You can't keep a good (bad) guy down. After a few years of absence - maybe he was trying to turn over a new leaf or something - the Overlord from the third-person action RPG series of the same name seems ready to return to his wicked ways.

Codemasters conducted a grand Twitter sketch teasing news for the Overlord series earlier today, with an account of a solar eclipse viewing party interrupted by reddening skies, quaking earth, and an object crashing into the parking lot, all culminating in an image of the Overlord's distinct spiky helmet. Not very informative, but I'll still take it over a plain website with a countdown clock.

Codemasters did offer a little bit more color (if not much more detail) via the official Overlord account, which has apparently been taken over by Gnarl, the cantankerous adviser from the first two games. After grumbling about life on Earth and smartphones for a while, the account pledged that it "won't be the last you hear from us", as "evil always finds a way".

Speaking of evil, Overlord is kinda like Pikmin if it starred Sauron instead of a cute little spaceman, all while subverting the standard fantasy setting with some unusual moral quandaries. The series also has a good sense of humor, largely instilled by writer Rhianna Pratchett. She's currently working on Rise of the Tomb Raider, so it's not clear if she would have time for whatever this new stuff turns out to be.

The natural guess is Overlord 3, but you never know - maybe it's a mobile game. Codemasters has done a few mobile racers in recent years, and building an evil lair and ordering minions around on an iPad sounds pretty good... as long as it turns out better than Dungeon Keeper. The basic premise could work just about anywhere, really, since minions are big right now.

I sent an email out to Codemasters to see if I could extract any more firm details about what this social media resurgence means for the Overlord series, but I haven't heard back yet. I'll let you know when I find out more.