Category: News

News notes…

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Aussie Classification Board Bans Fighting Game, xDefiant to shut down and Ubisoft Layoff, Warcraft 1 & 2 to be removed from GOG prompting new preservation policy and Game Release Calendar

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The Game Awards 2024 Nominees

The nominees for 2024 have been announced, bringing a bit of discourse over the inclusion of the Elden Ring DLC: Shadow of the Erdtree. Elden Ring previously won game of the year in 2022. There’s a lot of nominees and categories, so here are a few:

Game of the Year

• Astro Bot
• Balatro
• Black Myth: Wukong
• Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
• Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
• Metaphor: ReFantazio

Best Art Direction

• Astro Bot
• Black Myth: Wukong
• Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
• Metaphor: ReFantazio
• Neva

Best Score and Music

• Astro Bot
• Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth
• Metaphor: ReFantazio
• Silent Hill 2
• Stellar Blade

Best Independent Game

• Animal Well
• Balatro
• Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
• Neva
• UFO 50

Roblox Rules

Under 13s are now blocked from directly messaging others on Roblox outside of games or experiences in their latest effort to protect children and reassure parents. Additionally, under 13s will only be able to publicly broadcast messages inside of games, and users under the age of 9 will only be able access experiences rated Minimal or Mild.

Yet Another Consolidation

Sony appears to be gearing up to purchase Kadokawa, a parent to dozens of Japanese entertainment companies. Along with Kadokawa owning Gotcha Gotcha Games (known for RPG Maker) and Acquire (known for Mario & Luigi: Brothership), they also own a majority stake in FromSoftware. It’s unknown what this may mean regarding the company’s ability to collaborate with Nintendo, but a deal could be signed in the coming weeks.

News Nibbles!

Farming Simulator 25 has hit 2 million sales, and peaked at over 125,000 active players on launch day.

In Germany, Steam users have only been able to see games with an age rating since 15th of November. Developers will need to complete a questionnaire to receive a rating before being allowed to release in Germany.

Dungeons & Dragons The Twenty-Sided Tavern is a live, theatrical experience coming to Sydney in December this year, where the audience gets to control the quest and the dice rolls are real, meaning that no show is ever the same. It opens 15th December at the Sydney Opera House.

Upcoming Games

November 21st

• Dungeons of Dreadrock 2: The Dead King’s Secret – PC
• Star Wars Outlaws – PC
• On Your Tail  – PC, Switch
• Loco Motive – PC, Switch
• Servonauts – PC

November 22nd

• Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection (physical) – PS5, Switch
• Spirit Mancer – PS5, Switch, PC

This week in gaming news…

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In this week’s terrifying gaming news

Spooky Games

Dread XP hosted the Indie Horror Showcase featuring 60 indie horror games. Including a frightening typing game called Blood Typers, a game where you play a peeping tom called Tom the Postgirl and a deck building card game where everything is made out of hands called… Out of Hands.

Several hours after the presentation Moya Horror and Haunted PS1 announced that their yearly fright fest Eek3 would be airing withing the week but spookily it has been delayed due to technical issues.

That didn’t stop other horror games being announced though including a Death Note game with an Among Us social deduction vibe which is coming out next month and will be released day one Playstation Plus.

Concord Gone For Good

This year’s unprecedented disaster Concord, by developer Firewalk Studios has been quietly updating itself on steam ever since it was removed for sale. This led to speculation that the multiplayer character shooter was prepping to try again. These hopes have been smashed however as Sony has now officially shuttered the studio. Also in the firing line was Neon Koi who Sony acquired in 2022 to develop a mobile action title.

210 developers will be affected by the closures.

Nintendo’s Online Services Rise Again

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp is dead! Long live Animal Crossing Pocket Camp complete! A paid version of the online app will release on December 3rd and allow existing players to transfer their camps as well as new players to experience the game without microtransactions and other online features. The game will launch at $10 AUD but will increase its price on the 31st of January to $20.
Keeping the spotlight on themselves Nintendo also launched Nintendo Music a phone app that allows users of Nintendo’s Online Subscription to listen to soundtracks from their favourite games.

Playdate Dock Dead?

The little yellow handheld that could, the Playdate was originally announced to have a dock which would act as a speaker and a pen holder! After years of waiting the dock is not coming any time soon as Panic have been unable to find an acceptable manufacturer. At this point the products future is… uncertain!

New Ubisoft Games

Ever with their finger on the pulse, Ubisoft have released an NFT game. Champions Tactics is a web 3.0 game that will allow players to purchase champions for real money. The most expensive being $63K USD.

Ubisoft have also confirmed they are in the early stages of a new Rayman game with the series’ original creator Michel Ancel.

Upcoming Game Releases

Clock Tower: Rewind (PS5, PS4, Switch), Dragon Age: The Veilguard (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC), Horizon Zero Dawn – Remastered (PS5, PC), Shadows of the Damned: Hell Remastered (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC) – – November 1
Metal Slug Tactics (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC) – November 6
Planet Coaster 2 (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) – November 7

This week in gaming news…

Studio infamous for delays; delays game.

Cloud Imperium Games, the developers behind the perpetually delayed Star Citizen have announced that its spin-off single player game Squadron 42 (which was announced to be apparently feature complete last year) has been delayed until 2026.  The game was originally announced as a part of Star Citizen but has since been turned into a standalone project.

The game’s prologue was demoed at CitizenCon in Manchester, England (which apparently suffered from an assortment of bugs, glitches and crashes).

Cloud Imperium Games has in the over 12 years since its initial crowdfunding campaign made over 729 million dollars with still no release in sight for Star Citizen.

Ubisoft France Staff Strike

The STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo), an independent union that defends the moral and economical interests of workers in the video games industry (as described by their website) called for a three day strike from October 15 to the 17th over Ubisoft’s home working policy and pay.  The STJV’s site says as follows:

“Management just announced its decision to impose a return to offices for 3 days per week for all employees. This announcement was made without any tangible justification or any consultation with the workers’ representatives.

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This decision is announced immediately after the failure of the profit-sharing negotiations. Exactly like previous salary negociations: management’s proposals were innaceptable, the negociations’ timetable was appalling, and management was deaf to the proposals of the various Employee representatives.”

News Nibbles!

Telltale has come out to confirm that the Wolf Among Us 2 is not canceled after rumors that the game was on the chopping block circulated.

Netflix has shut down one of their AAA games studios, known as team Blue, which had some pretty big names attached to it such as former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonn, head of creative on Halo Infinite Joseph Staten and God of War’s art director Rafael Grassetti.

Vampire Survivors is getting some spooky Castlevania DLC for Halloween! Ode to Castlevania will add over 20 characters and weapons and at least 10 hours of gameplay to the already stuffed to the brim game.

Valve has said they won’t be releasing a new Steam Deck console every year just for a small improvement.  Instead, to be fair to their customers, they want to “wait for a generational leap in compute without sacrificing battery life before [they] ship the real second generation of Steam Deck.”

Game releases!

October 25

Sonic X Shadow Generations (Playstation, Xbox, PC & Switch

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (Playstation, Xbox, PC)

October 29

Life is Strange: Double Exposure (PS5, Xbox, PC)

Red Dead Redemption (PC)

Monster High: Skulltimate Secrets (Playstation, Xbox, PC, Switch

And that’s it for the news this week!

Gotta’ Hack ‘Em All

Game Freak has issued a statement that they experienced a data breach, affecting the cases of 2,606 current and former employees. The Pokemon developers assured that the vulnerability had been patched since.

The data leak also reportedly contained data such as:

• a yet-to-be-announced Pokemon game, reportedly codenamed “Gaia”,
• A project codenamed “Synapse”, which MIGHT hint towards a Pokemon MMO,
• Plot information for an unreleased sequel to Detective Pikachu movie (the one that was supposed to release this year),
• A live action show on Netflix,
• Switch 2 stuff,

And, reportedly, a lot more. None of that has been confirmed by Game Freak however.

Panic! At The Disco Elysium

The most Disco Elysium thing just happened… multiple groups of former Disco Elysium developers have each formed studios, and they have all had identical announcements: we will be making a spiritual successor to Disco Elysium.

Of course this has sparked debate about which one would be the ‘true’ spiritual successor, whatever that means. Each project is a little different.

Longdue Games Studios is making what they call a ‘psychogeographic RPG’, where the world and characters shift depending on your choices.

Dark Math Games has XXX Nightshift, which looks just like Disco Elysium in tone, UI design, and even voice acting.

Summer Eternal has come out with a dramatic, blood-red website, and a manifesto about the exploitation of game developers.

There is also a project by ZA/UM, but many key developers have been dropped from it, as well as a fifth studio that formed during all this called Red Info Ltd, with no projects announced as of yet.

So that makes five studios, four ‘Disco Elysium’ projects announced.

STEAM DECK

PAX Aus has treated us well this year, bringing the announcement that Valve will officially bring the Steam Deck to Australia in November! Preorders are open now if you want to lock one in, if preordering is your thing.

The 256GB LCD deck is $649, the 512GB OLED deck is $899, and the 1TB OLED deck is $1,049.

News Nibbles!

Sony has announced PlayStation: The Concert, a world tour that’ll display a compilation of music from various Sony games, like The Last of Us, and God of War. Europe’s tour dates and stops have been announced, the United States and other countries (hopefully that’s us!) will have to be patient.

Tetris Forever will be released on November 12th! A celebration of Tetris, it’ll contain 15 classic Tetris games, an hour-long documentary, and a new ‘Tetris experience’ where players can warp through different Tetris eras.

Those involved in the lawsuits contesting that the Activision Blizzard aquisition in 2022 have settled, where both sides agreed to dismiss the case permanently, and pay their own legal fees.

Until Dawn will be in theatres in April, 2025! Directed by David Sandberg, it’s a live-action adaptation of the 2015 horror game, which is basically an interactive movie to begin with. No word on whether it’ll be released outside of the United States however.

And now for some upcoming games!

October 17th

• Blazing Strike – PS5, Switch, PC
• A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead – PS5, Xbox, PC
• Super Mario Party Jamboree – Switch

October 18th

• TMNT: Mutants Unleashed – PS5, Switch, Xbox, PC
• Unknown 9 Awakening – PS5, Xbox, PC

October 22nd

• Forest Hills: The Last Year – PC
• Lynked: Banner of the Spark – PC

Silent Hill Fans Are Not Silent

The Silent Hill 2 Remake has launched, and the Wikipedia page had to be locked due to editors just stating lies like the game had “received the worst reviews imaginable” despite receiving very positive reviews, and otherwise vandalising the page.

The motivation? Unclear, although there was some discourse about the remake being ‘woke’ due to changes to characters’ facial features and clothing, discourse about Bloober Team being the ones to develop the remake, and discourse about there being a remake at all.

I just hope everyone is having fun and that you all win.

Screen Queensland Funding

Nine independent studios in Queensland have been awarded a collective amount of $1.3 million in funding, securing the development of 12 games, and supporting an additional 40 positions for developers throughout the region.

Benefiting from the Games Grant funding includes studios Sbug Games, who developed Webbed, Maxart, who is developing Servonauts, 5 Lives Studio, who are developing Cozy Caravan, and many more.

“We are proud to be driving a step-change in ambition and opportunity across an industry where Queenslanders can be world leaders in the creation of unique and innovative games… we achieved a 133% increase in the number of projects we are now supporting and these indie games are driving real ‘bricks and mortar’ highly skilled technical jobs,” stated Jacqui Feeney, Screen Queensland CEO.

If you’re a dev, next round for grants commences in December 2024.

Epic Games vs Google

Epic Games butted heads with Apple in 2023 regarding the App Store, where Epic alleged that Apple were engaging in monopolistic behaviour, and although they weren’t successful in their case, they were successful in requiring Apple to allow alternative payment methods on the App Store.

Now Epic Games has taken Google Play to court and has won a significant antitrust case, compelling Google Play to open up and offer alternatives to its Google Play store for downloading apps on Android phones. Epic appears to be building up their mobile market, after recently launching its own mobile store. There are plans to draw in developers with a free games program, reduced commission fees for studios using Unreal Engine, and more.

Google do plan to appeal the Epic Games verdict, stating that Apple and Google compete directly for consumers and for app developers, and that ‘Android is open and Google Play is not the only way to get apps’.

Epic and Google will form a small committee to review technical issues with Google’s compliance.

Less Timewarping For You

If you’re a World of Warcraft fan, you’re probably familiar with Timewalking events, where old dungeons and raids are available at their current level, earning rewards and experience. As a recurring event, there is an array of mounts, toys, pets, badges, and Timewarped gear to earn. However, collecting the Timewarped Badges necessary will be a bit more difficult, with the number of badges you earn being nerfed.

With a quest that would’ve originally given you 500 badges, players can only expect that reward for their first character on their account. Subsequent characters will only earn 300 badges for the raid, and 200 for the dungeon.

Right before World of Warcraft’s 20th anniversary event on October 22nd. Fans aren’t too happy.

News Nibbles!

Paradox Interactive seems to be done with Vampire: The Masquerade, according to deputy CEO Mattias Lilja. “It is not in our strategic direction to make this kind of game, so if Bloodlines 2, God willing, is successful, Bloodlines 3 [will be] done by someone else… we don’t know that stuff, so we should probably let other people do it.”

The Shinobi series by Sega will be getting a film adaptation! The hack-and-slash games followed Joe Musashi, a ninja fighting evil, although plot details haven’t been revealed. Stuntman and filmmaker Sam Hargrave will be a director, along with Ken Kobayashi writing the script.

Red Dead Redemption will finally be officially on PC on the 29th of October. Barbie Horse Adventure fans, it will soon be your time. We ride at dawn.

And now for some upcoming games!

October 11th

• Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero – PS5, Xbox, PC
• Europa – Switch
• Metaphor: ReFantazio – PS5, Xbox, PC
• Nick Jr. Party Adventure – PS5, Switch, Xbox, PC
• Starship Troopers: Extermination – PS5, Xbox
• Transformers: Galactic Trials – PS5, Switch, Xbox, PC
• Undisputed – PS5, Xbox, PC

October 15th

• Darksiders II: Deathinitive Edition – PS5, Xbox
• Just Dance 2025 Edition – PS5, Switch, Xbox, PC
• Just Dance VR – Meta Quest
• Neva – Switch
• New World: Aeternum – PS5, Xbox, PC

Are there any PlayStation fans out there who had a bit of trouble getting online yesterday? You’re not alone! The Playstation Network suffered a major global outage that caused problems on both the PS4 and PS5. The outage lasted for around eight hours and meant players couldn’t sign-in, play multiplayer games, load videos, or play any singleplayer games with online requirements. Sony hasn’t said much about what caused this problem in the first place, but (at the time of writing this) things at least seem to be running normally again.

Pictures of the upcoming Sims game (Project Rene) have been leaked from it’s playtest and fans are not happy. This comes only weeks after EA announced that Project Rene is not, as most people assumed, the Sims 5 and they aren’t planning a Sims 5 at all. EA assured players they would be taking the series “beyond linear, sequential releases and offer more options for players than ever before.”Unfortunately, to a lot of players, these pictures from Project Rene suggest a bland, basic, and possibly micro-transaction fuelled mobile-gaming experience: Not what anyone is asking for.

On the 1st of October, Devolver Digital announced the launch of a new publishing label under its belt – “Big Fan”. This new branch will focus on working with indie creators who want to make games with existing IPs, as well as the people who own those IPs and want a game made. This isn’t about making marketing tie-in games for other media; it’s about creating fun and inventive games that stand on their own. In their own words “We believe (and have seen firsthand) that great games that propel existing franchises can offer a connection with a fan that only an interactive experience can offer. Independent games created in these universes can explore them in new and unexpected ways, and it’s our goal to raise the bar of what fans can expect.”

Upcoming Game Releases:

On October 4th –
• SpongeBob Squarepants: The Patrick Star Game is coming to PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC
• Until Dawn is coming to PS5 and PC

Then October 8th is a big day for game releases, which will see:
• Turn-based tactic game Dead Season release on PC.
• Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred DLC will release on all platforms.
• The remake of Silent Hill 2 is coming to PC and the PS5.
• Annd if you have the ultimate edition, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero will release on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|

State of Play

Sony held a State of Play this week to promote upcoming titles for the PS5.

Off the bat we saw the soon to be released DLC for Astro Bot,  featuring 5 speedrunning levels and 10 new bots including Helldivers and Stella Blade. Other DLC announcements included: A Sonic X Shadow Movie Pack featuring Keanu Reeves as Shadow releasing on December 12^th to tie in with the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog 3 film and the Final DLC for Alan Wake II , “The Lake House” which will be out in October and looks to be leaning heavily into the horror aspects of the franchise.

A remaster the classic games Soul Reaver 1 & 2 will be coming December 10th by Aspyr who were recently responsible for the Tomb Raider remasters.

Palword for the PS5 got a release date of,  that very same day and Monster Hunter Wilds finally got a release date of February 28^th 2025.

Despite many thinking Sony had already abandoned the platform, PSVR2 had a strong presence in the State of Play including Metro Awakening VR, Hitman World of Assassination and the newly announced The Midnight Walk made by the developers behind lost in random. A striking adventure game, entirely handcrafted in clay and stop motion animated, it’ s playable in VR and flatscreen.

The show ended with the big announcement. The sequel to Ghost of Tsushima was revealed. Set 300 years after the events of the original game and with a new protagonist players will be welcomed into the world of Ghost of Yotei in 2025.

News Nibbles

As if startled by the announcement of Ghost of Yotei, Ubisoft has announced Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been delayed until February 14th next year.  How romantic.

Nintendo, like a middle-aged giant tortoise is now 135 years old. Happy Birthday you absolute freak.

Meta have announced the Quest 3s! This  headset create an new more affordable VR entry tier giving the power of the Quest 3 with the optics of the Quest 2. It will be available at a starting price of $500 AUD

After recent layoffs and restructuring, Behaviour Interactive (Dead by Daylight) has acquired Red Hook Studios (Darkest Dungeon) in a bid to diversify and reduce the individual risk to both companies.

Platinum Games has done the near unheard of and managed to acquire the IP for one of their games from Nintendo.  The Wonderful 101 is now in the safe, loving hands of its developer.

Game Releases

Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 (PS5, PS4, Switch), Mechabellum (PC),  Shadows of Doubt (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC), EA Sports FC 25 (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, PC) – September 27

Reynatis (PS5, PS4, Switch, PC) – September 28

Master Detective Archives: Rain Code Plus (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC), Throne and Liberty (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) – October 2