Shank 2 announced, scheduled for early 2012

At a press conference earlier today, EA and Klei Entertainment announced they would be releasing Shank 2 in early 2012. The sequel to the stab-happy 2D platformer is said to be expanding on the original game’s combat and controls, both of which were praised by reviewers when Shank was released in 2010. It's also likely going to be filled with opportunities to stab people in the face, but you already knew that, didn't you?

“Creatively, Shank still has a lot to give” said Jamie Cheng, founder of Klei Entertainment. “We took the feedback from the community and ran with it, putting our own flavor on every change. For Shank 2, we literally took apart the game and put it back together to push the envelope in combat mechanics, visuals, and 2D animation in games."

Beyond returning with improvements to the core gameplay, Shank 2 will also have an arcade-style survival co-op mode that we’re excited to find out more about. While the original had cooperative play it never felt fully fleshed-out, and it's great to see that Klei is going to improve and expand it, instead of just removing it in the sequel. Hopefully we'll get more information soon, but in the meantime you can check out the trailer, which has plenty of the aforementioned face stabbing. It even has face chainsawing, which is like, face stabbing times a million.

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