If you've been staying tuned to our Games for Windows blog, you'd see certain entries about The Crossing popping up from time to time. Aside from the teaser trailer, nothing big has really happened. Yet.

A quick look at Arkane Studios' official website confirms that "the first cross-player-FPS ever" will indeed cross over to the Xbox 360. Yep, now things are looking up (and down, and all around - through space and time). While the game promises to create a new genre by fusing single-player with multiplayer, having it on the 360 (with its Xbox Live empire built strong and stalwart) would be stuff of what only dreams are made of.

How do we know about this crossing over? Well, the site has posted a job opening for 360 programmers. It reads:

After developing Dark Messiah of Might and Magic and Arx Fatalis, Arkane Studios wants to grow with talented developers who share the same passion and dedication to games. If you want to work on The Crossing, our remarkably innovative crossplayer FPS for PC and Xbox360, and you think you can make a difference, you could have a place at Arkane. As an Xbox360 programmer in Arkane Studios, you will handle porting, maintaining, and optimizing the codebase for the Xbox 360 version of the game, developed on the Valve's Source Engine.

Now how's that for some news? We'll bring you guys more info on this game (both versions: PC and 360) as things crop up some more. Details are still sketchy but we're sure to hit on something soon.

"Fusing single-player with multiplayer." That's what they say. "The first cross-player-FPS ever." Ok, fine. But what the hell is it exactly? Valve Studios' The Crossing has caught the interest of a lot of people, and most are still in the dark about it.

The latest "Games for Windows" magazine issue has a very informative Q&A section with Valve Studios' producer Raphael Colantonio and art director Viktor Antonov. Although we've just given you a bare-bones summary of what it's all about, what about the transcript itself? Here's just an interesting excerpt we've taken to explain things better:

GFW: In terms of story, without spoiling things, to what extent can you explain that setup and how the cross-play starts happening?

Viktor Antonov: Perhaps you've seen the movie "The Others" with Nicole Kidman, which is about a haunted house and ghosts. The ghosts and humans are both invisible to each other. They coexist in the same space. At one point, the ghosts become more visible to the humans and vice versa, and everybody's a ghost from the perspective of the other person. So at one point, they collide. The worlds start becoming more apparent. There are strange artifacts and events. Unexplained accidents, phenomena -- and ultimately, one of them will have to shut down to restore normality. So it's two dimensions that start conflicting in the same space.

It sounds like what happens in a lot of those "time warp" games like Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Doing something in one dimension affects things in the parallel one. Or something like that... In any case, if you can't grab yourself a copy of the latest GFW issue, click the "Read" link and check out 1Up's full transcript of the Q&A.

Valve Studios created a stir with its upcoming game, The Crossing. The company claims the gameplay is so unique it could actually create a whole new gaming genre called "cross-player". The verdict is still put on what "cross-play" really is, but Games for Windows Magazine has released other info about the game.

The Crossing storyline is set in a chaotic Paris following the collapse of the French government. The gameplay involves shifting between parallel universes to a world ruled by the Knights Templar (which was dissolved on the Middle Ages in our world).

The so-called cross-playing takes place when "story players" (either by themselves or in co-op mode) switch over to fight live "skirmish players". Skirmish players can also opt for story missions. That means they can take over enemies normally controlled by The Crossing's AI. Arkane Studios will reportedly control the game's servers for players for seamless mixing of single and multiplayer matches. The Games for Windows cover story also mentioned possible unlockable content for players participating in the matches.

The Crossing is still in development and the answer to the question "what the heck is cross-play?" won't be known until 2008.

Valve Studios, the maker of Dark Messiah and Half-Life 2, is working on something big, really big. The project is a PC game called The Crossing. The big thing about it? Supposedly the game is so unique it could actually create a whole new gaming genre. According to Shawn Elliot, "Games for Windows" editor, The Crossing starts out as an FPS but then again it's not an FPS. Huh? He couldn't describe it better but he did say it's going to be "unlike anything."

The teaser trailer hypes The Crossing as "the first cross-player-FPS ever" and it fuses single-player with multi-player although these do not help explain anything. If you really want to know what The Crossing is all about, you can catch the cover story on upcoming edition of "Games for Windows" and watch the season premiere of the 1Up Show. Meanwhile you can watch the video and maybe you can decipher its secret.

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