Renowned game composer Jesper Kyd has composed the “dark and distorted” soundtrack for Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, an upcoming co-op action game from IO Interactive, the creators of the Hitman series. The game will be available next month for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

The already fragile alliance in Kane & Lynch: Dead Men will get even more delicate in the online multiplayer mode called “Fragile Alliance.” The mode will have up to eight players team up against police in a series of heist scenarios, however, it will be up to the player to either work as a team or back-stab their team mates and work for themselves at any moment. The objective is to steal the loot and make it to the getaway point; the winner is the player who escapes with the most loot.

“We wanted to make a multiplayer experience using the theme, dynamics and atmosphere of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men” said Kim Krogh, Lead Game Designer, IO Interactive. “Fragile Alliance is a new way to use co-op in multiplayer. Play it like a soldier and you’ll lose, play it like a criminal and you’ll win”.

The game will hit stores on November 20 on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. It will be released throughout Europe on November 23.

Three new shots from Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, an upcoming action game from Io Interactive, the maker’s of the Hitman series.

The official website for Kane & Lynch: Dead Men has gone live, offering up game details, forums, competitions as well as the omnipresent media to curious gamers. Apparently, the site represents the “dual personalities… being both edgy and psychotic at the same time,” according to the site’s web designer. It has also won an award.

From IGN comes word that the film adaptation of upcoming co-op action title Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is set to begin shooting this Fall. In development at Lionsgate, a script penned by Kyle Ward has been selected. It is not known which actors will be chosen for the roles of the titular characters, though the report claims that “several big-name actors… including one A-lister” are being discussed.

More information on the film is forthcoming. The game itself is in the works at IO Interactive and is set for release later this year on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Check out a new trailer below.

Following up on the Game Informer story, Eidos has officially announced Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, a new franchise from Hitman creator Io Interactive.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a dark and gritty tale of two men bound by circumstance as they wait on death row for their final sentence. One is a flawed mercenary, the other a medicated psychopath. The two are forced to embark on a violent and chaotic journey, hating each other every step of the way.

The game will be a story-driven, fully cooperative third-person action shooter, with crew mechanics, heavily populated destructible real-world scenarios and a “volatile” partnership between the two main characters. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men will be available on PC and Xbox 360 sometime next year.

On Game Informer is an article on their August 2006 cover feature: it’s a new game from Io Interactive, the studio behind the venerable Hitman franchise, dubbed Kane & Lynch: Dead Men for PC and Xbox 360.

The site describes it as a third-person action game with “full co-op play option, intuitive squad tactics, and a hearty online multiplayer component.” A “few surprises” are also in store for us, apparently.

As for the rest of the magazine: there’s a feature on ESRB and politicians; a look into the next-gen Turok; previews of games like Shadowrun, Valkyrie Profile 2 and more.

As promised, the Blood Money demo has been put up today.

• Hitman: Blood Money on 3D Gamers, 4players.de, Download.com, GameSpot, VGPRO and Worthplaying
  
• Virtual RC Racing on the Official Website

Get your black suit and red tie on: a demo for Blood Money is coming just after the weekend. Gamespot announces that the Hitman: Blood Money demo will be premiering on the site on Monday at 9am PDT. The sampling will feature the first level of the game, having Agent 47 tracking down a target through a run-down theme park that has been converted into a makeshift drug lab.

Hitman: Blood Money is due out on May 30 for the PC, PS2, Xbox and Xbox 360.

A fan interview with Rasmus Sisgaard of IO Interactive on Hitmanforum indicates that Hitman: Blood Money has gone gold, though there has been no official announcement regarding the matter. Scoop:

It has been fantastic working on Hitman Blood Money. It has also been very tough. There have been many nights and weekends, where we’ve been working on the game, but all of the people at IoI are fantastic, and so it feels more like having fun than work at times. I’m writing this, the day after the PC version has gone goldmaster, and shipped to the manufacturer, and I have to tell you it’s a wonderful feeling.

It’s funny how it gets when you work on a game for this long, because in the end I couldn’t really figure out if it was a good game or not, because I more or less only saw my own levels everyday, and focused on the bugs. But when I saw the levels the other guys were working on, and they were sitting there pointing out which bugs they were fixing, the only thing I could think and say was, “Holy #¤%&! Your level is the coolest one ever. So much better than mine. The entire game is gonna rock”. And it was the exact same when people saw my levels. I guess it was something like couldn’t see the forest for the trees.

The bald, suit-wearing, and cold as steel Hitman will be back in the upcoming Blood Money sequel… which will also be out for the Xbox 360. Eidos announced that the game will also be released on the next-gen console alongside its current-gen brethren; it will feature the same content and storyline, but will feature enhanced graphics, lighting and special effects, as expected.

The Xbox 360 version will be released to coincide with the release of the PC, PS2 and Xbox versions this Spring.