MotorStorm 2 revs up this fall

At last year's Tokyo Game Show, Sony announced that it would be folding Evolution Studios, along with its subsidiary Bigbig Studios, into its stable of internal development houses for a sum later reported to be $33 million. Most notably, Evolution is responsible for former Sony chief of Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison's favorite game, the PlayStation 3-exclusive MotorStorm, while Bigbig's largest project to date is the PlayStation Portable action title Pursuit Force and its sequel, Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice.

At the time of its acquisition, Sony noted that Evolution was already at work on a sequel to MotorStorm and was expecting the game to land on the PS3 in 2008. Today, Sony hiked the curtain back a bit farther on MotorStorm 2, saying on its official PlayStation Blog that the game would queue up on the starting line this fall.

In its brief statement, Sony also offered up an early look at some of the features gamers can expect from the next installment in the popular off-road racer. Whereas the original MotorStorm circuit ran through rugged mountainous terrain, the sequel has been transported to a tropical Pacific island, "replete with thick swamps, dense jungle, towering peaks and steaming volcanoes." All of the vehicle types from the first game will return for MotorStorm 2, and Evolution will be adding monster trucks to the mix.

Sony also listed a few of the game's more prominent features, saying there will be 16 new tracks, 16-player online battling, and four-player split-screen play.