Eidos announces Backyard Wrestling 2

Eidos has today announced that a sequel to Backyard Wrestling: Don't Try This at Home is currently in development at Paradox. Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood is currently scheduled for release on "video game consoles including the Xbox" in North America this fall.

"Harnessing the power of the Enviro-Mental gameplay engine, Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood will continue blazing the trail of unprecedented environmental interaction and over-the-top violence," said Kevin Gill, brand manager at Eidos. "The inclusion of online play will finally allow gamers to deliver pain to opponents from around the world. With its completely redesigned and expanded create-a-wrestler system, an impressive new grappling system, more diverse move set, solid hardcore soundtrack, and online play, BYW2 offers the complete wrestling package this fall."

In addition to online play, Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood will boast a number of improvements and new features over its predecessor, including more interaction with environments, standing and ground-based submissions, multiposition grappling, a deeper location-specific damage system, and improved visuals. The game will also feature more licensed brawlers this time around, including stars from the home video series, although no more specific roster details have been announced at this time. Players will have a great deal of scope when creating their own wrestlers as well, with options to add tattoos, face paint, and customized clothing.

The single-player game will boast new features such as deathmatches and a "quest for the belt" mode, but the biggest addition is undoubtedly the option for players to grapple with each other online. Players will be able to talk trash to each other using a USB headset as they wrestle, and Eidos will be employing Quazal's SyncSim for Net-Z engine to ensure that fights are perfectly synchronized for all players taking part.

"We're really happy to have Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood be the first title to ship with support for Quazal's Net-Z SyncSim technology," said Mike Drummelsmith, developer relations manager at Quazal. "The Net-Z SyncSim tech allowed Paradox and Eidos to rapidly bring the game online and let them focus their development on making the best-playing online game possible."

We'll bring you more information on Backyard Wrestling 2: There Goes the Neighborhood as soon as it becomes available.