It's been almost two months since the official Black Prophecy site has been updated, but Reakktor Media broke their silence today and posted four new screenshots of the sci-fi shooter MMO in action. You can view the screenshots in our gallery, so check them out to see what it's like to fly through space in the game.

Reakktor mentioned that the screenshots were posted "for those who haven't been lucky enough to be selected for the closed beta." If you'd like to register for the beta, you can head over to the official site and enter your information. For more details on the game, watch the E3 trailer.

It's been a while since we've heard anything new about Black Prophecy, the upcoming sci-fi shooter MMO from Reakktor Media. In March, the developers finally signed a publishing deal with Gamigo, with the surprising announcement that it will be a free-to-play MMO. After limited beta testing kicked off in May, news was relatively quiet for a month, until this week at the E3 expo in Los Angeles.

Reakktor and Gamigo just released a new Black Prophecy trailer; it's more than two minutes long and features a ton of great gameplay footage. The video shows off the MMO's unique "modular build system," which players use to customize their ship's "class" and function. You can also see what it's like to interact with the mission UI and read some of the singe-player and team mission descriptions, if you watch the high-res version of the video. If you've been itching to see more ship combat, there are several PvP dogfight sequences as well. Check out the full Black Prophecy trailer from E3 after the jump!

The moment is almost upon us, Black Prophecy fans! The Reakktor team has been hard at work these past few months to get Black Prophecy ready for Beta Testing, and, a few short days ago, they made that dream a reality! Although the sample beta group is quite small, sitting at about 100 players, Reakktor seems confident and happy that they've made it thus far. Currently speaking, Black Prophecy's first phase of beta testing will be on server and program stability, and they've noted that they will be recruiting more players in time, so keep your eyes focused on those inboxes, you could be next!

It's been quite awhile since we've been able to bring you anything new about Black Prophecy, the upcoming, ambitious sci-fi MMO developed by Reakktor Media GmbH. Since our extensive Q&A with Creative Director Timo Krahl last October, the game was stuck in limbo, waiting for a publisher—until yesterday, that is! On March 4, Reakktor announced in a press release that Gamigo Games (European publisher of Fiesta Online, Neo Steam and more) will be publishing Black Prophecy.

The press release named Gamigo as Black Prophecy's global distributor and publisher, including the surprising news that Black Prophecy will be free-to-play MMO: "Since we've begun collaborating with Reakktor, we have expanded greatly upon the concept of the game and thus are able to offer one of the first top-of-the-line free-to-play MMOGs," Patrick Streppel of Gamigo said in the press release. Many of us here at ZAM would be inclined to agree; since our early coverage of Black Prophecy last summer, we wouldn't have pegged it as a free-to-play MMO.

The release continues by summarizing a few more recent developments: "Among other things, a crafting system was added and the layout of the game world was opened up. In-game dialogue will be recorded by professional voice actors. The one-and-a-half hour long orchestral soundtrack provides a rich and varied score of background music." Finally, Reakktor announced that Black Prophecy will begin its closed beta-testing phase in April 2010. To read the full press release, visit this link or click past the jump to view our transcription. Be sure to check out ZAM's Black Prophecy portal site for more news as it's released!

It's been almost two months since Black Prophecy Technical Director Cyrus Preuss published his second Game Physics diary entry, but he has returned today to discuss how players will interact with the physics engine.

"Amongst other things, he explains the difficulties of having a good balance between realism and fun and how the player ship is moved around the game world with regards to physics aspects."

You can read Preuss' third diary entry after the jump. His fourth and final entry will discuss networking and debugging physics, so keep an eye on the Black Prophecy site for the conclusion of the series.

Black Prophecy Technical Director Cyrus Preuss published his second Game Physics diary entry today, and this one focuses on the physics engine that the team utilizes for the upcoming MMO. In case you missed it, you may want to read his first entry before diving into his newest post.

Preuss discusses three individual processing steps that take place within the update fuction of the physics engine: collision detection, collision resolution and physical update. Preuss explains it better than we can, so check out his full entry after the jump.

In case you missed it, Black Prophecy Art Director Nick Ebenhoch recently wrapped up his Art Direction Developer Diary series. Reakktor Media has decided to keep the dev diaries coming with a mechanical series by Technical Director Cyrus Preuss. You can read his first Game Physics entry after the jump.

Preuss' first post is mainly an introduction to the basics of physics programming. While the entry doesn't discuss Black Prophecy in detail, it does set the stage for Preuss to go behind the scenes of the game's development process in future posts.

Black Prophecy Art Director Nick Ebenhoch has written the fifth and final part of his Art Direction Developer Diary, and this one focuses on the design of the Genide faction. His third and fourth entries presented the Human and Tyi factions, respectively.

According to Ebenhoch, "the Genides are a biogenetic advancement of the Humans. Progression in genetics, medicine and research are the animating spirit of the Genides, which is reflected in their faction logo." The faction utilizies smooth and calm design elements in its ships and stations.

You can read the full dev diary entry after the jump. Technical Director Cyrus Preuss will be writing the next series of dev diary entries, which will focus on the technical side of Black Prophecy. For more information on the game, check out our recent interview with Creative Director Timo Krahl.

Reaktor Media GmbH, developers of the much anticipated space action MMO, "Black Prophecy" narrowly missed declaring "insolvency" (which means a lack of funds) the other day as they noted that their parent company also declared insolvency, and this, in turn caused Reaktor Media GmbH to follow suit. The team notes, however, that they did manage to find an investor in time, and now the 36 employees of the company will get to retain their jobs. Black Prophecy is still slated to be released sometime next year, so let's hope that the team pulls through!

Black Prophecy Art Director Nick Ebenhoch has written the fourth part of his Art Direction Developer Diary, and this one focuses on the design of the Tyi faction. In case you missed it, the third part provided background information and details about the human faction.

"The mentality of the Tyi is characterized by their aspiration for strength and technological progress," Ebenhoch said. The faction doesn't care about cleanliness as long as everything works. "Like the Humans, the Tyi utilize modular construction which enables them to produce sheer unlimited variations of space ships and stations and to adjust them quickly and easily as required," he said.

You can read the full dev diary entry after the jump. For more information on the game, check out our recent interview with Creative Director Timo Krahl.