It may be only February, but we already have a frontrunner for least informative trailer of the year. The minute long teaser for BlackSpace is reminiscent of ‘found footage’ horror turkey Apollo 18. So, if you have nothing better to do, you can go ahead and watch some grainy footage of the lunar surface as little (if anything) takes place.

Not that you’d know if from watching the trailer posted above, but BlackSpace is actually a real time strategy game in which you’ll be forced to juggle military, industrial and economic priorities. All of this drama will take place somewhere out there *gestures in the general direction of space* as you establish and defend operations on asteroids and moons.

BlackSpace is in production at PixelFoundry Games, a studio formed by veterans of EA Sports Tiburon. It will be released to PC in piecemeal fashion, with the first instalment, a survival mode, set to be made available later this year.

Those were the days...

Frictional Games is working on a follow up to its acclaimed chiller Amnesia: The Dark Decent.

The sequel will be known as Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and as reported by Joystiq, it will take place in 1899, some 60 years after the original. Though it will retain the gloomy atmosphere and first person perspective of its forbear, the new game will apparently offer some fresh gameplay mechanics and an entirely new story.

A Machine For Pigs will revolve around the adventures of ailing industrialist Oswald Mandus. His rather unusual moniker may be an allusion to Ozymandias (which is another name for Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II), whose hubris was mocked in an 1818 poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

The original Amnesia was solely the work of Frictional Games. This time around, the Swedish developer is collaborating with thechineseroom, the UK indie outfit best known for producing the ghostly Dear Esther.

Look for Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs to find its way to PC and Mac in 2012.

Image credit: Joystiq

The Secret Seven reboot took a few liberties with the source material.

After conquering the galaxy with Sins of a Solar Empire, Ironclad Games is taking a swing at the sword and sorcery genre. The developer describes forthcoming PC outing Sins of a Dark Age as a hybrid of traditional and action based real time strategy. Total War meets League of Legends? Perhaps.

Entirely bereft of a single player component, Sins of a Dark Age will offer team based online skirmishes and cooperative clashes against AI opponents. One player on each team will be assigned the role of Commander, an invisible overlord responsible for constructing defences and training automated minions to fling against the opposing lines. The other team members will be designated as Heroes, powerful units with the potential to influence the outcome of any battle.

Sins of a Dark Age will be free-to-play, with revenue to be generated via downloadable extras such as new Commanders, Heroes and skins. A release date is yet to be announced.

After an extended detour into the horror genre, Day 1 Studios is returning to its roots. The F.E.A.R. 3 developer has unveiled Reign of Thunder. Despite its misleading name, this is actually a free-to-play mech combat game and not a hard rock festival or V8 racing event. Day 1 Studios has described Reign of Thunder as “fast paced” and is promising support for clans and lots of scope for customisation.

While the brief announcement clip offers plenty of atmosphere (it was a dark and stormy night), the graphics look to be a little on the rudimentary side. According to Day 1, the footage is from the “upcoming beta build”, so the game may well receive a substantial spit and polish in the coming months.

According to a forum post from the developer, Reign of Thunder will be issued for “PC with plans to support multiple digital platforms as we go along”. A release date is yet to be announced.

Once known as a mech combat specialist, Day 1 Studios hasn’t worked in the genre since 2004’s MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf for the original Xbox.