Welcome back to your monthly report of game news, where I do my best to compile everything into one convenient ad-free place, so you don’t have to worry about the pesky cracks that info can fall through at other publications!

Thanks and credit for the banner image as always goes to the Avocado’s one and only Space Robot! 

ABK Updates

Although the final, definitive ruling won’t arrive until October 6th, on September 22nd the UK Competition & Markets Authority officially and publicly gave preliminary approval for the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard King merger on the grounds of the new deal for Ubisoft to own and operate ABK’s game streaming rights as a neutral party, and newly negotiated additional enforceable procedural guardrails for said deal.

The writing has been on the wall for the past couple months, the Federal Trade Commission’s loss in court and the CMA going back to the negotiating table on the same day was as definitive as we commentators needed. but this is where the past almost two years of negotiations for the biggest gaming acquisition of all time truly ends for those involved. I’m really out of new commentary on these events, any regular reader or really anyone within earshot knows how I feel. It’s good that Microsoft had to compromise as much as it did along the way, it’d still be better if we were a country still capable of corporate breakups, and it’s wrong to root for any massive corporation to be as powerful as Microsoft is. Anyway, I might as well mention a dumb joke I’m very proud of that I wrote in advance but I tragically forgot to include when I briefly covered Call of Duty: Black Ops – Gulf War last month: what thrilling innovation at work, this time George HW Bush will be the one to respect my pronouns while ordering me to do warcrimes.

On September 27th, in response to the CMA approval and after pressure subsided from legislators, the FTC unpaused its planned internal administrative trial on the acquisition. This is very unlikely to change anything, especially if it doesn’t even get underway until after finalization anyway.

Everything Else

September 6th: Despite recent positive beta preview coverage, Ubisoft’s decade-long disaster Skull and Bones faced its latest obstacles as covered in a new report by Kotaku’s Ethan Gach. Creative director Elisabeth Pellen left the project early during the summer, moving from Singapore back to Ubi Paris, the third that this game has lost. Singapore’s Creative Media and Publishing Union is actively campaigning right now, and courted the developer’s troubled workers as part of that, delivering flyers and organizing a ballot exercise. The game was relatively ready to launch last year, and still has the Singapore government breathing down their necks to ensure it releases soon, but churns along still in the hope of achieving the best reception possible.

Games and tech press site VentureBeat fired staffers for the second time in a year.

Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma revealed in an interview with Famitsu that he and his team are not currently planning any DLC release for Tears of the Kingdom, despite the long line of first party DLC support on Switch that started with predecessor Breath of the Wild. This was later explicitly reiterated when speaking to NPR. Having started as DLC ideas for BOTW that expanded outward, the Zelda team put everything they had left for this generation of the series into the base game of TOTK. Aonuma made it clear earlier this year that the eventual next main Zelda will continue the general open world format, but now it’s equally clear that it will be a new iteration of the series, a “completely new experience.”

During a promotional Esquire interview for Starfield’s launch, ZeniMax and Xbox’s Todd Howard strongly suggested plans to show MachineGames’ Indiana Jones project in 2024. I’m slightly annoyed that I didn’t get to make this prediction public before he said it first.

September 7th: The Switch 2 train kept right on slowly rolling into the station as just about everybody out of GamesCom heard word of behind-closed-doors Switch 2 demo presentations. That had been rumbling for awhile, but I didn’t bring it here until VGC, Eurogamer, and Universo Nintendo once again brought the greatest detail in formal reports, saying that two tech demos were privately shown to select developers, 1. enhanced Breath of the Wild in 4K60fps with faster loadtimes, and 2. Epic Games’ Unreal 5 demo The Matrix Awakens, which had DLSS3.1 and ray-tracing active. Sources concur that Matrix Awakens on Switch 2 passes for its current gen console counterparts, at least at first glance.

That’s the main new news but here’s a quick refresher about upscalers for our less tech-savvy friends: The two major game performance upscalers on the market are from tech companies AMD and Nvidia respectively. AMD has FSR, or FidelityFX Super Resolution, which isn’t AI-based, and Nvidia has the AI/ML-based DLSS, Deep Learning Super Sampling. DLSS3.0 launched last year while FSR3 has only just launched for PC as of September 29th 2023, introducing FPS-boosting frame generation to compete with DLSS’ offer of the same. Gaming PCs can access both FSR2 and DLSS3 for most titles, but Xbox Series S|X and PS5 are both AMD-based hardware and thus can both only use FSR2 right now. Meanwhile, Switch 1 mainly uses FSR1 in a few select* cases both first and third party, and MonolithSoft uses its own proprietary upscaler for all Xenoblade Chronicles releases on Switch, one which received a major upgrade before its use in XC3.

*1Tears of the Kingdom and Splatoon 3 on the first party side. The Switch ports of Life is Strange True Colors, Mortal Kombat 1, Sonic Frontiers, all use FSR1, while No Man’s Sky is the first Switch game to use FSR2.

Standard image upscaling is based on starting at a lower resolution and extrapolating a higher res image from it while stabilizing video framerate and minimizing increase on computational demand; DLSS takes this further with further optimization, actually increasing framerate, and generally providing better overall image quality to its upscale. It’s an essential element to Switch 2 being actively competitive with its current-gen counterparts. A few tech nerds will keep whinging about upscaled and checkerboard 4K being “fake”, but the fact is that upscaling is already standard for this console generation, and the sacrifice is minimal for a vast majority of the playing audience and game library.

There are still new native 4K games arriving, other games being better than they would be otherwise doesn’t harm that, especially when games upscaling at 1080p from higher are still pitching higher than anything could on base PS4, even very graphically advanced current gen exclusive likes Dead Space Remake or Starfield, which are upscaling from over 1200p and 1440p respectively. The handful of current-gen games where upscaling is more strained, like Immortals of Aveum or Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, needed to focus on two or three of the five or six simultaneous demanding things they attempted, and even they have made leaps forward in their latest patches by accepting necessary tradeoffs. Alright, rant over, sorry, back to news.

After it was first reported earlier this year, the ESA officially acknowledged that there will be no E3 2024 and that it has parted ways with PAX organizer ReedPop, while proclaiming that it will organize a “complete reinvention” of the event in 2025.

Ahead of the annual D23 event, which last year hosted the first ever Disney Games Showcase, Disney Games and developer Empty Clip announced that Gargoyles Remastered will launch October 29th for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch. This was Disney’s only announcement, having downsized this year’s D23 in response to the ongoing production strikes, which once again could end at any time if CEOs like Disney’s Bob Iger were willing to part with the tiniest amounts of money to better support creatives.

September 8th: At a conference keynote, Roblox Corp. announced that it was launching its signature, eponymous software for Meta Quest later this month and for PS4 and PS5 in October 2023, almost 20 years after its PC launch and 10 years after releasing for mobile and Xbox One.

September 10th: Stalker 2 dev/pub GSC Game World suffered an office fire in Prague with major building damage but thankfully no injuries.

Two prominent modern Japanese indies saw new ports announced by publisher Playism, with Ib Remake set for PS4/5 on March 14th 2024, after its PC and Switch releases, and Gnosia set for Xbox One/Series S|X and PS4/5 on December 14th 2023.

September 11th: Reuters reported that as part of Embracer Group’s ongoing downsizing, the publisher is seriously considering divesting from Borderlands’ Gearbox by either sale or independence, with multiple offers already received from potential buyers which “mainly consist of international gaming groups”. A week later, three more Embracer subsidiary downsizes also occurred: 10 staff at Crystal Dynamics were fired right before Avengers’ delisting, Beamdog saw 26 people fired right as they launched Mythforce,, and Saber Interactive officially ended support for Evil Dead: The Game including canceling its Switch port.

The majority of Ubisoft Montreal’s total 4000+ workstaff returned to office due to abrupt executive mandate after years of promised long term remote work, as extensively reported on by IGN’s Rebekah Valentine. After years of employee hemorrhage and hiring difficulties due to its refusal to improve on a systemically abusive work culture, the publisher has only further alienated its remaining workforce with this decision to send remote workers back into expensive commutes and a studio space physically unhealthy on many levels, where work on such titles as Sands of Time Remake, Assassin’s Creed Hexe, and Far Cry 7 proceeds under severe duress.

Four years after its 2019 launch, official content support for Mario Kart Tour is ending just in time for the final Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC pack, whose contents borrowed heavily from the mobile game. This marks a further disinvestment from the mobile market as Tour was Nintendo’s second must successful mobile game after Fire Emblem Heroes. By ending the mobile and DLC development together, the Mario Kart dev team at EPD will now be full steam ahead on the series’ next mainline entry just as the next Nintendo console looms large.

Ubisoft’s free to play competitive crossover FPS XDefiant, formerly Tom Clancy’s XDefiant, was indefinitely delayed due to failing console certification tests for both PS4/5 and Xbox One/Series due to system-based compliance bugs, a rarity in the games field that calls to mind the infamous cert retraction for Cyberpunk at its 2020 launch. The game’s launch is still intended for this fall as these issues are worked out.

A native current gen free upgrade for Spongebob: The Cosmic Shake was announced by Embracer Group, releasing October 16th alongside a free update adding photo mode.

September 12th:

After years of already alienating people, Unity went further, announcing that it will be adding a per-install fee to developers for all existing and forthcoming games built in its engine for any installs occurring after January 1st 2024, including FTP games which can only offset their higher total fees by adopting additional Unity services like LevelPlay, which acquires the company ad revenue. This affects a vast swathe of projects, from first time indies which just started development to Hollow Knight, Cuphead, Fall Guys, Pokémon Go, Obsidian’s Pillars of Eternity and Pentiment, and even Fire Emblem Engage. This was no less than an existential crisis for our industry. One of the most accessible engines out there, practically video game infrastructure, being turned around into exorbitant, arbitrary mass price gouging against mostly small teams who already had to shell out massivey to use it in the first place, and in the process inflicting intrusive tracking onto devs and players and extreme arbitrary TOS changes upon devs.

The collective outcry has been immediate and immense, ranging from over 500 boycotting Unity partners to non-Unity indies in solidarity like Terraria’s Re-Logic, and even the European Games Developer Foundation. A class action lawsuit is under consideration, delistings of games are threatened however seriously, and IGN reports that “multiple publishers and developers of unannounced Unity games are currently scrambling to prevent their deals from collapsing.” Consider the sheer scale of costs this represents for smaller developers; to paraphrase Dead Static Drive’s Kurt Blackney in the linked IGN article: “Make a freemium game, game makes 200K from in-app purchases after 3 million installs, at 20c per install that costs 360,000 more than we made.” And any engine transition to avoid this fee is itself a costly and extended technical undertaking.

Multiple waves of policy amendments from the company have arrived since the backlash started, and I’ll go over those in detail, but the fact remains that Unity does refuse to cancel the fee plans outright, and they’ve proven they can’t be trusted long-term. Even a concession as seemingly straightforward as “charity games or bundles receive no charges” comes with a deeply toxic asterisk that it doesn’t recognize any “political groups” as valid charities, specifically Planned Parenthood though assuredly also covering, say, itch.io racial or LGBTQ+ justice bundles.

Most recently and notably, on September 23rd, the Unity corporation issued a public apology and policy update in order to severely reduce its negative effects, by no longer applying the fee to any pre-existing games whatsoever, only those created with or updated to the 2024 engine build, no longer applying the fee to any developers on the two (of four) lower budget engine licensing options, and increasing the fee qualification thresholds to $1 million and 1 million installs. This makes a very necessary big difference, though it doesn’t help issues like intrusive tracking, retroactive terms of service changes, Unity’s general ability to easily do something like this again in the future, etc. Bloomberg previously reported other changes uder consideration.

Stephen Totilo spoke directly with Unity reps several times during the day of announcement. He reported those first alterations to the policy: After initially outright announcing that the same user’s deletions and reinstalls would incur multiple install fees, that policy was reversed due to how blatantly abusable it would be by trolls. Subscription service rlleases will see the fees will be directed to the service’s distributor, Microsoft in the case of Game Pass, thus disincentivizing these publishers from working with Unity-based indies. Most demos will not receive fees whatsoever, unless attached to the full game like Early Access releases.

During its iPhone 15 event, Apple persisted in its stop and start investment in the games industry by announcing that the latest smartphone’s Pro model will support ray-tracing and native ports of Death Stranding, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and Resident Evil Village/Resident Evil 4 Remake which will arrive between Fall 2023 and Spring 2024. It’s incredibly apt to see this happen right at the same time as the ramp up to Switch 2 in terms of further representing how far mobile/handheld gaming has come. However, there’s still one blatant glaring problem for Apple, the mobile market’s historical resistance to premium games in favor of the FTP model. If $10 for Mario was simply too much, $40-$70 is definitely too much, and it’s not like a significant portion of the existing console market are abruptly transferring to rebuy their games on iPhone. Early coverage of the phone says it already has overheating, battery life, and performance stability issues.

After revealing a brand new game for 2024, Jupiter also announced Picross S+ for a 2024 launch as well, an aggressively monetized ‘complete’ digital legacy collection of the series’ now delisted 3DS run, in which the original Picross e is a $5 game, and each successor is a $5 DLC up through the final Japan-only Picross e9.

September 13th: Bloomberg’s Takashi Mochizuki, Vlad Savoy, and Kotaro Hara twice reported on and analyzed drops in profit and stock value at Square Enix since the launches of Forspoken and Final Fantasy 16 as the publisher’s expensive marquee titles for the calendar year. Between launch sales and Sony helping to foot the bill, FF16 is the latest in a long line of SE games that didn’t so much underperform, just fail to overperform. The publisher’s new CEO Takashi Kiryu is under pressure from investors to course correct from what are considered key internal issues, quality control, giving producers too much power, overstretching resources. Kiryu plans to overhaul producer management, and adjust costs by reducing development outsourcing and total smaller projects produced while reinvesting into blockbuster and multiplatform development.

After seven years at EA’s Respawn studio, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order/Survivor director Stig Asmussen departed the studio and publisher.

September 14th: Fall Nintendo Direct

In very possibly the last Switch 1 only Direct presentation ever released, Nintendo went hard on promising rereleases and Mario franchising to fill out 2024 and keep the console’s sunset slate strong as first party development resources all but completely pivot to the successor. The first of many rereleases was Mario vs. Donkey Kong Remake, based on the original 2004 Game Boy Advance puzzle platformer, now featuring 2.5D rendering and local co op, releasing February 16th 2024. This entry is much better regarded than its many sequels as a worthy successor to the beloved Donkey Kong 94. The actual opener was a full reveal trailer for Splatoon 3’s paid story expansion, Side Order, which arrives Spring 2024 with trippy visuals, a replayable challenge tower, and the overall theme of Order, the side that lost at the end of Splatoon 2.

The first set of third party headlines had Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, Konami’s Super Crazy Rhythm Castle coming November 1st to PC, Switch, PS4/5, and Xbox One/Series, plus the first game based on hit anime Spy x Family, Spy x Anya: Operation Memories coming to Switch, PS4/5, and PC from Bandai Namco in 2024 as a life sim. That game’s launch details were later clarified: in Japan, the Switch version arrives on December 21st, while the PS4/5 versions will release in 2024 in all regions alongside the international release of the Switch version. Former Apple Arcade exclusive racing game Horizon Chase 2 was shadowdropped for Switch and PC from mobile-first Brazilian dev Aquiris.

A new trailer for Super Mario RPG Remake detailed its brand new gameplay additions, with a post-game of replayable more difficult forms for the boss battles, and the brand new party team up Triple Attack moves as part of the overall tweaked main combat system. Another Code: Recollection was revealed, they’re remakes of the cult classic adventure game duology (Another Code: Two Memories/Trace Memory and never before released in orth America Another Code R: A Journey Into Lost Memories) originally by the defunct Hotel Dusk developer Cing, coming exclusively to Switch on January 19th 2024.

First teased in the June 2023 Direct, Princess Peach Showtime! was fully revealed and announced to launch March 22nd 2024 for Switch. It’s an adventure game themed around different theatre worlds and the costumed powers Peach acquires to save the theatres from new baddies, making it kind of what if Balan Wonderworld was good. The four powers and corresponding worlds shown so far are the combat and traversal focused Swordfighter Peach and Kung Fu Peach, puzzle focused Detective Peach, and pandering to my trained baker partner Patissier Peach.

The Direct’s Japanese edition had Shiren the Wanderer 6 revealed as a January 2024 launch in Japan and February in the West, the first new entry in that roguelike action RPG series in over a decade, as well as the reveal of Stray Children by Onion Games of Moon: Remix RPG. Built on the success of its recent various remasters, Square Enix revealed the first brand new entry in the SaGa RPG series since 2016, SaGa Emerald Beyond coming in 2024 to PC, mobile, Switch, and PS4/5. Embracer Group and subsidiary dev Aspyr revealed the Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Collection for PC, Switch, PS4/5, and Xbox One/Series, coming February 14th 2024, rereleasing the 90s PC/PS1 trilogy for the first time since mid-2010s mobile ports, with original and remastered graphics options, and past expansion packs available.

2022’s indie viral hit Trombone Champ by Holy Wow Studios, a Surgeon Simulator for rhythm games in my friend Wolf’s words, was shadowdropped on Switch. Battle Crush (FTP battle royale, timed exclusive, multicultural pantheons, Spring 2024) Wartale (shadowdropped Switch timed exclusive, open world tactical RPG), and Contra: Operation Galuga (WayForward remake of the very first Contra by Konami, Early 2024 for Switch, Xbox, PS4/5, PC) were all shown in a third party block. Vanillaware revealed their first game since the cult classic 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim, a very ambitious 2D tactics RPG called Unicorn Overlord coming March 8th 2024 to Switch, PS4/5, and a first for Vanillaware, Xbox Series S|X.

Detective Pikachu Returns had more new info in far less time than the Pokémon Presents by showcasing partner ‘mon powers used in puzzles. Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD had its remastered self shown off ahead of a Summer 2024 launch. The obligatory amiibo update finally confirmed a Sora figure to complete the Smash Bros Ultimate set, releasing 2024, the Nintendo Museum in Kyoto was confirmed to complete construction next Spring, and F-Zero 99 was revealed/shadowdropped for the NSO service, their latest online battle royale and a technically new entry in that cult classic intense racer series after 20 years, which is as much as it’ll get when the main first party racer series is so successful. (At the end of September, F-Zero 99 got five more new tracks, and NSO EP also got Kirby & the Amazing Mirror for GBA.) Suikoden successor Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes got its full reveal and launch date here, April 23rd 2024 for PC, Switch, and cross-gen PS/Xbox.

Riot Games brought two of its A League of Legend Story spinoff games, with a November 1st release date for Tequila Works’ Song of Nunu and a brand new reveal of 2024’s Bandle Tale, another Stardew Valley wannabe and developed by Lazy Bear Games. Chucklefish revealed a DLC for Eastward coming this Holiday as well as a new Wargroove 2 trailer, setting an October 5th launch for the full Switch exclusive strategy game, and revealing new roguelike and Cutscene/Campaign Editor modes. One of 2023’s biggest indie hits, Dave the Diver, was announced as a Switch timed exclusive arriving October 26th with a demo available now.

The teaser for the final Wave of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC, coming this Holiday, revealed the Daisy Circuit course and a whopping four new/returning racers, the Kongs Diddy and Funky, Mayor Pauline, and Peachette herself. A new tropical island, fungal jungle map coming in October was revealed for Among Us, with the shadow of the Unity crisis cast over it. The was an exclusively first party sizzle reel to emphasize just how full the Switch release schedule is ahead of any other developments, with the Pokémon DLC, Pikmin 1+2 physical, Super Mario Bros Wonder, WarioWare: Move It!, and those previously shown.

Lastly, as the closing announcement, continuing the initiative of at least one Gamecube rerelease per Direct, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Remake was revealed for a 2024 launch. Some folks were unsure how Intelligent Systems would maintain the series’ clockwork every four year release cycle with the current long single device generation. Well, here you go. The game’s first ever official rerelease, after infamously being rare and very expensively in demand, is a full fledged remake with remixed music and graphics building off the Origami King engine, while faithfully preserving the classical gameplay, humorous writing, quirky character designs, everything that makes this 2004 Gamecube RPG a massive cult classic and the consensus favorite of its series as its last “traditional” entry. Huge demand was seen for classic Mario RPGs and of course it was met by a company ever so fond of money. The actual big question left here is whether the localization has been updated to no longer censor the ultimate trans icon of Nintendo, Vivian the ghost.

PlayStation State of Play

The show started with the second trailer for indie walking sim Baby Steps, coming Summer 2024. The Roblox PS4/5 port got its official date as October 10th with crossplay confirmed. Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord was revealed for PSVR2 and Quest with an October 26th release, and RE4make VR had another new with an updated Winter release window. The RE4make paid DLC Separate Ways starring Ada was finally revealed and launched September 21st on all platforms alongside a free Mercenaries update. A story trailer premiered for Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora while Ghostrunner 2 shadowdropped a demo. There were also new PS5 plate and controller covers. Exclusive Helldivers 2 returned from the May Showcase with extended gameplay, with stupid fake player banter and a February 8th 2024 launch date announced.

Spider-Man 2 appeared again, mostly recapping the previously confirmed new gameplay elements while showing some new suits and the updated fast travel system which uses a 3D map and the PS5’s SSD. The new DLC expansion for Tales of Arise, Beyond the Dawn, was revealed with an November 9th launch date for all platforms. Hoyoverse finally announced that Honkai Star Rail will launch for PS5 on October 11th. Square Enix’s Foamstars returned to explain its mai game modes and characters while announcing an open beta for the end of September. Finally, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth had another major new trailer featuring Cait Sith and Vincent ending with its February 29th 2024 launch date for PS5, confirmation of a 3 month timed exclusivity only to the end of May 2024, and a new preorder option of a Remake Intergrade/Rebirth bundle.

Outside those two events, EA continued downsizing twice over as Ascendant Studios sadly laid off 45% of its team after Immortals of Aveum underperformed, and ending support for Monster Hunter competitor Wild Hearts according to a mod on the game’s official Discord, Unity temporarily closed offices and canceled a corporate meeting in the face of a death threat in response to its latest policy, Ubisoft closed its mobile London studio, and Supergiant finally announced that Hades 2 will release in PC Early Access in Spring 2024.

September 15th: Deltarune saw its latest development update from Toby Fox and co. in time for Undertale’s 8th anniversary, with Chapter 3 now content complete and almost finished as Chapter 4 and 5 steadily progress.

Classic 80s D&D CRPG Wizardry, which directly influenced development of both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, has had a full remake surprise revealed and shadowdropped in PC Early Access by Digital Eclipse of Atari50, Cowabunga Collection, The Making of Karateka, etc. It’s been in development for nearly two years.

After previous tacit confirmation, Piranha Games revealed prequel Mechwarrior 5: Clans, for a 2024 launch on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.

September 16th: Shortly after this month’s Direct, Level-5 released new trailers for three of its current titles, most of which were revealed in this year’s February Direct: Fantasy Life i had its full reveal after a previous teaser, while Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road and DecaPolice also showed more gameplay. All are set for 2023 releases.

September 18th: That night, a procedural error between the US courts, Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft resulted in the accidental publication of many private Microsoft documents submitted to the court for the trial earlier this year. 2The FTC and Judge Corley have since successfully evidenced that it was specifically Microsoft’s error that led to the leaks.As such, a massive amount of internal emails and plans at Microsoft have leaked, most significantly its hardware plans through the rest of the decade and a software release schedule from ZeniMax.

The Zenimax schedule is dated as July 2020, having been submitted to Microsoft at the time acquisition was first privately secured, and so it is definitionally outdated with no absolute guarantee that they remain in development or haven’t changed significantly. Most amusingly and overtly, it lists Starfield as a 2021 game. The schedule features these titles: Dishonored 3 from Arkane, Doom: Year Zero from id, Ghostwire Tokyo 2 from Tango, TES4: Oblivion remaster, first rumored earlier this year, Fallout 3 remaster, “Project Kestrel” and “Project Platinum” along with of course the yet to release but announced Elder Scrolls 6 and Indiana Jones.

The hardware leaks are all 2022 documents, including the previously rumored digital-only Xbox Series X model set for a Holiday 2024 launch, which is neither cheaper nor more powerful, but now additionally revealed with a cylindrical design, 2TB of internal storage, a more efficient 6nm chip, faster wifi, and improved environmental sustainability in design. The console will release alongside a major Xbox controller revision which unsurprisingly borrows the most significant features from the competition at PlayStation and Nintendo, enhanced haptic feedback and an accelerometer for ‘lift to wake’, not gyro, along with modular thumbsticks and a new rechargeable, swappable battery pack in place of the casing for AA batteries that standard wireless Xbox controllers have used for generations.

A new Series S model is also in the documents, with a couple adjustments from the Series X revision and the same 1TB of storage as this year’s black Series S; one wonders if the latter model is the final product of these plans. Either way, the Series S line and the new Series X model together are pitched as the “adorably all digital future,” making me feel very grateful I got my Xbox when I did. There are also early concepting documents for various accessories (one hand controller, console mouse and keyboard) and Xbox’s 2028 successor console, with big plans for cloud processing in both hardware and software (as was first discussed for the Xbox One console) slathered in ‘if cost-effective’ disclaimers.

Lastly, there are various occasionally amusing anecdotal details. 1. an email chain of executives panicking right after Starfield’s mid-2022 delay and estimating the costs to secure various major third party releases as Day One Game Pass. 2. Phil Spencer complaining that when he bought a PS5 last year, a more expensive Horizon 2 bundle was all that was in stock. 3. Hard first party data confirming what third party sales reporting has suggested for years, that the Series S|X ownership ratio is severely slanted, with roughly 75% Series S to 25% Series X as of April 2022, though that has likely improved somewhat in the 18 months since based on tracking and improved stock availability.

4. A Spencer email which was quickly taken somewhat out of context by poor reporting/headlining, in which discussing a prospective Tiktok acquisition led an employee to ask, ‘why not Nintendo instead’, to which he essentially responded, I’d love to if we could, I know they’re not interested, I’m not going to ruin a good partnership by acting aggressive, we can only hope the stars align someday. It’s indeed haunting to plainly see how much someone has truly no compunction about swallowing the games industry whole, even privately, paternalistically arguing it’s better for everyone despite the obvious consequences. Nintendo is all that’s stopping him, but it will keep stopping him, and at least he is capable of recognizing and moving on from that. At least he’s not a full Elon.

September 19th: RGG Studio Summit: The latest event from Ryu Ga Gotoku offered the opening cutscene of Like a Dragon Gaiden, and an extended showcase for Like a Dragon 8: Infinite Wealth with a 10 minute story trailer and 5 minute gameplay reveal, and announcing its global launch date as January 26th 2024 for PC, Xbox One/Series S|X, and PS4/5, four years after its predecessor hit Japan’s streets in January 2020. Two major* starting story revelations for Infinite Wealth appeared here, while the gameplay trailer had its Hawaiian open world seen in detail, including a dynamic weather system, and many new boss battles, Jobs, minigames (including dating apps and Sujimon Battles), and Summons available for Ichiban and his returning party members.

*(Spoiler alert!)3Ichiban is in Hawaii to search for his long lost birth mother, while Kiryu has had his latest of many “his story is ending for real this time” moments by seeking atonement after being diagnosed with cancer.

September 20th:

Wesley Yin-Poole offered an exclusive IGN report about the failure of Ubisoft’s The Settlers: New Allies from the inside perspective of the series’ creator who left the project early on.

Need for Speed developer Criterion was reassigned from the EA Sports division to the main EA Entertainment branch, without any layoffs, to work closely with DICE on the next Battlefield game while still continuing their racing series as well. Criterion has put in support dev time on Battlefield throughout its near 20 year history at EA.

Following its EVO reveal last month, ArcSys and French Bread have set the launch date for Under Night In-Birth 2 as January 25th 2024. Boy, that week sure is getting packed with Japanese games, huh?

The founder/CEO Glen Schofield, plus the COO and CFO of The Callisto Protocol’s Striking Distance Studios, all departed the developer and parent company Krafton following the game’s underperformance.

September 21st:

Ubisoft officially announced The Division 3 as the next project from traditional lead dev Massive Entertainment, entering early development now as the studio approaches its wrapups for both Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws. Outlaws’ creative director will enter a series-managing exec producer role for The Division once his work on the former is complete. With these two and the blitz of Assassins Creeds now in the open, Ubi’s last current major project yet to be formally announced is the next Far Cry installment, which Tom Henderson and Universo Nintendo both issued new reports on before the end of September. In short, the game looks to use a Dead Rising/Deathloop style real-time time limit structure for the player rescuing their loved ones from a new setting and new villains, and is targeting a Fall 2025 launch as a current-gen exclusive for PC, PS5, Xbox Series S|X, and Day 1 on Switch 2. Generally speaking Henderson is an asshole I no longer fuck with, but this info was contextually pertinent to multiple parts of the roundup like this one.

Ex-Rockstar Leslie Benzies and studio Build a Rocket Boy released the gameplay reveal trailer for Everywhere, a AAA open world take on game creating/hosting platforms like Roblox or Dreams.

After Zoink Games’ two-game partnership with EA and acquisition by Thunderful, its CEO and creative director both left last year, and have now revealed their new studio MoonHood and its debut game, a story driven dark fantasy VR game using real scanned clay models for its environments and characters.

Following from the first series entry’s recent unexpected port, Bandai and Supermassive have announced the second Dark Pictures narrative horror adventure, Little Hope, will arrive on Switch in October.

Tokyo Games Show ’23: 9/21-9/24

It was a light TGS this year, focused more on new gameplay footage for imminent titles than brand new announcements, with even the most widely anticipated reveal of the next mainline Monster Hunter ultimately just being the gentlest of teases from Capcom for the start of the surprise blockbuster series’ 20th anniversary season. The Xbox show had some notable news, starting with the full reveal of sidescrolling action horror Hotel Barcelona, coming 2024 to PC, Xbox Series S|X, and PS5 from Swery and Suda51, four years after they announced a collaborative project. Both Octopath Traveler 2 from Square and Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy from Capcom were newly announced for Xbox One/Xbox Series S|X, Octopath arriving Early 2024 roughly a year after its Switch/PS launch and Apollo Justice day and date on January 25th 2024 with its other versions. The first Ace Attorney Trilogy was also added to Game Pass. Speaking of Game Pass, Sega announced that Like a Dragon Gaiden will be on Game Pass Day 1 in November and LAD Ishin will arrive on Game Pass before the end of 2023.

First party Xbox itself fully revealed the Fallout 76 expansion Atlantic City after its June teaser, its release spit in two parts between December 5th and 2024, while announcing that Elder Scrolls Online will newly launch in Japan with full localization. Ghibli inspired indie adventure game Altheia: The Wrath of Aferi was revealed with gameplay for PC, Xbox One/Series Switch, and PS4/5. Third parties Party Animals, Mineko’s Night Market, Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, My Lovely Empress, Palworld (on Xbox Series S|X day and date with PC early access), and Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty DLC also made new appearances.

September 25th: Developer Platinum Games announced that founding member and co-figurehead Hideki Kamiya, creator of Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Viewtiful Joe, is departing the studio on October 12th 2023, which Kamiya soon reconfirmed. Kamiya will continue in games, but nobody knows where just yet, nor is the current status known for his most recent directorial effort at Platinum, kaiju game Project GG.

A very new Eastern Europe based ransomware hacker group publicly claimed that it has compromised Sony systems and is ready to sell stolen data, immediately evoking recent major hacks like Nvidia, Rockstar, and Capcom, but also of course the infamous 2011 PS incident. That said, what data that has been released doesn’t look particularly major compared to those predecessors.

Timed Xbox exclusive and poorly reviewed Metroidvania The Last Case of Benedict Fox had its PS5 version announced with no current release window. Under a “Definitive Edition” banner and separate pricetag, with no current info on any updates to the existing PC/Xbox versions, the PS5 port is promised to have “overhauled combat and platforming mechanics; enhancements to visuals, user interface, enemy artificial intelligence, and puzzles; new gameplay features; and more.”

Limited Run Games announced a few more projects, most notably physical releases of the Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden ports for Switch, Xbox, and PS.

September 26th: Right before the launch of EA Sports Football Club, the publisher comprehensively delisted its predecessor series from alll digital storefronts, from FIFA 14 to FIFA 23. It’s currently unknown whether this has anything to do with new licensing issues from the former partner. FIFA 22 and 23 remain playable via the EA Play and Game Pass Ultimate subscription services.

Devolver and Croteam set puzzle game The Talos Principle 2 to release for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X on November 2nd, almost nine years after its predecessor.

Focus and Don’t nod delayed the launch of their original IP action RPG Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden from November to February 13th 2024 in order to avoid competition from other holiday releases.

A producer at Baldur’s Gate 3 announced that he was joining PlayGround Games’ Fable team as a senior producer.

September 27th: Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and president Jim Ryan announced in a company-wide memo that he is retiring at the end of March 2024, after five years in the positions, nearly 20 years at PlayStation, and 30 years at the larger company. Hiroki Totoki, COO and CFO of the broader Sony conglomerate, began assuming Ryan’s duties as chairman on October 1st before formally becoming interim CEO on April 1st. The internal memo reached the outside public almost immediately thanks to Jason Schreier, followed by official confirmation from Sony.

Six months after it was announced by Valve, Counter-Strike 2 was officially released on Steam and replaced CS: Global Offensive.

PlayStation announced its latest rerelease and PC port at the last minute, with Horizon Forbidden West: Complete Edition, featuring the base game and Burning Shores Expansion, arriving October 6th on PS5 and Early 2024 for PC.

September 28th: Jason Schreier reported that roughly 16% of Epic Games employees, or over 800 people, are now being fired while the company is also raising the price of Fortnite’s V-Bucks currency. Tim Sweeney said to employees that, despite the combined massive annual revenue from Fortnite, Unreal licensing, Epic Games Store, etc., Epic has been operating at a loss for years. It spends so much to support all these enterprises, and has indisputably had some complete wastes of money like the Apple lawsuit, metaverse investment, Epic exclusivity deals, and certain acquisitions. Fall Guys studio Mediatonic is confirmed to be affected, likely hard hit, by the layoffs, while other cost-cutting at Epic includes divesting from previous acquisitions Bandcamp and SuperAwesome.

Sega announced that it had canceled multiple upcoming projects out of the Sega Europe division, most notably Creative Assembly’s live service shooter Hyenas shortly before its planned launch. Creative Assembly is now unfortunately undergoing layoffs throughout the developer, on top of the entire Hyenas team facing it. The near-1000 strong, 36 year old veteran studio of CA being the latest of so many undeserved victims from the live service trend is a massive shame, and it feels like a threshold crossed to see more of these not even make it to launch now.

The Wall Street Journal reported that French antitrust enforcers raided a local Nvidia office as part of a larger investigation into anticompetitive dominance in the graphics card, AI, and cloud markets.

A port of DS/3DS exclusive cult classic first person survival horror Dementium: The Ward was announced to be digitally launching for Switch on October 12th 2023. Its indie publisher Atooi also just announced another project launch with Hatch Tales coming March 2024. Brace yourselves, Dementium has a bit of an extended and dramatic backstory to it.

It all starts with Iguana Entertainment, one of the horribly mismanaged acqusitions and subsidiaries of the late Acclaim, developer of the the n64 Turok games and Aero the Acro-Bat, led by the disgraced future founder of Retro. The two founders of Renegade Kid left Iguana Entertainment together and made Dementium as the new studio’s very first game. Due to ongoing financial struggles as an indie, Renegade Kid shut down in 2016 with its co-founders going separate ways with two separate new studios, Atooi and Infitizmo, each owning some of Renegade Kid’s IPs, divided into a 2D catalog for Atooii and 3D catalog (including Dementium) for Infitizmo. In September 2018, Infitizmo’s Gregg Hargrove sadly passed away of pancreatic cancer, with Atooi ad his widow recently making a deal to share Dementium, allowing for this new release under Atooi.

Embracer Group and developer Tuxedo Labs announced that their acclaimed heist-destruction game Teardown will release November 15th for PS5, the PS Plus Extra service, and Xbox Series S|X. The game will see major new content updates throughout 2024 across all platforms.

Multiple further delays in the fall game lineup occurred: Paradox delayed the current-gen console launch (PC version is still October) of Cities: Skylines 2 out of 2023 to Spring 2024 for optimization, while Hellboy: Web of Wyrd got pushed by two weeks further into October for extra polish.

Bethesda Game Studios unexpectedly shadowdropped what is technically a new Elder Scrolls game, a sister game to Fallout Shelter called The Elder Scrolls: Castles which is now available in early access on Android.

As Minecraft Dungeons reached a 25 million player milestone, Mojang took the opportunity to announce that content support for the game ended with a late 2022 update, with the Dungeons teams at Mojang and Double Eleven moving on to new projects.

---

A whole lot of time and effort goes into making my work here possible. Please show your support however you can to help keep this going, whether that means sharing these articles wherever and to whomever there might be interest, or for those able to, donating to my Patreon dedicated specifically to these writings, which is linked here: https://www.patreon.com/lilytina

Thank you to Marcus TAC, Katie, Brakeman, Jarathen, Sloot, Ninjaneer, Prestidigitis, Frosst, AJ, Nemrex, Stasia, Belladonna, Suoly, Professor, Alanna, Dashboard, Monsoon, CMC, and everyone else among them for your personal and financial support of this project. Thank you everyone for your reading!