Anti-Toxic AI, Good Bye Volition, and Stray Movie!

Call of Duty Uses AI To Find Toxicity

Call of Duty is no stranger to less-than-pleasant behaviour from players, like many massively popular games with an online component. What is Activision doing now to combat it? Activision is now teaming up with Modulate, an AI program developed specifically to filter through voice chat in order to flag, and deal with, problematic behaviour.

It’s still in its early stages, with ToxMod, the tool being used, entering beta testing on North American servers. The tool is already used in a number of online games, but Call of Duty would certainly be a large task.

The program isn’t capable of banning players, but instead will monitor voice chat in real time, flag problematic behaviour depending on context, and then provide this information to moderators to take action. In theory, you can still cuss out your friends when they’re taking their sweet time getting to you, so players shouldn’t be worried about being boisterous.

Goodbye Volition

The game developer company, Deep Silver Volition, developer of titles like Saints Row, and Red Faction, has closed its doors after 30 years of development. It hasn’t been a smooth journey for the company, with Volition’s Saints Row reboot facing negative criticism upon reveal. After a transfer from Embracer, and a multi-billion dollar deal collapsing, Volition has been shut down while Embracer goes through some pretty significant restructuring.

IPs including Saints Row and Red Faction will be transferred to another subsidiary, Plaion.

“For 30 years now you have played our games – sometimes you’ve loved them, sometimes you’ve been disappointed with them, but you’ve always been there… We can’t thank you enough for sticking with us throughout this time.” Volition says in a letter to its community.

STRAY MOVIE

Did you like that cat game that came out last year? The one where you’re a little kitty cat in a futuristic city populated by robots? Well, it’ll be hitting the big screen! Annapurna Animation, who developed the film Nimona, will be developing an animated film based off of the game.

“It’s a buddy comedy about a cat and a robot, and there’s such a hilarious dynamic. So, there’s comedy inherent in this, but there’s not one human being in this movie. I think it’s one of the reasons why the game was incredibly popular,” says Robert Baird, Annapurna Animation boss.

Annual Diablo Expansions

Blizzard will be releasing multiple expansions for Diablo IV on an annual basis, with each year being broken up into quarterly seasons, with long-term storylines promised.

This roadmap isn’t unusual for developers, to space out new content on a regular basis. The 11 year long gap between Diablo III and Diablo IV has also been cited as a reason, and it’s hoped that this approach will help rectify that.

Season 2, Season of Blood, has been announced as part of GamesCon opening night.

Arcane Season Two!

Season two of Arcane, the Netflix animated series based off of Riot Games’ League of Legends game, will be premiering in winter 2024 (or summer for us Aussies). Woohoo!

And now for some upcoming games!

September 7

• The Dragoness: Command of the Flame – Switch
• Toss! – PC VR, Quest, PSVR 2

September 8

• Fae Farm – PC, Switch
• NBA 2K24 – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

September 12

• Eternights – PC, PS5, PS4
• The Isle Tide Hotel – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

September 13

• Heretic’s Fork – PC
• Super Bomberman R 2 – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch

September 14

• Ad Infinitum – PC, PS5, XSX
• AK-xolotl – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch
• The Crew Motorfest – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO
• Heavy Duty Challenge – PC, PS5, XSX
• Sugar Shack – PC

That’s it this week in gaming news!