Deep Silver Announces Sacred 3 With Summer Release

A few years ago Deep Silver acquired the license for the  Sacred franchise while unveiling at Gamescom 2010 that a third installment was under development. Since then the word on it's progress been gone silent, until today; Sacred 3 will release later this year with an expected summer date.
However, the news is not just the announcement. Having acquired the license to Sacred following the dissolving of Ascaron Entertainment, the original developer for Sacred, Deep Silver has decided to alter the mechanics of the previous Sacred games by focusing on a core cooperative experience. Rather than releasing another primarily single player title with a drop-in multiplayer co-op, Deep Silver has made co-op a cardinal aspect of Sacred 3; including tracked statistics and online leaderboards infusing a metagame competition into the series.

"The paramount development goal for Sacred 3 has been to create a seamless online and offline co-op experience," said Remy van Leeuwen, Brand Manager of Deep Silver.  "By creating a game built around the central concept of co-op gameplay, we’re expanding the series to new audiences without compromising the rich lore and fantasy of the Sacred universe."

Sacred 3 will feature previous characters; Seraphim, Ancarian, Khukuhru and the Safiri, along with a new addition, Malakhim. The next installment in the series will release on PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 with an expected Summer 2014 release date.