Too Human co-opting August

After an epic-length development, Too Human finally has an official release date. Microsoft, ahead of its event in San Francisco today, has confirmed that the sci-fi action role-playing game will ship for the Xbox 360 on August 19 in North America and August 29 in Europe.

Too Human's shipment will be the culmination of nearly 10 years work by its developer, Canadian shop Silicon Knights. The game was first announced at E3 1999 as an ambitious 3D RPG for the original PlayStation, spanning 80 hours of gameplay and 60 minutes of cinematics on four or five CD-ROMs. The game turned out to be too ambitious, as it was promptly delayed and then ported to the Nintendo GameCube in 2000.

For the next five years the game remained off the radar, until it resurfaced at Microsoft's X05 event as an Xbox 360 exclusive. Since then, the game has suffered numerous delays--delays which Silicon Knights head Denis Dyack blamed on problems with the Unreal Engine 3. Unreal maker Epic Games vigorously denied the charges, and the two companies' contentious differences resulted in tit-for-tat lawsuits last year. As a result, the game was delayed again to Q1 2008--a release window which has since passed.

With today's firm dating of the game, gamers finally have a date with Too Human's sprawling storyline. In it, players take on the role of the warrior Baldur--one of many characters based on Norse mythology--and choose to play one of several classes, including champion, defender, and bioengineer. GameSpot's previous preview has more details, and there will be a fresh look at the game from today's Microsoft Gamers' Day in San Francisco.

Last but not least, Microsoft today also revealed for the first time that Too Human will support co-op play through its campaign. According to the console maker, the co-op play will be via its Xbox Live online service, with no mention of a local split-screen option as of press time.