Crimson Alliance announced for XBLA

Developer Certain Affinity announced a new game today, titled Crimson Alliance. The co-op action/RPG hybrid is due this summer on Xbox Live Arcade, but we haven't seen much so far other a logo and artwork on the game's official page.

According to the announcement, you'll pick from three classes: Assassin, Wizard, or Mercenary. Each has five special abilities to upgrade, so picking your own path through the skill tree lets you customize your character a bit. You can also join with up to three friends offline or through Xbox Live, which allows for combo attacks.

Each of the three classes is regarded as a character, with their own motivations as you fight the "Cult of the Soul Siren." So, nuts if you're the one that inevitably betrays everyone. Probably the merc, they're always shady.

Certain Affinity is best known for Age of Booty, and more recently its work on map packs for Halo Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Crimson Alliance is looking to apply those learned lessons to an RPG.

"One of the reasons I started Certain Affinity was because I wanted to make a game like this -- an action RPG with clever AI, fantastic physics, and deep emergent gameplay that can be enjoyed with friends in the living room or halfway across the globe," said company president Max Hoberman, in the announcement. "Crimson Alliance is that game, finally!"