Latest news with #JessConditt
Engadget
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Video Games Weekly: Censorship and stolen puritanical valor
Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who's covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget. Please enjoy — and I'll see you next week. Let's all agree to stop talking about that awful conservative activist group out of Australia. You know the one — like a parasite, it attached itself to the censorship campaign that erased thousands of adult games from Steam and and successfully positioned itself at the center of the delisting narrative. However, logic and evidence suggests this group had very little to do with the mass removals. This Australian anti-porn organization led a movement in April to remove the edgelord simulator No Mercy from Steam, and since everyone agreed that game sucked, the campaign worked and the title disappeared from the storefront. This is where I believe the organization's involvement in the current drama ends. It seems No Mercy spurred payment processors including Visa, Mastercard and PayPal to turn their attention to the PC gaming market (an irony that I would find funnier if it weren't actively eroding an industry I love). These institutions took the opportunity to dictate the types of games they would support, and in response on July 16, Steam added a clause to its ruleset banning content that "may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam's payment processors," including 'certain kinds of adult only content.' Censorship on Steam is not new; Valve has for years had rules banning mislabeled adult content, hate speech, anything violating local laws and many other regulations. But outsourcing censorship to payment processors is new, and hundreds of games were removed from the platform following the rule change. On July 24, rolled out its own changes and summarily de-indexed every adult and NSFW game it hosted, which amounted to roughly 20,000 titles being hidden from search and browse pages. The conservative Australian group claimed responsibility for the Steam bans on July 19, three days after the platform's rule change went live. The organization said the censorship was the direct result of two of its recent efforts: an email campaign that sent 1,067 messages to Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and others claiming Steam and were hosting illegal sexual content, and an open letter addressed to the same financial institutions, signed by faith-based, anti-sex work and anti-queer activist groups. There is no evidence that these campaigns were directly responsible for payment processors' renewed enforcements. In fact, it's ludicrous to suggest that roughly 1,000 emails or an open letter would even register at companies the size of Visa, Mastercard or PayPal. What's more, after taking credit for the removal of hundreds of Steam games, the Australian group has attempted to distance itself from the whole shebang. Actually, following intense scrutiny from players, industry watchdogs and media outlets, every group in this situation is trying to avoid accountability. Valve says Mastercard made this happen, while Mastercard says it's just following the law, and PayPal says it's simply doing what companies like Mastercard tell it to do. Meanwhile, the Australian group is trying to avoid blame for the sweeping delistings while simultaneously attempting to exploit the Steam bans and gain momentum for its conservative bullshit. In the most likely scenario, the Australian activist group saw these PC gaming audits coming and, in a strange act of stolen puritanical valor, took steps to center itself in the conversation. We can stop helping it do so. Forget its name and, as the IGDA suggests, direct your ire toward the organizations with power in this situation, namely Mastercard and Visa. Still. It's notable that an organization backed by conservative Christian groups that loudly oppose sex work, queer rights and freedom of expression was able to so cleanly align itself with financial companies censoring content on Steam and This uncontested endorsement is especially worrisome in a political and social climate where women, the queer community, people of color and those who don't conform to a traditional conservative lifestyle are under attack. At a time like this, subversive and raw art is more necessary than ever, but it's also in its most vulnerable position. Choosing this moment to activate a censorship campaign is not only dangerous for our most vulnerable communities, it's cowardly. There's been some additional misinformation wrapped up in this censorship mess, of course. Three games were incorrectly reported as delisted or removed from or Steam as part of this situation: Mouthwashing , Trials of Innocence and Console Me . One game that was unjustly removed during the chaos was the psychological horror game VILE: Exhumed — read my interview with creator Cara Cadaver right here. The news In most contexts, I'd be pretty stoked on the thought of a hell-based BioShock, but this is the worst possible iteration of that idea. According to Bloomberg , BioShock 4 failed a recent review with executives at its publisher, 2K Games, and it's heading back to developers at Cloud Chamber for a narrative revamp. Plus, Cloud Chamber studio head Kelley Gilmore is gone and creative director Hogarth de la Plante was moved to a publishing role. Not much is known about the game that's assumed to be BioShock 4 , but it was revealed in 2019 alongside the formation of Cloud Chamber, so it's already been in development for quite a while. In related Rapture news, 2K's remake of the original BioShock was canceled earlier this year, Bloomberg reports. Ken Levine, the creator of the BioShock series, is currently working on a familiar-looking FPS called Judas at his own studio, Ghost Story Games. GOG gave away millions of games to protest censorship GOG partnered with developers to release 13 games with adult themes for free from August 1 to 3, in protest of all the censorship going down on Steam and None of the free titles were specifically banned in the censorship campaign, but they featured sexual, queer or violent content that could easily be targeted by similar efforts. GOG handed out its free games to more than 1 million players. is reindexing free NSFW games After deindexing all of its adult games on July 24 — like, all of them — on August 1 relisted all free games in this category. is currently auditing thousands of adult and NSFW games that it swept up in the payment processor ban, and it's unclear how the platform will support titles with these themes going forward. One of longstanding partners, Stripe, said it will no longer facilitate transactions of titles "designed for sexual gratification," but there's apparently room for negotiation in the future. Battlefield 6 will land on October 10 In a shocking twist, EA also revealed that Battlefield 6 will have multiplayer content. Age verification is coming to an Xbox near you The video game world is feeling the effects of the UK's Online Safety Act. Platforms including Discord and Xbox are implementing new age-verification methods to comply with the law in the UK, and Microsoft is planning to expand its program to other regions. It's in no rush, though, saying it'll use the UK as a guinea pig for these systems first, and then implement what it learns across the globe. Sony is suing Tencent over its blatant Horizon clone At its unveiling in 2024, viewers instantly called out Polaris Quest's Light of Motiram for looking an awful lot like Guerrilla Games' Horizon series — our headline called it a "pretty blatant Horizon ripoff," even. It took the better part of a year, but PlayStation's lawyers have finally kicked into gear. Sony is now suing Tencent, which owns Polaris Quest, over what it calls a "slavish clone" of its IP. Raven finally has a union contract with Microsoft Recent layoffs at Microsoft have only heightened the importance of proper labor organizing in video games, and one of the industry's first unions is finally making things official. Three years after initiating the process, Call of Duty support studio Raven Software has ratified its union contract with Microsoft. Raven Software initially voted to organize under Activision Blizzard, but after Microsoft completed its acquisition of the studio in October 2023, it continued negotiations with the tech titan. Play VILE: Exhumed , the game that Steam doesn't want you to see After VILE: Exhumed was removed and permanently banned from Steam for reasons that don't actually apply to the game, developer Cara Cadaver and publisher DreadXP have rolled out their own distribution model, and prices start at $0. You can download and play the game right now for free, and there's an option to throw some money Cara's way. A portion of the profits will benefit the Toronto-based charity Red Door Family Shelter. Additional reading Have a tip for Jessica? You can reach her by email , Bluesky or send a message to @jesscon.96 to chat confidentially on Signal.
Engadget
02-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
A terrific 2D Ninja Gaiden, housefly bucket lists and other new indie games worth checking out
Welcome to our latest recap of what's going on in the indie game space. A bunch of new games dropped this week that are more than worthy of your attention, including a modern take on an old-school Ninja Gaiden side-scroller and a joyful (perhaps even profound) puzzler about the life of a housefly. By far the biggest story in indie games over the last few weeks concerns payment processors pressuring the likes of Steam owner Valve and Itch to remove or de-index games that feature adult, NSFW and LGBTQIA+ themes. Under the guise of helping to protect women and children, an conservative activist group in Australia has taken credit for the delistings, as well as stricter rules regarding adult-themed games that Steam and Itch have implemented. But some affected developers suggest this is a smokescreen to push forward an agenda of anti-LGBTQIA+ censorship. This week, Engadget senior editor Jess Conditt spoke with solo developer Cara Cadaver of Final Girl Games about the impact of the censorship campaign. Valve permanently banned Cadaver's new game, VILE: Exhumed , from Steam for allegedly depicting "sexual content with depictions of real people," though the developer says that assessment is inaccurate. While Cadaver and publisher DreadXP are working on alternative distribution for VILE: Exhumed , Steam is the go-to marketplace for many PC gamers and the ban cuts off what surely would have been a critical source of revenue for the game. For its part, Itch has started reindexing free adult-themed games on its platform. The company has relied on Stripe and Paypal for processing payments. It has suspended payments via Stripe for 18+ content and it's talking to other potential payment partners "that are more willing to work with this kind of content." In any case, payment processors should not be the arbiters of morality, and they certainly should not be helping activists restrict access to perfectly above-board works of art. One other piece of news that caught my eye this week is about a game jam that's taking place this month. Participants will have just over three weeks to make games based on real-life investigative reporting. According to Global Game Jam, the teams will gain access to exclusive reporting on organized crime and corruption from around the world and be able to ask journalists behind those stories questions about their work. It's a fascinating idea, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the developers that get involved come up with. New releases Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound is what I like to call a 'hell yeah" game. There are few purer joys than getting about 15-20 minutes into a new game and thinking 'hell yeah, this rules.' Even better, that feeling lasted through the other four hours or so I spent with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound . This is a throwback 2D hack-and-slash platformer from The Game Kitchen — the studio behind the Blasphemous series — and publisher Dotemu, which is building quite the reputation for itself as a purveyor of retro-style games ( Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge , the upcoming Marvel Cosmic Invasion ). Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound looks and sounds sumptuous, with gorgeous pixel art and stellar level, character and audio design. It's got combat that's somehow both sticky and slick, and it's challenging without being too frustrating. I've had a tremendous time with this one, which, if memory serves me correct, is the first Ninja Gaiden game I've played. I can't really find any notable faults with Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound . It's well worth checking out. It's out now on Steam, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch. Here's another 'hell yeah" game. I've been looking forward to Time Flies ever since I clapped eyes on it during a Day of the Devs showcase a couple of years ago. You play as a fly and the goal is to check off a bucket list of items before the insect perishes (their lifespan equates to the average life expectancy of a country of your choosing but in seconds). It's a clever, funny and slightly rude — in a playful, Thank Goodness You're Here sort of way — blend of exploration and puzzle game that makes a strong case as to why we should make the most of our limited time. It's a short game, as it took me about 90 minutes to roll credits. That's pretty much the ideal length for this one. The controls are simple (only a D-pad, pause button and a way to call up the bucket list are required) and the aesthetic, which features hand-drawn art, is delightfully low-key too. In fact, this would be a perfect fit for the Playdate, which just happens to come from Panic, the publisher of Time Flies . For now, though, you can check out this lovely little game from the team at Playables on Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. Whatnot Games released the 1.0 version Star Racer on Steam this week after over a year of early access. This is a retro racer very much in the vein of the F-Zero series that features local multiplayer (here's hoping for online multiplayer at some point) and music from Grant Kirkhope of Banjo-Kazooie and GoldenEye 007 fame. You can also create your own tracks and share them with others online. I love the launch trailer for Star Racer , which blends gameplay with '80s-style animation. I also adore that — per Rock Paper Shotgun — one of the characters is a "detective-looking fella called Thrash Whiplash." If that's not in the running for the best video game character name of the 2020s, we're all going to need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. We have yet another flavor of pretty, retro-tinged pixel art this week thanks to developers Ancient Corporation and Bitwave Games, as well as publisher Limited Run Games. Their 16 bit-style shoot-'em-up Earthion landed on Steam this week. It features music from legendary composer Yuzo Koshiro ( Streets of Rage, ActRaiser, Shenmue and many more games). That probably should not come as a huge shock given that he co-founded Ancient. Earthion is also slated to hit consoles starting in September. Being a Limited Run title, physical editions are of course on the way for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch. Expect those later this year. A physical version is also expected for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 2026. Surgent Studios went in a completely different direction for its follow-up to its well-received Metroidvania from last year, Tales of Kenzera: Zau . Its latest project (released with the help of the publishing arm of Palworld creator Pocketpair), Dead Take , is a first-person psychological horror about an actor who is looking for a friend who has vanished after a Hollywood party. There's top-tier videogame acting talent here, with Neil Newbon (Astarion in Baldur's Gate 3 ) and Ben Starr (Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy XVI ) taking on the lead roles, and a litany of other well-known performers — from Laura Bailey to Sam Lake — also making appearances. That cast alone makes this worthy of attention. Dead Take is out now on Steam and the Epic Games Store. It feels like we've been waiting forever for Hobbit life sim Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of the Rings Game to drop and, following some delays, it's now available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Steam. (This is now technically an indie game because Take-Two sold off publisher Private Division last year.) I love games that tell you exactly what they're about in their title and A Game About Digging A Hole sure is one of those. You dig a hole, find buried goodies, and sell them to help you buy better gear. Developer DoubleBee and publishers Rokaplay and Headup brought this exploration game to iOS and Android this week after a hugely successful debut on Steam earlier this year. A Game About Digging A Hole has now sold more than 1 million copies. Perhaps you're looking for a different digging game to check out this weekend. In that case, Mashina may be worth considering. The titular character is a robot that searches for valuable minerals to help repair and expand her community. Mashina can also use the minerals to build machines that can help with her digs, while she can use items she stumbles upon for base decoration. Developers Jack King-Spooner and Talha Kaya (who previously released Judero ) used traditional stop-motion techniques to animate Mashina . This charming-looking puzzle/exploration game is now available on Steam. Let's wrap up this section with a short, experimental game about anxiety. A Dream About Parking Lots has been out on Steam for a few months and the aptly named Interactive Dreams (with the help of Take It Studio!) brought it to PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch this week. It's said to be based on real dreams and will see you looking for your car among parking lots and mazes while chatting with a therapist. Upcoming Wander Stars — from Paper Castle Games and publisher Fellow Traveller — was supposed to be arriving this week, but the developers have pushed the release date back until September 19. The team wants to carry out some changes to improve the game following feedback from an open beta. I really like the look of this one, and though turn-based combat isn't usually my cup of tea, I'm very intrigued by the system that's in use here. You'll find and combine words into phrases that convert into devastating attacks. There are more than 200 words and they have cooldowns, so combining them in smart ways will be a key to success. Using words "with honor" can seemingly help you unlock more useful phrases too. Very curious to see how all of that works in practice. We'll get a better idea next month, when Wander Stars lands on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC. Speaking of games with a killer look, a gameplay trailer for I Hate This Place hooked me in this week. This is an isometric survival horror game that pulls from the visual stylings of its comic book origins. Crafting is vital here, both in terms of your arsenal and strengthening your shelter before nightfall. This stylish title from Rock Square Thunder and publisher Broken Mirror Games is bound for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch later this year. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
Engadget
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Video Games Weekly: Censorship, shrinkage and a Subnautica scandal
Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who's covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget. Please enjoy — and I'll see you next week. This week, I'm fried. Maybe it's the plodding and ever-present crumbling of society and human decency, or maybe it's because Love Island USA just ended so I'm feeling extra listless. It's a familiar summer sensation, but this year everything is exaggerated and extra tense, the stakes of every action seem higher, and instead of melting into the warmth of the season with a popsicle and a smile, I often find myself frozen and numb. I am the popsicle, coo coo ca choo. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to convey here, but I think it's clear that I shouldn't be writing anything too serious at the moment. I'm working on a few reports and trying to keep my composure amid the chaos, and all the while, the video game headlines keep rolling on. I've included a few more than usual this week, as penance for my popsicle state. The news UK studio The Chinese Room, creator of Still Wakes the Deep and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, is independent once again. The Chinese Room leaders completed a management buyout with help from VC firm Hiro Capital to fully split the studio from Tencent subsidiary Sumo Digital, which acquired it in 2018. A number of people were laid off as part of the transition and the studio is left with a total of 55 employees. The Chinese Room is still working on Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 for Paradox Interactive, and it also has original projects in development. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Still Wakes the Deep was one of my absolute favorite games of 2024. Whether you're a fan of beautiful paranormal horror or you're just really into oil rigs, give it a go. Vice's owner, Savage Ventures, doesn't want you to read this story . Or this one . Vice removed two articles about Steam's new ban on certain 'adult-only' content and the organization that pushed for the change, Collective Shout, which has the support of prominent anti-pornography groups with conservative religious foundations. The stories were written by contributor Ana Valens, who said the removals were 'due to concerns about the controversial subject matter — not journalistic complaints.' Valens has vowed to never write for Vice again and a handful of reporters there have resigned in solidarity . Censoring stories about censorship is certainly a choice, Vice. The home of Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology, Supermassive Games, is laying off 36 people, restructuring its team and delaying one of its projects into 2026. A statement from the studio says the decisions were in response to the video game industry's 'challenging and ever-evolving environment.' It's estimated that Supermassive had more than 300 employees before the layoffs. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement Directive 8020, the fifth installment in the Dark Pictures Anthology, is now due to come out in the first half of 2026, rather than this fall. Honestly, I'm not surprised to hear Supermassive needs more time to work on Directive 8020. I watched Engadget UK bureau chief Mat Smith play the demo at Summer Game Fest in June, and while it looked great, we were both surprised by how short and non-interactive the segment was. He summed up this feeling in his preview with the line, 'Finally, I got to play (but only for a few minutes).' Supermassive is also working on Little Nightmares III, a series that it took over from Tarsier Studios. Tarsier created Little Nightmares and its sequel, but lost the rights to the IP when the team was acquired by a subsidiary of Embracer Group in 2019. Series publisher Bandai Namco kept the Little Nightmares brand and commissioned Supermassive to build the third game, while Tarsier is working on its own project, Reanimal . It makes sense that Supermassive would prioritize Little Nightmares III in order to fulfill its obligations with Bandai. The game has already been delayed once, and it's set to hit PC and consoles on October 10. I still have high hopes for FBC: Firebreak to be the Left 4 Dead revival we've always wanted, but fact is, it's not quite there yet . Remedy Entertainment is aware of this hard truth and has a plan to fix it. The studio laid out its pipeline for making FBC: Firebreak easier to jump into, more fun to play and less confusing overall, with most major changes coming in an update this winter. PCGamesN published an interview with Counter-Strike co-creator Minh Le, who left Valve years ago to try out independent development. One sentiment stuck out to me. ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement 'They didn't force me out or anything,' Le told PCGamesN. 'But a part of me kind of regrets it. Looking back, my decision to leave Valve was, financially, kind of a poor decision. If I had stayed with Valve, I would have been able to retire by now.' It's not presented as an indictment of Valve, but I find it notable that Le describes the studio as a place to retire, rather than a space to innovate and create the next generation of video games. At this rate, Valve will never outrun its reputation as the studio where talented game developers go to die (professionally speaking). But, hey, at least they're not getting laid off en masse. Which, unfortunately, brings us to the next headline. Cyberpunk 2077, Sea of Thieves and Dune: Awakening support studio Virtuos is laying off 270 developers, which is about seven percent of its staff. Virtuos is currently best known as the studio behind The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered alongside Bethesda, and it has more than 4,000 employees across Asia, Europe and North America. The cuts affect developers in Asia and Europe, with 'fewer than 10' in France, where work on Oblivion Remastered was headquartered. Make sure to pin this one on your calendar. Saber Interactive is making Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, a first-person, action-survival horror game that features actor Doug Bradley as Pinhead for the first time in nearly 20 years. Barker himself provided input on the story, too. It's coming to PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X/S, with no release date yet. "The Hellraiser universe is defined by its unflinching exploration of pain, pleasure, and the thin and terrifying line that separates the two," a description from Saber Interactive reads. "That essence is at the heart of our game." Game Developer reporter Chris Kerr spoke with a number of employees at Zenimax who are still reeling from the layoffs that Microsoft enacted in early July . The vibes there sound pretty terrible. 'This carcass of workers that remains is somehow supposed to keep shipping award-winning games," one senior QA tester told Kerr. The developer continued, 'Microsoft just took everything that could have been great about the culture and collaboration and decimated it. Morale is terrible. It's grotesque. People are stressed. They're crying.' When Xbox isn't firing thousands of employees in one blow, it's quietly laying the groundwork for the future of video game distribution. An update for Xbox Insiders this week introduces cross-platform cloud support, bringing your cloud library and play history to the Xbox PC app. This means you can access cloud activity on an Xbox console, PC or Windows handheld, and seamlessly play cloud games across devices. This is just how video games are going to work in the coming decades, and it's interesting to watch our future slowly roll out in blog posts and software updates. Did you miss all of the mess around Subnautica 2 last week? Or, more accurately, this past month? To quickly summarize, Subnautica publisher Krafton is being sued by the series creators after it fired them and then delayed their game, allegedly sabotaging a $250 million bonus payout due to developers. To not-quickly summarize, see my complete breakdown of the drama . I don't know who else needs a little levity in their life right now, but I certainly do. Thankfully, the stop-motion show My Melody & Kuromi is coming to Netflix on July 24, and there's already an adorable tie-in music video by LE SSERAFIM to enjoy. Zen out, watch all of the Sanrio sweetness and finally settle the debate: Are you more of a Kuromi or a My Melody? Additional reading Have a tip for Jessica? You can reach her by email, Bluesky or send a message to @jesscon.96 to chat confidentially on Signal.
Engadget
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Engadget
Video Games Weekly: Who put all these videos in my games?
Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who's covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget. Please enjoy — and I'll see you next week. If I end up reading one more story about how fantastic Death Stranding 2 is so long as you skip the cutscenes , I'm gonna hurl. At what point during 10 hours of cinematic interstitials do we collectively put the controller down and say, actually, this isn't a great game? Not because the game parts aren't any good — they're pretty fabulous, in fact — but because a significant portion of the experience isn't actually interactive at all. When does it become more accurate to describe a Hideo Kojima project as a CGI movie with moments of interactivity, rather than as a video game first? I'm not actually attempting to solve the 'video game of Theseus' riddle right now, but it's a conversation that's been on my mind, given recent headlines. Death Stranding 2 reviews are in, Neil Druckmann is out at HBO and returning to Naughty Dog full-time, and Emmy nominations arrived with 18 nods for video game adaptations. Meanwhile, layoffs are rocking the gaming industry yet again, with thousands fired at Xbox this month, alongside multiple studio closures and game cancellations. One of the most surprising titles to get the ax was Project Blackbird, a promising-sounding MMO from Elder Scrolls studio ZeniMax Online. Blackbird was reportedly canceled in favor of allocating resources to the development of Fallout 5 , a series with mainstream clout following the success of Amazon's Fallout TV show in 2024. The convergence of video games and Hollywood is not a new talking point — even for me — but it's only grown more relevant with time. Sony in particular is leaning hard into a cross-media strategy with notable investments in television, anime and film adaptations of its video game franchises, and it just published Kojima Productions' Death Stranding 2 , which serves as a lightning rod for this entire conversation. Kojima is easy to pick on because he's been so vocal about his desire to make movies, and fittingly, his games have only grown more cinematic over the years. Death Stranding and its sequel are stacked with mainstream Hollywood actors (and Kojima's favorite directors) across hours of drawn-out, non-interactive cutscenes. His next two projects, OD and Physint , are both described as having A-list casts and 'blurring the boundaries between film and games.' I'm a big fan of experimental horror games, and I deeply appreciate Kojima's eye for building tension and sneaky action sequences, but I'm hesitant to get excited about OD and Physint . The deeper Kojima dives into the world of Hollywood, the more he loses me. I don't download, install and boot up a video game to watch a movie instead, and I don't find it impressive when an interactive product is defined by cinematic terms. The constraints of filmmaking are vastly different than those of video game development, and it sucks to watch a talented creator try to force video games to conform to the boundaries of movies or TV, rather than exploring the mechanics that make interactive art so uniquely powerful. I feel like Kojima sees cinema as the goal, not video games specifically, and this perspective breaks my little pixelated heart. It's particularly painful in an era of raging instability for the video game industry. It's difficult to see so much money and creative talent being thrown at projects that end up feeling more like movies than games, at a time when it's increasingly difficult for fresh and original AAA projects to make it to market. Video games have not been maxed out as an art form — there's far more to discover in terms of mechanics, visuals, haptics and immersive interaction systems, and there are more stories that can only be told with these specific tools. Viewing game development through the lens of filmmaking diminishes everything that makes this medium so powerful. The only Hollywood trait the games industry should imitate is its powerful and functional unions. I enjoy things that exist in the gray space between definitions; in fact, I often prefer them. What I don't enjoy is misguided emulation that's sold to an audience as innovation. In the end, I guess what I'm really saying is… I'm still not over PT . One of the most eyebrow-raising details of Microsoft's sweeping layoffs earlier this month was the fact that King, the studio behind Candy Crush , was included in the firings. King is historically a money-printing machine with high per-employee returns, which tends to insulate it from layoffs, but this time around at least 200 people were let go from the studio. As it turns out, a number of fired developers spent the past few years training AI systems to do their jobs, which just adds a layer of shittiness to an already crappy situation. Has the FOMO gotten to you yet? After denying that you wanted a Switch 2 for a few noble and self-righteous weeks, have you cracked and admitted that you actually, really want one? Great — then get yourself to Best Buy on Thursday, July 17, when the company will restock its supply of Switch 2 consoles in all stores. This coincides with the release of Donkey Kong Banaza , too. I've had my eye on Judas , the BioShocky FPS from Ken Levine's Ghost Story Games, since it was revealed in 2022, and I lowkey love how little we still know about it today. That said, I'm happily devouring every bit of information about Judas , and the latest nugget comes from Levine himself in an interview with classic game publisher Nightdive Studios. With Judas , Ghost Story is focused on "telling the story and transporting the player somewhere," rather than building live-service or microtransaction features, Levine said. As he put it, 'You buy the game and you get the whole thing. There's no online component. There's no live service.' There's also no release date for Judas yet. The crazy kids at Summer Games Done Quick have done it once again and raised literal millions of dollars for Doctors Without Borders in a single weekend, simply by playing video games in silly ways without stopping. SGDQ 2025 wrapped up on Sunday with a total donation pool of $2,436,614. The organization's next event is another edition of Flame Fatales, a speedrunning showcase featuring women and femmes that runs from September 7 to 14. We'll see you there. The well of Subnautica 2 drama runs deep. Earlier in July the heads of Subnatica 2 studio Unknown Worlds Entertainment — Charlie Cleveland, Ted Gill and Max McGuire — were ousted by the team's parent company, Krafton, and the game's early access release was delayed to 2026. What's more, Bloomberg reported that the studio had been in line for a $250 million bonus if it had met certain financial goals by the end of the year, but those largely hinged on an early access release. Cleveland said on social media that Subnautica 2 was ready for early access, and Krafton responded to the whole shebang by accusing the fired developers of abandoning their responsibilities as studio heads. Cleveland and others are now apparently filing a lawsuit against Krafton. has a comprehensive timeline of the Subnautica 2 controversy right here.
Engadget
08-07-2025
- Business
- Engadget
Video Games Weekly: Every time this industry grows, it shrinks
Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who's covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget. Please enjoy — and I'll see you next week. In a 2024 interview with Chris Plante , just a few months after Xbox fired 1,900 employees in one blow , Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said the best way to prevent further layoffs in the video game industry was to ensure constant financial growth for major studios' shareholders. And the most logical way to do that, he intimated, was with layoffs. 'The thing that has me most concerned for the industry is the lack of growth,' Spencer said. 'When you have an industry that is projected to be smaller next year in terms of players and dollars, and you get a lot of publicly traded companies that are in the industry that have to show their investors growth — because why else does somebody own a share of someone's stock if it's not going to grow? — the side of the business that then gets scrutinized is the cost side.' He says it as if it's a natural and irrefutable fact of life. Of course the company has to continuously grow. Obviously the studio caters to its shareholders above all else. The only way to make the numbers go up is to reduce costs, which means slashing headcount. And Spencer is just a man in a Battletoads graphic tee who, clearly , has to do everything he can to make these investors, his fellow executives and himself richer. Poor guy. 'We're a business,' Spencer told Polygon . 'I've said over and over. I don't get any luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business inside of Microsoft. And we are that today. But just across the industry — you mentioned it, and in sitting here at GDC, I reflect on friends of mine in the industry that have been displaced and lost their jobs and how just, I don't want this industry to be a place where people can't, with confidence, build a career. So that's why I keep pivoting back to, how does this industry get back to growth?' He's already said the answer — layoffs — but it flies directly in the face of his stated desire to create a stable marketplace where his friends can thrive, so he watches the snake devour its own tail and shrugs, never once considering that the question itself is the problem. Fast forward to July 2, 2025. Microsoft laid off 9,000 people across its global workforce, and the Xbox division was rocked by thousands of job losses, multiple studio closures and notable game cancellations. The news came out in leaked memos, social media posts from fired employees and LinkedIn status updates, and I spoke to someone with knowledge of the situation at Halo Studios about the mood among developers. Overall, it's been a lot to keep track of. Here's all of the reported fallout, as it stands on July 8: Blizzard: Layoffs; Warcraft Rumble sunsetting Halo Studios: Layoffs affecting at least five people; we published a firsthand account of tension at the studio The Initiative: Studio closed; Perfect Dark remake canceled King: Layoffs affecting roughly 200 people, 10 percent of the studio Rare: Layoffs; creative director and Banjo-Kazooie creator Gregg Mayles is out after 35 years; Everwild canceled Raven Software: Layoffs Sledgehammer Games: Layoffs Turn 10: The Forza Motorsport team was gutted by layoffs and shut down; Turn 10 is now a Forza Horizon support studio ZeniMax Online Studios: Studio head Matt Firor is out after 18 years; Blackbird canceled Spencer said it in 2024 and it's still true today: The Xbox division is growing, with an eight percent yearly increase in revenue from Xbox content and services in the first three months of 2025. Still, for employees, it doesn't feel stable. This situation isn't unique to Microsoft, either: In May, Electronic Arts canceled its Black Panther game and closed the studio creating it, and this followed a previous culling at Respawn , which included canning a new Titanfall title, plus years of layoffs at BioWare. Meanwhile, EA CEO Andrew Wilson took home more than $25 million in the 2024 fiscal year. In 2024, 11 percent of developers across the industry were laid off, according to GDC's 2025 State of the Game Industry Survey . Statista reports the global games market is expected to grow yet again in 2025, generating more than $522 billion in revenue. Layoffs are a cruel solution to a shitty question, and at the moment , they form the backbone of the AAA industry. The world's largest studios function on a binge and purge cycle, with acquisitions , crunch and layoffs built into their business plans. This cadence is only becoming more chaotic as additional factors, like AI and consolidation, are converging to decrease hiring numbers and increase the scope of layoffs. At Microsoft, using the company's Copilot AI toolset is ' no longer optional ' for employees, and as one worker told me, 'They're trying their damndest to replace as many jobs as they can with AI agents.' Practices like these have helped propel unionization efforts across the industry, including at Xbox studios. 'We are deeply disappointed in Microsoft's decision to lay off thousands more workers, including union-represented CWA members, at a time when the company is prospering,' Communications Workers of America President Claude Cummings Jr. said about the recent layoffs. He continued, 'Right now, we are living through a moment of profound corporate consolidation and disruption. In times like these, union organizing is not just a tool for protections in the workplace; it is essential to workers' survival, and one of the strongest defenses we have against unchecked corporate power.' In addition to this most recent round of 9,000 layoffs, Microsoft fired 6,000 people across its divisions in May. The Xbox segment specifically lost more than 2,500 employees to layoffs in 2024, and Microsoft closed Arkane Austin , Alpha Dog Games and Tango Gameworks (though Krafton eventually scooped up Tango for itself, thankfully). The scattershot vibe of the closures, cancellations and layoffs — affecting productive and low-overhead studios like Tango, exciting new projects like Blackbird , and multiple proven ZeniMax teams — drives home the notion that Microsoft was always more interested in controlling these studios' IPs than supporting the developers that worked there. Layoffs are an answer to the question, 'How does this industry get back to growth?' Mass firings are not a function of artistic integrity or technological innovation, and they're antithetical to the process of actually building fresh and powerful video games. I've never asked myself how industry profits can grow, as a player or a critic. Only a small and very specific group of people have, and they don't speak for me. Unfortunately, they move for all of us. Helldivers 2 is heading to Xbox on August 26, ending its tenure as a PlayStation 5 console exclusive after a little more than one year. Helldivers 2 is developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by PlayStation, so it wasn't guaranteed to come to Xbox platforms at all. To be clear, it's not due to be included in Game Pass any time soon. Since settling its launch issues in early 2024, Helldivers 2 has been quietly building up a sizable playerbase of intergalactic freedom fighters, with more than 15 million copies sold across PC and PS5. Naughty Dog co-founder Neil Druckmann is stepping back from the development of HBO's The Last of Us television series to focus on making games again. Druckmann is a co-creator of the show and he's been spending his time recently helping produce and write it at HBO, but now that the second season is done, he's returning his attention to the studio that started it all. 'Now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to Naughty Dog and its future projects, including writing and directing our exciting next game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet ,' he said in a statement. Welcome back, Druckmann — as Engadget deputy news editor Nathan Ingraham put it, the video game industry is happy to see you again . Former Ubisoft executives Thomas Francois, Serge Hascoet and Guillaume Patrux were convicted in France of fostering a toxic workplace with rampant sexual and psychological abuse. Former chief creative officer Hascoet was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended, and Patrux received a 12-month suspended term. Francois was additionally found guilty of attempted sexual assault and received a suspended three-year prison sentence. This wraps up a multi-year investigation by French authorities into complaints of toxicity and gender-based harassment at Ubisoft. Sucker Punch will show off about 20 minutes of Ghost of Yōtei gameplay on Thursday, July 10, at 5PM ET during a dedicated State of Play event. I can't wait to watch that wind move . I've been looking forward to Time Flies since I buzzed my way through the demo at Summer Game Fest 2022. It's a ridiculous little game that provokes poignant thoughts about human existence and pushes players to find joy in small moments, and it's finally coming to PC, Switch and PS5 on July 31. Make sure to give it a go, whenever you have some time to kill. Two days after news of the Microsoft layoffs broke, Xbox Game Studios Publishing executive producer Matt Turnbull made a post on LinkedIn offering 'ways to use LLM Al tools (like ChatGPT or Copilot) to help reduce the emotional and cognitive load that comes with job loss.' His suggested prompts included, 'Draft a friendly message I can send to old coworkers letting them know I'm exploring new opportunities,' and, 'I'm struggling with imposter syndrome after being laid off. Can you help me reframe this experience in a way that reminds me what I'm good at?' The tonedeaf post was met with appropriate ridicule and swiftly taken down. Have a tip for Jessica? You can reach her by email , Bluesky or send a message to @jesscon.96 to chat confidentially on Signal.
