Author: Zach Barbieri

As pointed out by Phil Spencer during Xbox’s business update, four previously exclusive Xbox titles will be coming to other platforms. He was unable to name them that day, having stated that announcement deals were previously put in place. Around the same time, a rumored Nintendo Direct was stated to have been pushed which seemed to line up with the idea that Nintendo would announce some. As it turns out, Nintendo has confirmed two of the rumored titles during the direct, though not necessarily the two we all thought. Starting the event, Nintendo showcased Grounded a live-service-esque RPG from developer…

Industry analysts have suggested that a more powerful version of the PlayStation 5, expected to continue the naming trend as the PlayStation 5 Pro, can be expected later this year. This news comes through CNBC which quoted Tokyo-based games analyst Serkan Toto as saying there is a “broad consensus in the game industry that Sony is indeed preparing a launch of a PS5 Pro in the second half of 2024.” The report cautions that Sony is not likely to see an uptick in PS5 sales year-on-year, as a result of a potential Pro model launching. Additionally, there is little expectation…

After several outlets reported that Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM was planning to lay off several staff members, the company has now confirmed that they will indeed be laying off staff. These reports stated that the company planned to fire a quarter of the staff, which will affect around 24 employees overall. In an interview with Insider Gaming, the undisclosed number of lay-offs at the studio were addressed by stating: As with all studios, we adapt the size of our team to the work underway, growing when we start a new project and shrinking if one is cancelled. It is always…

One of the most welcomed shocks to come from last year’s Video Game Awards was a weird, nostalgia trailer from Sega boasting the retooling of several titles from the company’s past. These games included classic Genisis titles Shinobi and Golden Axe, as well as Dreamcast titles Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VHYLJR9pNg In a recent Japan Times interview, we finally got a sense of the scope of these projects, originally announced as remakes using the latest graphics. It was also announced as part of this interview that Sega’s relatively new Sapporo Studio is part of this project, only having…

After seven long years of waiting, Skull And Bones has finally arrived on modern consoles, and like any game that managed to escape development hell it is hard to know where to begin. The game was described as the first “AAAA” game by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot so let’s start there, it is not. Skull And Bones as a base experience is a generic live service game that struggles to do even that, but going even further it’s also not a very fun game. Since the number of A’s attached to a project is a designation of budget and not…

The strategy of Embracer Group to aggressively acquire studios and IPs has yet to yield major payoffs, but the negative effects continue to pile up. In the Summer 2023 the company announced a plan to restructure, a decision that has so far resulted in a large number of layoffs, studio closers such as Saints Row developer Volition after 30 years, as well as multiple game cancelations. During the first fiscal quarter, which ended June 2023 the company had 153 unannounced games in development, a number that dropped to 138 games by the end of its second fiscal quarter and shrunk…

One of my most anticipated games of this year, Ys X: Nordics has finally received a window for release in the West. The game has already been released in Japan and Asia, dropping September 28th of last year. While the title was expected to be released this year, there was very little information released on a release outside of Asia until now. With Falcom and Nis similarly behind the Trails series as developer and publisher respectively, and with those titles notorious for their long localization time, it isn’t unfair to have been concerned about a longer wait. Despite this, the…

Due in part to the PlayStation 5 failing to meet sales expectations due to the previous holiday season, Sony has now stated that the system is “Entering the latter stage of its life cycle.” Sony had set an arguably ambitious sales goal for their platform, aiming for 25 million units sold by the end of this financial year in March 2024, but the company has since revised that to only 21 million units. This is due to sales during the 2023 Holiday period coming in lower than Sony expected despite the company aggressively promoting it. Sony had managed to sell…

At this point, most people probably know Don’t Nod from their Life is Strange Series. People forget, or maybe never knew, that the studio got its start with an action game named Remember Me. In the years since both of those games, the studio has grown to a publisher and developer of multiple titles, but it’s not like anything is really outside of the Wheelhouse, especially going into Banishers: The Ghosts of New Eden. Its complicated to put into words just what a AA game needs to do to be good, or even great but Don’t Nod continues to make…

Kadokawa Corporation, probably best known in the West as being the parent company of Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, has acquired the developer behind the popular throwback RPG Octopath Traveller. Revealed by gaming publication Gematsu, Kadokawa stated during a recent earnings call that they had made the studio, ironically named Acquire, a “wholly owned subsidiary”. This puts them among the company of such developers as FromSoftware as well as Spike Chunsoft. Despite being best known for the pair of Octopath Traveler games, they are also known for developing Akiba’s Beat game, as well as No Heroes Allowed VR. Kadokawa stated: To…