Redwood City, CA – December 12th, 2008 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Double Fine Productions, Inc. today announced that they have signed an exclusive publishing agreement that will bring the highly-anticipated rock-adventure Brütal Legend™ to gamers, headbangers, roadies and rockers worldwide next Fall. The latest creation from gaming icon Tim Schafer and the award-winning team at Double Fine, Brütal Legend is a 3rd person Action/Adventure game starring Jack Black in the role of roadie Eddie Riggs, who sets on an epic quest to build an army of rockers with only a broad axe, a big block V8 and his faithful guitar in hand.

“This is awesome news!” stated Tim Schafer, President of Double Fine Productions. “The quality and creativity of the games EA Partners has been involved with make it a perfect home for our baby, Brütal Legend. Some people were starting to wonder if the saga of Eddie Riggs would ever see the light of day, but now I think it’s clear that this game, like Metal itself, cannot be killed!”

“Brütal Legend is shaping up to be a creative tour de force,” said David DeMartini, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EA Partners. ”At EAP, we are deeply committed to giving the industry’s elite independent developers a platform to launch their creations to a worldwide audience. Tim Schafer is known for some of the richest stories and characters in our industry, and with Jack Black offering his vocal stylings for Eddie Riggs, we are extremely excited to help Tim and his talented team at Double Fine see their vision come to fruition.”

Brütal Legend tells the tale of Eddie Riggs, played by Jack Black, who is drawn back through time to a mythical world dripped in Rock and Roll folklore; where great Metal titans once ruled and power chords rang from the countryside for all to hear. When an oppressed people request Eddie’s knowledge of modern warfare, he pulls from his own experience in the only occupation he’s ever had, a roadie for a Heavy Metal band. From this springs the most hellacious army man has ever seen, and thus brings this ancient world into the Age of Metal.

Also be sure to catch Tim Schafer and Jack Black unveil the first gameplay trailer for Brütal Legend at the 2008 Video Game Awards live this Sunday, December 14th at 9pm EST on Spike TV.

Brütal Legend will be available for the Xbox 360® video game system and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system Fall 2009.

Double Fine is represented by CAA.

For more information on Brütal Legend please visit www.brutallegend.com.

Redwood City, CA – December 12th, 2008 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and Double Fine Productions, Inc. today announced that they have signed an exclusive publishing agreement that will bring the highly-anticipated rock-adventure Brütal Legend™ to gamers, headbangers, roadies and rockers worldwide next Fall. The latest creation from gaming icon Tim Schafer and the award-winning team at Double Fine, Brütal Legend is a 3rd person Action/Adventure game starring Jack Black in the role of roadie Eddie Riggs, who sets on an epic quest to build an army of rockers with only a broad axe, a big block V8 and his faithful guitar in hand.

“This is awesome news!” stated Tim Schafer, President of Double Fine Productions. “The quality and creativity of the games EA Partners has been involved with make it a perfect home for our baby, Brütal Legend. Some people were starting to wonder if the saga of Eddie Riggs would ever see the light of day, but now I think it’s clear that this game, like Metal itself, cannot be killed!”

“Brütal Legend is shaping up to be a creative tour de force,” said David DeMartini, Senior Vice President and General Manager, EA Partners. ”At EAP, we are deeply committed to giving the industry’s elite independent developers a platform to launch their creations to a worldwide audience. Tim Schafer is known for some of the richest stories and characters in our industry, and with Jack Black offering his vocal stylings for Eddie Riggs, we are extremely excited to help Tim and his talented team at Double Fine see their vision come to fruition.”

Brütal Legend tells the tale of Eddie Riggs, played by Jack Black, who is drawn back through time to a mythical world dripped in Rock and Roll folklore; where great Metal titans once ruled and power chords rang from the countryside for all to hear. When an oppressed people request Eddie’s knowledge of modern warfare, he pulls from his own experience in the only occupation he’s ever had, a roadie for a Heavy Metal band. From this springs the most hellacious army man has ever seen, and thus brings this ancient world into the Age of Metal.

Also be sure to catch Tim Schafer and Jack Black unveil the first gameplay trailer for Brütal Legend at the 2008 Video Game Awards live this Sunday, December 14th at 9pm EST on Spike TV.

Brütal Legend will be available for the Xbox 360® video game system and PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system Fall 2009.

Double Fine is represented by CAA.

For more information on Brütal Legend please visit www.brutallegend.com.

can't wait!

"but after Vivendi's merger with Activision, it got the boot for not being a property that could be cranked out year after year."

This is why I hate activision.

Can't wait to find out what this game is actually like. Bring on Spike TV.

This is going to be awesome!  I am so happy that they got a publisher.  I love psychonauts and this game is probably going to be just as amazing!

Man, it's weird to not hate EA anymore. I'm just feeling so confused inside. Anyways, I'm glad to see Brutal Legend get picked up. Hopefully, it'll get the respect it deserves at retail, unlike Psychonauts did.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!

Oh what a glorious day it is.

Glad to see it's out of limbo.
Easily my #1 most anticipated game of 2009 for me.

...or knowing Tim Schafer... 2010 :P

Good news

This is quite possibly the best news I've heard all week...definitely the best news of the day.

This is excellent news. I'm really loving EA this year.

I wonder if we'll get a Hoagie cameo before Eddie gets ported through time.

Don't fuck this up EA

This is great news!

EA, maybe you're not so bad after all...

Smart move by EA. Eddie Riggs will now be unlockable in Rock Band 3. I guarantee it.

YEEEAH! This is great! I have been waiting to hear who was gonna pick this one up!

I really hope moves like this eventually start paying off, because right now it's looking like the lesson is:

Old EA: Make garbage and re-treads = Boatloads of money
New EA: Start making original IPs and team up with Harmonix, Valve, or buy studios like BioWare and leave them alone to do what they want = Lose money like crazy and layoff people and make cuts.
Activision: Be even worse than EA ever was = Make even more boatloads of money.

Shocker. And a reason to love EA again.

I am going to buy this game.

Oh yes.

This is a relief!

Go Tim Schafer Go!

Man, EA is so fucking awesome.  = D  First Dead Space, then Mirror's Edge (which while it wasn't perfect, it was fucking original), and now Brutal Legend?

I had a feeling DF would go to EA's Partner program

Nice, psychonauts was great, hope this is as good,

Maybe Brutal Legend wll get the advertising it deserves now that it got picked up by EA, unlike a past Tim Schafer project....

Hopefully this will get an early Fall Release ala Bioshock, It would suck for this game to get swamped by the inevitiable holiday retreads.

EA is a cool guy

Awesome! Surprised it was EA that picked up the game. I guess I haven't realized how much EA has changed the last year.

YES! With EA behind this game, hopefully people will start knowing who Tim Shafer is.

It's official. EA has redeemed themselves for everything

I think something that people have to realize about the video game industry is that it will never financially reward innovation.  Innovation and originality are great, but the unwashed masses prefer a game that has stood the test of time and been iterated on a few times.  Sad, but true.

So, thank you EA for doing the right thing and supporting the original stuff lately.  And thank you to all the yearly purchasers of Madden for funding it for all of us players out here.

Can I get a HELL YES?

EA is.... awesome?  Huh?

FUCK YEAH!

Hell yeah! Heavy metal is the law!

A relief indeed. It gives me great hope for the industry when talents like Tim Schafer can make whatever kind of game that comes into their head without compromise and with the financial backing and advertising muscle of a major publisher like EA. DoubleFine doesn't deserve to be jerked around like they have in the past, wondering where the money will come from to complete their vison. They need to focus on what they do best - making unique and excellent games.

Nice to hear it got picked up by someone even if it is EA.

Even an airport transit company would try to get the  publishing right for this game if its owner played Grim Fandango just for once, i don't know why Activision dropped it. but i'm not surprised because EA has been reformed in last few months, and Activsion is the deformed one now. it took me one campaign to give up playing CoD: WaW. cheer up for next one to be totally unplayable.

Awesome, I can`t wait for this title : D

I thought i would never say this but:

EA is awesome!!! seriously look at Skate 2 and Burnout Paradise! now there is even talk of EA giving Need For Speed a much deserved coup- de-grace.

now if only they would get their games on steam.... and quit drm for the pc...

I've been waiting for someone to pick this up, it seems so epic. :D

I hope this game will turn out great!

This is most excellent news indeed.

Finally a real game in the vein of Heavy Metal. Most excellent.

Everytime I see news on this game it somehow re-affirms why this hobby is... well... great.  Looking back it's amazing how many of the games that make me feel like that have had Schafer's name on the box.

It's normally about now I try to hold my expectation in check, but I'm just hoping more people get to play this one... and that marketing departments don't infect it with synergy.

"but after Vivendi's merger with Activison, it got the boot for not being a property that could be cranked out year after year."

activision would have moar win if they'd filter some of teh gay

It sounds a lot like the Den story from Heavy Metal.

Jack Black hyped this game up so much, and then the trailer looked completely gay. I just wanna know what this game is about, and what about it is supposed to be so great, because nothing I saw on it last night looked special.

That is a really clever comment MrRedwine....I like that.

I thought the game looked like a ratchet and clank game based in a high school classic rock fan's wet dream...basically my dream game five years ago.  I guess I owe it to my inner youth to play this game...and bonus I'm not on the side of the crowd who hates Jack Black...infact I like Jack Black.