Shane Hensley, aka Captain Mako, has left Cryptic Studios to start "on a project VERY near and dear to his heart". What could that possibly be?

Deadlands MMORPG? Zombie Gunslingers Online? Sign me the hell up. Wild West Undead MMO rules. First off, I claim the name Al Swearingen. Suckers.

99.9% positive that's what it is. All I'm waiting on is the official press release at this point. Shane will probably head up the Development, and look for Cryptic to publish. That's my guess. Be sure to check out the Deadlands homepage for background on the game if you've never heard of it.

The game is set in the United States in the last quarter of the 19th Century. The canonical year for the first edition of Deadlands is 1876. A later supplement, Tales o' Terror, advances the game's backstory and metaplot ahead one year, to 1877. The second edition of Deadlands uses the updated backstory of 1877 as the canonical starting point.

The basic rules provide for characters and settings that could be expected to appear in the "Wild West" genre of movies and pulp fiction, and most of the in-game action is presumed to occur in the wild frontiers of the American West, or in barely-tamed frontier towns like Tombstone, Arizona or Dodge City, Kansas. However, later supplements expanded the in-game adventuring area to include places such as the Deep South, the Mississippi River, Mexico, and the Northeastern United States. These supplements often provide for adventures set in urban areas such as New Orleans, New York City, or Boston.

Zombies and 6-shooters.