First Official Word on WCW Thunder and WCW Nitro 64

T*HQ is playing a bit of musical chairs right now, all to the tune of keeping the licenses straight - but there's a larger story here.

WCW/nWo Live, the PlayStation game brandishing the WCW license, has been temporarily put on hold, not scrapped, and not given to Inland, as those guys are already busy enough developing three new wrestling titles. By the end of the year, T*HQ plans to deliver WCW/nWo Thunder for the PlayStation, WCW Nitro for the N64, and WCW Nitro for the PC.

On the WCW/nWo Live front, what's happening is that T*HQ is in the process of deciding if it wants to ship WCW/nWo Live, the PlayStation game Tomy's developing before the company's WCW license expires in June of 1999, or hold the game for the WWF license it has for the next ten years.

Confused? Stay with us. T*HQ representatives told videogames.com that it would rather get the Inland titles out the door, and then make a decision on the WCW/nWo Live game. In the interim, WCW/nWo Revenge, being developed by Asmik for the N64, is still in progress and is expected to release on schedule, this October.

What can you expect from the new Inland wrestling games? All of them will have double the number of WCW wrestlers, double the rants, entrance music, steel cages, faster and better controls and AI, a costume edit mode, more moves per player, weapons such as tables and chairs, and even a smarter and smarter looking crowd. Videogames.com will let you know the final word on WCW/nWo Live in the future, but you'll have to mark the game off your "to buy" list, at least for the time being.