NaturalMotion Teases Backbreaker Sequel For XBLA

Last year, game technology developer NaturalMotion announced the foundation of a game division formed around its first title, the multiplatform football game Backbreaker, which exhibited the company's physics and animation tech. Now the Oxford, England and San Francisco-based company is teasing a Backbreaker Xbox Live Arcade sequel, dubbed Backbreaker Vengeance on the game's official Facebook page. The sequel is slated for a summer release. NaturalMotion's Backbreaker 2: Vengeance released on Apple's App Store last year, but this is the first confirmation of an Xbox Live Arcade entry in the series. The original Backbreaker launched on the App Store in 2009, and surpassed 3 million downloads. The game also released as a packaged game on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and as a download on Android phones. [UPDATE: Torsten Reil, CEO of NaturalMotion told Gamasutra in an email that that the "iOS version of Backbreaker now has more than 5 million users and has been a major success for us."] NaturalMotion was founded in 2001, specializing in animation software such as Morpheme, Endorphin and Euphoria. Earlier this year, the company announced the formation of a London-based mobile development studio. The company's technology is found in games including Ninja Theory's Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, Black Rock's Pure and the upcoming Firefall MMO from Red 5, among others.