THQ triggering Red Faction: Armageddon

It's only been a year since THQ launched Red Faction: Guerrilla to critical acclaim, but the publisher is already prepping its next trip back to the red planet. The publisher today announced Red Faction: Armageddon will arrive on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in March 2011.

Where Guerrilla focused on Alec Mason's rebellion against the oppressive Earth Defense Force, Armageddon shifts the focus and ups the stakes. The game picks up roughly 50 years later and focuses on Darius Mason, Alec's grandson. When the younger Mason accidentally unleashes a planet-threatening evil on Mars, it's up to him and his grandfather's old rebel group, the Red Faction, to clean up the mess.

As in previous Red Faction games, cleaning up a big mess will require making an even bigger mess, thanks to a focus on physics-based destruction. Armageddon will provide players some new surroundings to explosively customize, from ice caves to lava flows.

Neither the Armageddon name nor the release date should come as a big surprise to fans of the series. In February, THQ had said it would have a follow-up to Guerrilla on shelves by the second quarter of 2011, and in April, it registered a variety of Red Faction: Armageddon domain names.