Nintendo Direct, Game Industry News, and a summary of the week’s gaming headlines

Nintendo Direct.
I’m only going to run down the major headliners of the 40-minute June 18 Nintendo Direct, because if you’re into it you have either watched it or you’ve watched your favourite Youtuber’s summary. If you’re not, you probably don’t want a mega rundown. So here they are:

• Mario lovers are getting Mario & Luigi: Brothership coming November 7, this year. It looks to be a dual-control platformer. As well as Super Mario Party Jamboree, a massive party game with the ability to host up to 20 players. Play it October 17.
• Donkey Kong Country Returns HD is coming Jan 16, 2025, with 80 levels plus some from the original 3DS hit.
• Zelda fans were hit with a Nintendo Switch Online addition of Zelda: A Link to the Past Four Swords (basically multiplayer Link). Then the new title The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom was announced to much fanfare, where you play as Zelda and create echoes in your adventure to save Link. Coming September 26 this year.
• And finally, in Metroid news, also coming to Nintendo Switch Online Metroid Zero Mission is coming to the collection. And the long-anticipated, after the announcement of it back at E3 2017, Metroid Prime 4 will be gracing our consoles sometime in 2025.

There was a heap more, with the announcement and release dates of Just Dance 2025, Dragon Quest 3, some Marvel vs Capcom collections… lots of stuff.
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Game Industry News
This week saw the closure of Game Industry’s 2022 and 2023 “Best Places to Work in Canada” studio Timbre Games by owner Sumo Group before the release of its first game. This is included in the 15% downsizing Sumo Group, a subsidiary of Chinese giant Tencent, had announced on June 11 (~250 people). Paradox Interactive is closing down their Tectonic Studio, makers of the upcoming life sim Life by You after Deputy CEO reportedly called the early access title “lacking in some key areas” and “the road leading to release… far too long and uncertain.” (24 people)
After sales lagged on Wizard with a Gun, developer Galvanic Games has closed their doors (12 people). Embracer Group also blamed lacklustre sales for this week’s closing of Pieces Interactive, developer of Alone in the Dark released in March (42 people). VRChat has also announced a 30% reduction in staff (~30 people) blaming plateauing sales and a lack of management. And after the announcement in May of Microsoft’s closure of Tango Gameworks, the studio finally closed its doors this week.
In the wake of all the layoffs, the big name companies’ CEOs and shareholders in the industry continue to profit, with EA CEO’s compensation increased by 22% to over USD$25 million. And this after cutting 5% of its workforce in Feb (~670 people) for restructuring.
At least Gearbox has been somewhat released from Embracer Groups failing model with its deal with Take-Two Interactive closing this week. The deal moves most of the IP and studios under Take-Two’s wings. Including hits such as Borderlands, Risk of Rain, Homeworld, and Duke Nukem, but leaving behind the studios and IP of Lost Boys Interactive and Cryptic Studios.
But not all is lost, with staff from layoffs forming advisory companies – such as those from indie studio Modern Wolf forming Secret Sauce – or creating “support studios” like CodeDev: The Unreal Guys who work as a specialist team to help studios work with the Unreal engine.
But the industry is struggling. In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz Tencent advisor and former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden is cautioning the industry to take a more patient approach to game development.

“It’s human nature, right? If you’re at the craps table and someone’s got the hot hand and they’re running the table… you just want to jump on that train and get a piece of that before it goes. That’s why patience is the thing that’s important. The industry is losing patience. It’s ‘we need to find a way to solve this problem in six months’ in an industry where nothing gets done in six months.”

And now for the week in gaming headlines.

• In Bethesda news, Todd Howard says he’s not going to rush the next Fallout game even with all the hype surrounding it at the moment, and Starfield has been review bombed due to a quest paywall in the latest update.
• Discord voice chat is rolling out to PS5 this week.
• Valve drops Mac support for Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Team Fortress 2, basically all the 2’s.
• JackBox Games to launch JackBox Megapicker, a JackBox library where players can access all the games in any title they currently own.
• More than 600 players of Star Citizen have had their accounts suspended for currency exploits and cheats.
• The Apple monopoly is crumbling on iOS with Japan passing a law to allow third-party app stores on iPhone, with Epic already announcing Epic Games Store to Japan’s iOS in 2025. And we could see this spread with four more US states joining the anti-trust monopoly battle in the United States.
• And in Baldur’s Gate 3 news, fan fav romanceable NPC Shadowheart had to be “heavily toned down” for release and was originally too sassy/mean. And developer Larian CEO says mod support is coming in a “final handover moment” patch.

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And now for the week in gaming releases.
There’s Fallout in you CoD with a bundle dropping today, and the VR title Blade and Sorcery has finally left early access.
Now, on Friday June 21. Visual novel sci-fi detective game Times & Galaxy comes to PC and consoles. And after 25m copies sold since release, the expansion Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree comes to PC, Xbox and PlayStation. Also don’t forget to be a good tarnished if you grab this and “…be mindful of spoilers for those who want to tread into the Realm of Shadow with nothing but their determination and their minds unclouded.”
Saturday June 22 brings us the retro helicopter top-down shooter Megacopter: Blades of the Goddess coming to PC. On Monday June 24, detective sim Uncover the Smoking Gun comes to PC.
Tuesday June 25 brings us Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit, coming to Netflix mobile. Be the ball in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble coming to Switch. For the VR gamers Riven PC MQ Remake is coming to Meta Quest. The DLC A Little to the Left: Seeing Stars is coming to all platforms. And bouncy farm sim Southfield is coming to PC.
On Wednesday June 26, 2D visual novel and narrative adventure Until Then comes to PC and PS5, and PS1-era styled cartoon precision platformer Frogun Encore is coming to PC and Consoles.
And finally on Thursday June 27, the remaster Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is coming to Switch. Battle Royal MOBA Battle Crush is coming to PC, Switch and mobile. And lastly, the remake of Atari’s “Sprint” NeoSprint is coming to PC and consoles.