New Carmageddon is an indie project, Square Enix not involved

Following the posting of a timer on carmageddon.com at the weekend, VG247 has learned that the Carmageddon series is about to be rebooted, but that it's an independent project.

A source familiar with the matter said that Square Enix has nothing to do with the next in the Carmageddon series.

All rights to the action IP have been negotiated away from Square, owner of original publisher Eidos. The Carmegeddon website is not owned by Square Enix, contrary to reports over the weekend.

The game will be announced before E3, but won't be on show in LA. The site counter points to June 1, so you can probably work out when you're going to get a first look at it without overly taxing your teeny brain.

While the new game's developer is not confirmed, original studio Stainless is now concerned with producing downloadable titles based on existing IP, such as Magic: The Gathering and Risk.

Carmageddon first released in 1997, and achieved notoriety by getting censored in many countries, including the UK and Germany.

Gameplay is centred on post-apocalypse car racing, but players can achieve higher scores by killing pedestrians.

Stainless produced a 1998 sequel, Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now. A third entry, Carmageddon TDR 2000, was developed by Torus Games in 2000. All three saw broad multi-platform release.