Almost anyone who follows video games will know the name Peter Molyneaux. The British video game designer and programmer founded Lionhead Studios, the creator of the massive Fable franchise, and he developed quite the reputation for over-exalting upcoming games and promising the moon and the stars even when the final product didn’t end up meeting expectations.

Whether the man just wanted to do or say whatever it took to sell a game or if he simply had a childlike passion that led to his exaggerations is not clear, but you can’t deny that when he talked about his games, he made you as excited as he seemed to be about them.

But for better or worse, Molyneaux has decided to move on to new things, announcing his departure from the Microsoft-owned Lionhead for a new company called 22 Cans.

At the Penny Arcade Expo, a panel was held for the recently announced Halo 4, which is being developed by 343 Industries, the division established by Microsoft Game Studios to take up the reigns after Bungie concluded their work on the franchise with Halo: Reach.

Halo 4 is still a long, long way off, so 343 wasn’t able to talk a whole lot about the project, but they did have a couple of small things to share with eager fans, as well as some concept art from the early stages of the game’s production.

First of all, the game will begin a brand new trilogy of games, and 343 announced that this new trilogy has been named The Reclaimer Trilogy. And what is a “Reclaimer,” some of you might ask? Well…I haven’t the slightest clue. But the Halo Nation Wiki page does have a description, which you can see below along with the video of the various pieces of concept art shared.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai
Genre: Beat ‘Em Up
Rating: ESRB M for Mature
Publisher: Ska Studios & Microsoft Game Studios
Release Date: 1st April 2009
Format: Xbox Live Arcade

When I first heard about this release from Xbox guru Major Nelson on Twitter, I thought it was an April Fool’s prank. However I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it wasn’t, and promptly checked out some of the available gameplay videos. These turned out to be surprisingly gruesome and frantic – and if you can describe a game with those words… I’m there.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai was conceived when game creator James Silva was himself a dishwasher, finding himself the butt of many a joke. After pointing out that Bruce Lee was a dishwasher, he began to conceive a game about one that slaughters an insurmountable array of highly trained agents… and that became what we have here today.

The Dishwasher is a 2D sideways-scrolling “hack n’ slash ’em up”, where you take control of the unnamed protagonist who was captured by cyborgs that had a view to assimilating him into their collective (yes… sorry, that was a Star Trek pun… it will be my last). Freed by “Chef” – his mentor – he is given Alien Blood that resurrects him from death, and imbues him with incredible powers.

And we of course like nothing better than to use these awesome new abilities to pulverise anything that moves into a bloody pink/red mist.