updates as they come in.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced today that Gauntlet will be reborn as a new action RPG this summer, coming to Steam with full support for SteamOS as well as the Steam Machines that will be going live… well, some time in the future.

The game is being developed by Arrowhead Studios, and will further improve on the base that the classic game established- there will be four character classes, each with its unique traits, and a distinctive artstyle. The dungeons will also all be procedurally generated.

“With Gauntlet we combined the arcade style of the original game with an entirely new look and feature set that includes emergent, local and online four-player gameplay,” said David Haddad, Senior Vice President, Digital Games, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Gauntlet will be the first title in the WB Games Vault portfolio, which will provide us with an opportunity to access emerging talent within the game development community and match unique skills and experience with our extensive library of properties.”

“To us at Arrowhead, Gauntlet is one of the most defining games from our childhoods, and it’s amazing to be able to work with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on a brand new version,” said Johan Pilestedt, CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios.  “Gauntlet is one of the original and best known video game properties and we are looking forward to creating a fresh, yet true to the original, take on a multiplayer masterpiece.”

We’ll have more for you on the game soon as it develops. In the meanwhile, check out the trailer above.

Infinite Crisis, Warner Bros.’ MOBA based on DC comic book characters, will finally be entering open beta on Friday, March 14. To celebrate, Warner Bros. are releasing three never before seen heroes.

Green Arrow, Aquaman, and Mecha-Superman are all joining the fight; while Aquaman might make it seem like they are now plumbing the depths of the DC pantheon, because lolAquaman, Mecha-Superman is great, and Greenn Arrow, especially after his newfound popularity thanks to the hit TV show Arrow, is sure to be a popular choice.

In the upcoming open beta, players will be able to test their skills on Infinite Crisis’ exciting new tri-lane map, “Gotham Divided,” where two universes collide and players can battle across Gotham City and its Multiverse variant Gotham by Gaslight.

It will be interesting to see how much of an impact Infinite Crisis can make in a genre which is dominated not by one, but by two unassailable heavyweight behemoths- Riot Games’ League of Legends, and Valve’s DOTA 2.

Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have just revealed the first details for Batman: Arkham Origins: Cold, Cold Heart, an upcoming story based story based add-on for the third Arkham title.

As many may have already guessed from the title, Cold, Cold Heart follows the origin story of Mr. Freeze, and sees him transform into Batman’s arch-nemsis, a role that he reprises in later Batman stories. Cold, Cold Heart will be available for  on the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, and Steam beginning April 22. As expected, no Wii U version (as is the case with mostly all DLC). This add-on pack will be available to players who have purchased the Batman: Arkham Origins Season Pass and are connected to the Internet, or it can be purchased separately.

Batman: Arkham Origins is available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. A companion title, Batman: Arkham Origins: Blackgate, was released for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita.

Lego: The Hobbit, the Lego themed Middle-Earth adventures that sees fans reliving the exploits of a certain Mr. Bilbo Baggins, will be releasing in the UK on April 11, Warner Bros. confirmed today.

The game will launch on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, and PC (including both Windows and OS X), so basically, if you want to play the game, you really kind of don’t have an excuse not to, considering that it’s releasing on anything capable of supporting its code, it seems like.

The game covers the first two movies of Jackson’s unfortunately structured Hobbit trilogy, and it allows for Bilbo to be controlled in addition to each individual dwarf in the Company, even allowing players to combine their attacks to devastating effect.

Considering the insane popularity of Lego games in the UK- nine Lego games made the All Formats Top 40 sales chart in the UK last week- we can probably expect to see these games released on a higher priority basis in that territory from now on.

Batman: Arkham Origins launched recently to a rather middling reception, especially compared to the universal acclaimed that the two Rocksteady developed titles had received before it. However, the game’s been received mostly well by players, who have nevertheless found their enjoyment hampered by the plethora of bugs and glitches that plague the game.

Warner Bros. took to updating players via a blog post about the fixes for the bugs that are all inbound: the infinite falling loop (which is a problem on all platforms), the corrupted saves (endemic to the Xbox 360 version), crashes and freezing (on the Xbox 360 version), and the inability to continue your save file are all among the problems that Warner Bros is hoping to address via a patch that should be inbound some time soon.

Patches were mentioned for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC version- no fixes were mentioned for the Wii U version.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage.

The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC may be getting Batman: Arkham Origins, the Warner Montreal developed prequel to Rocksteady’s seminal Batman: Arkham duology, but the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS aren’t being left out of the action either. Both the handhelds are getting Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, which is a Metroidvania style title starring everyone’s favorite Caped Crusader, built from the ground up for the two systems.

Above we have ten minutes of gameplay footage of the title, and it sure looks sweet (although it looks like the title was built for the Nintendo 3DS and then put on the PlayStation Vita rather than the other way around). Personally, maybe because I am so much of a comic book nerd, what stood out the most to me are its comic book style still life cutscenes, although the actual gameplay looks pretty good too.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage of both of these game, Batman: Arkham Origins, and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, including our extensive reviews for both the titles.

Warner Bros’s Batman: Arkham Origins is one of the most anticipated releases of this year, being the third entry in a series that has gone on to be one of the most critically acclaimed of this generation. Ahead of the game’s release, we got to speak to the developers (Warner Montreal, so a different studio from the developers of the first two titles, which were developed by critical darlings Rocksteady) about the project, and we learned some fascinating, and frankly staggering, things about the scope of the title.

‘The Gotham City in Batman: Arkham Origins is more than double the size of Arkham City,’ said Michael McIntyre, gameplay director at Warner Montreal. ‘This includes two major regions: North Gotham and South Gotham and the bridge connecting them. There is a lot of space to explore. The length of the single player campaign will depend on each player’s play style but should meet the expectations of fans of the franchise.’

He also spoke about the boss battles in the game, noting that he anticipates that the new batch of boss battles will live up to the hallmark set by the previous two games.

‘The premise of the night of assassins offers many opportunities for memorable face-offs between Batman and the major villains that have descended on Gotham City on this one night. We definitely feel we have a great variety since each fight is tailored to the character involved. Some are larger-than-life spectacles and others are more intimate and strange. All of them are designed to put the player’s core skills to the test. We think many of our boss fights will be some of the most intense and satisfying sequences in the game.’

All in all, it sounds like a game to keep an eye out for.

Batman: Arkham Origins hits Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, and PC later this year.

Man, whatever in the world would Warner Bros. do in the gaming industry if it wasn’t for DC? Although they’ve got Mortal Kombat and Scribblenauts, and some other publishing partnerships, most notably with Traveller Tales, and CD Projekt RED for The Witcher series, on the whole, their entire roster of games seems to be based on their DC properties.

Not that it matters when the games are good, as the upcoming Infinite Crisis, the MOBA developed by Turbine, looks to be. Infinite Crisis is the newest entry in an increasingly crowded genre, but the hook is that it is based on DC properties, and so it features DC characters like Wonder Woman and Batman.

The newest video up there takes us behind the scenes on the upcoming game. Do you like what you see? Are you excited?

Infinite Crisis is due for release later this year. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for further coverage.

Warner Bros. have been one of the most ardent and prolific third party supporters of Nintendo’s latest, struggling system, with every major game from them getting a Wii U version so far (and some Wii U exclusives as well), but their multiplats tend to be, true to the stereotype, inferior on Nintendo’s system for one reason or the other. This trend will continue with the upcoming Batman: Arkham Origins.

The game’s recently unveiled multiplayer mode will be skipping the Wii U version altogether. Confirming this, a Warner Bros. told Eurogamer: “MP will be available for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. The team is focusing development efforts on platforms with the largest MP audience.”

This is entirely nonsensical and disappointing, because if the full game already exists on the Wii U, then why not just port the multiplayer mode over as well? Admittedly, maybe the multiplayer volume on the Wii U would not be high enough to justify the server costs.

Batman: Arkham Origins is the third installment in the highly acclaimed Batman: Arkham series. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, it will hit Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and Wii U later this year.