Welcome back gamers, another week has come and gone with announcements and anticipation of large titles this past week.  Let’s go take a look at what happened in the headlines.

Last week, EA accidentally leaked that there would be an addition to the Crysis franchise out next year.  This leak was confirmed and information became official for Crysis 3 due out in spring ’13.  The game is set in the year 2047 in New York City after its been place under an environmental dome.  Inside the dome, there is said to be seven distinct and treacherous environments.  The game is currently available for pre-order.  The suggested retail price is $59.99 and there are a variety of pre-order arrangements.  For a full run down of what the pre-order bonuses will consist of,  stop by Kirsty’s article from earlier this week with all the details.

Blizzard has opened the flood gates this weekend.  In anticipation of the release of Diablo III and the current testing of the game in its beta state, Blizzard for the weekend has unlocked the beta servers for open testing.  The testing is a stress test to see if the game’s servers would be able to handle the number of players logged into  the game.  The beta started on April 20 around midday and will remain open until 6:00 pm GMT.  During the beta, player classes will be unrestricted, but players’ levels with cap out at Level 13.   Blizzard left a warning to those who would be participating that technical issues were to be expected. “It’s very possible that players connecting to the stress test could experience issues with the service,” the firm said. “While not ideal, this is exactly why we’re having a stress test. We want to catch and analyze as many bugs as possible during this stress test period, so that we can try to ensure a smooth launch.”  The closed beta will continue to run after this weekend and is scheduled through May 1.  All beta testing will close two weeks prior to the May 15 launch.

Rumors have been rampant about the possibilities of publisher Valve and tech power house Apple teaming up to tackle the gaming world.  This week, that story was laid to rest when Valve co-director Gabe Newell told Seven Day Cooldown no one has met Apple CEO Tim Cook, though he admitted the consistent rumors are causing quite a confusion.  ”We actually, we all sent mail to each other, going, ‘Who’s Tim Cook meeting with? Is he meeting with you? I’m not meeting with Tim Cook’,” he said. “It’s one of those rumors that was stated so factually that we were actually confused.”  Newell did admit he wished the rumors were indeed accurate.  ”No-one here was meeting with Tim Cook or with anybody at Apple that day. I wish we were! We have a long list of things we’d love to see Apple do to support games and gaming better,” he added.  ”But no, we didn’t meet with Tim Cook. He seems like a smart guy, but I’ve never actually met him.”  The stories were Valve would bring a gaming aspect to Apple’s TV device.

Back home here at Zero1Gaming, we opened our own doors to bring more to the team.  This week, we brought aboard four new members to the team; who will soon be bringing their own content and views on gaming to the fronts of our site.  Let me introduce you to, Walter ‘Mac’ Elmore, Mike Dalgleish, Nick Marshall, and Chris Sanderson.  All four of these guys have a passion for gaming, the industry as a whole, and have the capability of staying update to date on the latest from the gaming world.  Keep an eye on Zero1Gaming as their headlines will be hitting the press soon.

That’s it for this week, check back to Z1G for the latest news, reviews, and more!