I'm pretty sure we never covered this Brütal Legend preview by Hooked Gamers last March, so here you go.
Schafer has said that he wants the game to feature a proper streaming open world with wildlife and cool places to explore -things that he attempted in Psychonauts- but wants to do justice to in this game. With the kind of imagination gone into the lore of this world, it's hard to imagine it failing.There's lots of great info in the preview, so do read it. Also included are a batch of screenshots, several of which look unfamiliar to me (but could also be in that IGN preview from a few months back that I don't feel like checking). The point is, this link leads to a preview for Brütal Legend.
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A multiplayer mode has also been confirmed, but concrete details have yet to emerge. The only thing we know is that it will most likely focus on large scale battles. Interestingly the core battle mechanic of the main game was devised during the early stages of development, as the multiplayer was the first aspect of the game to be designed.