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!
February 11th: The latest round of layoffs hit Unity as announced by 5AM emails to all affected, including the complete elimination of a team dedicated to NPC behavior scripting.
The recent launch of Civ 7 has proven controversial primarily due to concerns over its radically different UI and its missing major features which are planned to be slowly drip-fed in over the months ahead. Who’d have guessed that launching just barely over two years after Midnight Suns with a drastically reduced headcount was a bad idea?
And speaking of the major launches in February: Obsidian has commented that they are happy with sales for Avowed so far, while Monster Hunter Wilds is predictably huge with 8 million copies sold in its first weekend. MH Wilds is so successful it immediately resulted in MH producer Ryozo Tsujimoto promoted to Chief Product Officer overseeing all of Capcom’s development divisions after almost thirty years at the publisher. However, the game’s launch is also seeing concerns over technical/optimization issues and design decisions. MH Wilds also left a big impression in Japan where the series has been popular long before it got big internationally: over 100,000 PS5 consoles were bought in one week just to play Monster Hunter, and with over 600,000 physical PS5 games bought, it instantly became the biggest PS5 game launch in the console’s native country where it has struggled significantly compared to its predecessor.
February 12th: Nathan Grayson at Aftermath reported on a dispute between the Communication Workers Alliance union and Xbox-ABK over the firing of QA employee Allen Junge right before Christmas 2024. Junge and the CWA have filed an unfair labor practice accusing ABK of targeting him for his role in workers unionizing, having been a leader in the 2022 walkout, the successful 2024 QA union effort, and the protests against return to office. ABK accuses Junge of encouraging violence by participating in a work Slack conversation about marginalized employees arming themselves in self-defense after Trump’s reelection. Junge’s contribution to the conversation was advising on firearms safety training. In a channel where guns are inevitably regularly discussed by people working on Call of Duty.
Speaking of Activision, during its appearance at DICE in Las Vegas, Diablo manager Rod Fergusson revealed that Diablo 4’s annual expansion schedule has already slipped with the second delayed to 2026.
Crytek announced that it has paused development on Crysis 4 while firing 60 employees out of 400 and all remaining staff are put back on their successful live service shooter Hunt: Showdown 1896. Crytek hired Hitman 3 director Mattias Engstrom to direct Crysis 4, and he is now confirmed to have left the studio in November 2024 right after the project was paused.
Right before launching the multiplayer network test, Bandai and FromSoft officially announced that Elden Ring: Nightreign will launch on May 30th 2025 for $40, releasing a new trailer with the date and opening preorders. A full cross-gen release, Nightreign has an incomplete physical release, skipping over Xbox One. We also have some details on its post-launch support, with additional bosses and character classes coming as DLC down the line.
My beloved developer Inkle has re-revealed the game they announced last year: Expelled! – An Overboard Story, a new timeloop murder mystery adventure game following up 2021’s Overboard!. Expelled is about a student trying to prove her innocence at the elite 1920s boarding school Miss Mulligatawney’s School for Promising Girls, which was the game’s initial public title back in June 2024. Expelled will launch on March 12th 2025 for both PC and Switch.
Koei Tecmo announced that Koei’s original founder Yoichi Erikawa is stepping down as CEO after running the merged company since 2010. Erikawa and his wife Keiko will both shuffle into different leadership positions while Hisashi Koinuma will take over as President and CEO.
Mojang also announced a leadership change, with studio head Asa Bredin leaving and being replaced by Kayleen Walters, who was head of franchise development for Mojang and then Xbox as a whole.
Holding group Thunderful has now divested from another victim of its spending spree, selling off Somerville developer Jumpship back to its founder Dino Patti, formerly of Playdead. Patti said that he has received the Jumpship studio devoid of employees and will have to rebuild.
Remedy announced that the holiday quarter of 2024, which contained the physical edition launch for Alan Wake 2, has brought the game to over 2 million copies sold, which finally brought it over the line to become actively profitable after fully paying off marketing and production costs. Remedy also confirmed that Control 2 has newly entered full production alongside their other two projects, Max Payne Remakes, and FBC Firebreak which is scheduled to launch later this year.
PlayStation State of Play:
The aggressively third party focused presentation opened with a final prelaunch trailer for Monster Hunter Wilds, followed by Sega’s formal reveal of Shinobi: Art of Vengeance, which is developed by Lizardcube of Streets of Rage 4 and Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap. Scheduled to launch on August 29th 2025 for PC and all three cross-gen console lines, this 2D action platformer is the first game in that series since the 2011 3DS entry and was previously soft-announced in the Game Awards 2023 retro revivals trailer. Sega continued with the gameplay reveal trailer for Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, showing off the portals mechanic and multiversal courses, new vehicles like big jeeps and hoverboards from the Riders series, and announcing a closed network test. Bandai Namco offered a full reveal for Digimon Story: Time Stranger, a current-gen exclusive turn-based RPG coming later this year.
Yang Bing announced that after a decade of development, his originally one man made action RPG Lost Soul Aside is still alive and finally scheduled to launch on May 30th 2025 for PC and PS5, published by Sony as a timed console exclusive. Sega and Ryu Ga Gotoku announced a demo for Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii, and the Ichiban’s Holiday crossover beatemup DLC coming in April for Dave the Diver. Splitgate 2 announced its first open playtest while WWE2K25 revealed a new online multiplayer sandbox hub called the Island, it reminded me of Street Fighter 6’s Battle Hub. Gearbox and Take-Two finally announced the launch date for Borderlands 4 with its third trailer, setting it for September 23rd* 2025 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X, and will receive a dedicated State of Play later this spring. Split Fiction made another appearance before its launch. Supermassive announced that their sci fi horror game Directive 8020 will launch on October 2nd 2025 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X.
*After Take-Two’s previous comments about spacing out its other main games from GTA6, this September announcement provoked widespread speculation from fans and devs alike that GTA6 will arrive no earlier than the late holiday season of 2025, with the end of October, November, or early 2026 as the likeliest options.
The latest Five Nights at Freddy’s game was revealed by Steel Wool Studios for a June 13th 2025 launch. Claymation horror game The Midnight Walk was announced to be launching May 7th 2025 for PC and PS5/PCVR and PSVR2 with its gameplay reveal trailer. Konami and indie team ZDT Studio unexpectedly and briefly revealed Darwin’s Paradox!, a sidescrolling adventure/stealth platformer coming to PC, PS5, Xbox Series S|X, and Switch later this year, telling the story of an octopus fending off an alien conspiracy. Koei Tecmo and Omega Force revealed a new take on the classic Warriors series, the roguelike Warriors Abyss which was shadowdropped onto PC, Switch, PS4/5, and Xbox Series S|X. Capcom showed a full gameplay trailer for the Onimusha 2: Samura’s Destiny Remaster and announced that it will launch for all platforms on May 23rd, followed by the second trailer for 2026’s Onimusha: Way of the Sword. The Onimusha section of that Capcom show feels so silly and pointless coming only a week before all the actual info here.
This big budget current-gen reboot for the Onimusha series had a disturbing surprise in store: the estate of the legendary late actor Toshiro Mifune has been officially licensed in order to “portray” the historical Miyamoto Musashi as the game’s protagonist. Konami reappeared with the launch trailer (August 28th 2025( and gameplay footage for Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, which was largely identical to the leaked version except for the reveal that Bomberman will take over the Ape Escape minigame on the Xbox Series port. Hell is Us appeared again, announcing a September 4th 2025 launch. Neowiz and Round8 finally unveiled Lies of P: Overture, the expansion DLC and prequel story scheduled to launch in Summer 2025. Q-Games and creative director/multimedia artist Baiyon revealed the latest Pixeljunk game as Dreams of Another, a third person shooter where your shooting creates life instead of destroying it. It’s scheduled to launch this year for PS5 and PSVR2.
First party Sony team Bend Studio announced the inexplicable Days Gone Remastered, a digital-only PS5 upgrade version that’s launching April 25th featuring several new game modes. Stellar Blade’s PC port and new Goddess of Victory: Nikke DLC are coming this June. Several PS Plus announcements: Lost Records: Bloom & Rage was announced as a day 1 PS Plus game, indie games Blue Prince and Abiotic Factor will also both arrive on PS Plus at launch later this year, while the first three Armored Core games for PS1 and Patapon 3 for PSP are both coming to PS Plus Classics. Arthurian legend-inspired Chinese action game Tides of Annihilation was fully revealed with gameplay by Eclipse Glow Studio, and it’s planned to launch for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X. Ruiner developer Reikon Studios and publihser Embracer Group announced the sci fi FPS Metal Eden, which is set to launch May 6th for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X.
Ex-Rockstar devs Build a Rocket Boy and publisher IO Interactive gave a new story-focused look at their shooter MindsEye which is scheduled to launch Summer 2025. Lastly, the showcase ended with a cinematic reveal trailer starring Rahul Kohli from first party PlayStation developer HouseMarque, who are what is officially a new IP but is essentially another take on Returnal called Saros, a roguelike third person bullet hell shooter scheduled to launch for PS5 in 2026. Housemarque then explicitly says that the gameplay reveal will come later this year. So why not just announce it then? Because Sony needed something to button this third party event?
There are many things whose failure to appear at this presentation were deeply inexplicable, like the three main 2025 exclusives Ghost of Yotei, Marathon, and Death Stranding 2, but none more so than an Astro Bot announcement that came the very next morning, releasing the game’s next free post-launch level and PS5 Pro patch, and announcing that four more free levels would be releasing weekly through February and March.
That was accompanied by PlayStation’s latest earnings release, which centered on the success of Astro Bot: that game helped propel the PS5 to its most successful holiday yet with almost ten million console sales that quarter bringing the PS5 to 75 million sold total. To be clear, Sony itself has consistently expected the console to start downturning after a 2023 peak, and that has now provably not happened. The success of Astro Bot both individually and as a system seller has inspired Sony to explicitly plan to increase its investment in family-oriented games, a market it has often neglected since the end of the PS2 platformer heyday. The other most notable no-shows, Ghost of Yotei and Death Stranding 2, were officially said to still be releasing this year, but how much does that really mean? And Haven’s Payday-like live service FairGame$ was reported by Jeff Grubb to now be targeting a 2026 launch.
February 13th: Indie developer Hadoque announced that their Metroidvania Ultros has now digitally released for Switch and Xbox Series S|X after a year of timed console exclusivity for PS4 and PS5.
Thunderful and Stormteller Games announced a new demo on PC and Xbox Series for Lost in Random: The Eternal Die ahead of a summer release window.
The Behemoth announced that their new Castle Crashers DLC Painter Boss Paradise will launch in Summer 2025.
Indie developer a la mode games announced that their debut project and survival horror title Sorry We’re Closed will release for all cross-gen consoles on March 6th after launching on PC last November.
Embracer Group reported that Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has been the success it desperately hoped for, selling over two million copies in its first weeks of release.
The long stewing Glover remaster finally had its console ports for cross-gen PS/Xbox/Switch scheduled to release on February 27th.
February 14th: After almost a decade since their last console or international release, after several years of delays and development hell for the big slate of games promised to return them to the console and international markets, once reputable developer Level-5 finally seems ready to launch the first of their new games, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. The life sim game is now officially scheduled to launch May 21st 2025 for PC, Switch, PS4/5, and Xbox Series S|X. It is no longer a Switch exclusive after its launch was delayed from Fall 2024 to late Spring 2025 in order to develop the other ports, and its retail price has been raised to cover those expenses. It will also only have a physical release in Japan.
Level-5 has since provided further clarity on the production of Fantasy life i by revealing that its producer Keiji Inafune left the company in mid-2024 and his studio Comcept was shut down, forcing the creation of new subsidiary office Level 5 Osaka which took over development of Fantasy Life for its last year. The disastrous trajectory of Inafune’s career cannot be overstated at this point, he is clearly just short of Yuji Naka levels.
Nightdive Studios announced that their System Shock 2 remaster will launch in 2025 for PC, Switch, PS4/5, and Xbox One/Series, with the release date scheduled to be announced at the March 20th Spring Future Games Show. The remaster is now retitled System Shock 25th Anniversary Remaster.
At DICE Summit in Las Vegas, Marvel Rivals producer Weicong Wu spoke to Rebekah Valentine to reveal that his team at NetEase is already working with Nintendo for Switch 2 devkits and exploring a Rivals port.
The long legal dispute in Korean gaming between publisher Nexon and developer Ironmace over the latter’s game Dark and Darker has reached a conclusion of sorts, although Nexon has already threatened to take the matter to higher court anyway. The court ruled that Ironmace did not commit full copyright infringement because there is no copyright to infringe on the very short-lived project the Ironmace team members worked on and stole code from, so they have been hit with a lesser charge of stealing “trade secrets.” Ironmace has been sentenced to pay 8.5 billion won, or roughly $6 million, in damages, without losing the game outright like what happened to Silicon Knights.
The long line of quickly killed multiplayer shooters has gained another member from indie developer Doghowl, who ended support for their debut game, asymmetric horror extraction shooter Level Zero: Extraction, just two weeks after 1.0 launch. The game won’t lose sale or server support right now and the dev is already trying to make another multiplayer game.
February 16th: Developer 10:10 Games fired 20 employees after the “complete commercial and critical failure” of their debut game Funko Fusion, which gave me my favorite Kotaku review, where the writer simply quit the game after it crashed 21 times in a row. Those laid off say they have received bare minimum severance support to UK legal standards and that they were encouraged to use up unused leave time so it wouldn’t have to be paid out in severance. The game didn’t just sell poorly but actively exacerbated the studio’s inability to receive new partnerships and funding, beyond how bad that situation already is in general, because their reputation was poisoned by the state of its launch.
Bulgarian artist Viktor Antonov, the art director of both Half Life 2 and Dishonored, has sadly passed away at the age of 52.
February 18th: Several lead members of the development team for Marvel Rivals revealed that they were abruptly laid off despite the massive success of the game; this was quickly contextualized to be the entire American/Seattle division of NetEase’s internal studio, including co-director Thaddeus Sasser and level designer Gary McGee, leaving the China-based majority of the team intact. This story quickly unraveled into something much larger as seen across several reports, most notably at Bloomberg and Stephen Totilo’s Game File.
NetEase’s billionaire CEO William Ding has engaged in a staggeringly large and devastating overhaul of his games publishing company, one reminiscent of no less than the infamous Embracer Group culling, in order to largely retract the expensive major international expansion he had just spent years doing. Hundreds of people have been fired, many major studios and projects have lost support and are at risk on top of those already killed, in a stunning about-face that is downright capricious in its motives compared to Embracer’s Saudi deal implosion panic. The previous international subsidiary losses we’d seen like Ouka, Worlds Untold, Jar of Souls, these were the tip of the iceberg: NetEase wants to sell off all of its remaining major international studios and will close any that can’t be sold, including Grasshopper Manufacture, Quantic Dream, and Nagoshi Studios from Yakuza creator Toshiro Nagoshi. These teams have been told that they will wrap their current projects with no additional funding, time, or even marketing budgets. Nagoshi abandoned his babies at Sega for this opportunity!
“[Ding] now deems any game unlikely to generate hundreds of millions of dollars per year unworthy of pursuing,” even while he burned millions of dollars in a brief last minute attempt to convert Marvel Rivals to a non-licensed hero shooter. This all goes so far beyond the unprecedented geopolitical circumstances that I could understand motivating a retreat from US-based development before the wider context here broke. The leaders of the capitalist system have proudly shed all illusions and fully embraced their destiny of burning down the world.
Michelle Davis and Cecilia D’Anastasio (boo!) reported for Bloomberg that Niantic is in advance negotiations to sell off its entire gaming apparatus to Scopely, a mobile focused subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, including Pokémon Go.
Digital Eclipse announced that all three of their acclaimed Gold Master archival games, The Making of Karateka, The Jeff Minter Story, and Tetris Forever, will receive physical releases for Switch and PS5 this year.
Hot off their new independence from Sega, RTS developer Relic Entertainment revealed a brand new game scheduled to launch for PC this summer, Earth vs. Mars. The game is explicitly inspired by Advance Wars, and features a story campaign, multiplayer, and a map maker mode.
Australian VR developer Toast Interactive fired most of their staff and closed their only office space, attempting to keep PSVR2 port development going for now, but for how long?
Quite the snowball effect occurred here! Tony Hawk said last year that he was speaking with Activision again and making progress on the series’ return after it was derailed by Vicarious Visions being merged into Blizzard in 2021. On Tuesday Feb 18th, after appearing in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 Remake back in 2020, modern skateboarder Tyshawn Jones leaked the existence of the now-official Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 Remake when he said on a podcast that he’s returning for another Pro Skater rerelease coming this year. Official marketing began for the game right after with an advertisement in Black Ops 6 and a countdown website going up, followed by the title and platforms leaking from the Singaporean ratings board, and lastly the game was officially revealed on March 4th.
Developed by external support studio Iron Galaxy, the game is coming to PC and all three cross-gen lines of consoles on July 11th 2025. While the original Pro Skater 4 had the series’ first sandbox based campaign mode, that has not been recreated here, Iron Galaxy instead made smaller timed challenge levels based on the original world, more similar to the first games.
February 19th: Chris Kerr reported for Game Developer that Netflix has fired some workers at Oxenfree developer Night School Studio, not long after other layoffs and cuts at the streamer’s floundering games division. It was obvious when this acquisition occurred almost four years ago that it would eventually end in tragedy, and this is of a piece with the overtly anti-art messaging of those indie gaming cuts at Netflix that happened last month.
Hades 2 received its second Major Update, with confirmation that at least one more is coming this year; however, this came along very disappointing news that came from nonbinary voice performer Marin M Miller suggesting they could be recast in their role of Athena because Supergiant “refused” to sign the interim agreement from the SAG voice actors’ union which remains on strike. Two days later, Supergiant responded, confirming they don’t use AI and saying that they offer their own AI protections outside of SAG specific contracts because they prefer to remain non-union to not affect those who choose not to be in SAG like Darren Korb, Greg Kasavin, and Logan Cunningham.
Miller has now officially stepped down from their Hades roles, feeling that they are forced to leave by Supergiant’s policy because they can’t afford to do non-union work anymore and that Supergiant’s AI protections aren’t enough because they don’t cover legal help like SAG does. Compared to the relative fiscal privileges of being full-staff with benefits at the studio, it still doesn’t feel like an entirely balanced conflict to me. Furthermore, SAG reps say that they have reached out and offered compromises to Supergiant with no response whatsoever.
Developer Shiny Shoe revealed Monster Train 2, a full sequel to their beloved roguelike deckbuilder, which is coming to PC, Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X in the future, with a Steam demo out now.
Indie developer Wrong Organ announced that their acclaimed horror game Mouthwashing will digitally release for PS5, Xbox Series S|X, and Switch later this year after its September 2024 launch on PC, with physical editions by Fangamer for PS5 and Switch. The game has sold over half a million copies in less than half a year.
Xbox announced Muse, a Microsoft-engineering generative AI model for both gamemaking and “auto-optimizing” back catalog games for newer hardware. I don’t think I need to explain by now that I hate this with every fiber of my being because this technology is both destructive to the environment and to artists’ livelihods, but I do want to especially emphasize just how much the “retro remastering” component of this program could never actually work properly but at most will very obviously butcher older games much like these projects right here, and that the countless money spent on this bullshit could go into funding teams like Nightdive instead.
February 21st: Devolver Digital announced the next game from My Friend Pedro developer Deadtoast: Shotgun Cop Man is a sidescrolling action platformer iterating on its predecessor’s gameplay, scheduled to launch for PC and Switch this year with a Steam demo out now. In this game, the shooting is the traversal, propelling you forward across a 150+ level campaign, challenge runs, and user-made levels.
February 24th: Just a year after a previous round of layoffs, Surgeon Simulator developer Bossa Games fired more people. Bossa is putting everything into completing and launching their first title in four years/since I Am Fish, open world survival game Lost Skies, and then forming “small teams working independently on novel game ideas brought to the players as early as possible.”
Annapurna Interactive Showcase The Ship of Theseus that is the current Annapurna Interactive
The presentation began with Messhof’s Wheel World and a Summer 2025 release window, followed by a new trailer for Davey Wreden and co.’s Wanderstop, which launched the day after my article goes live and added an Xbox Series S|X port in time for launch. Blendo Games unexpectedly appeared to preview the long in production Skin Deep, a sci fi comedy im-simy first person shooter now officially scheduled to launch for PC on April 30th 2025. Geometric Interactive announced that they are bringing their second game to Annapurna after the success of their 2023 debut Cocoon. Matt Newell announced that his game Lushfoil Photography Sim will launch for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X on April 15th 2025. The Faraway reveal trailer from December replayed. And lastly, Keita Takahashi and the Uvula team proudly announced that their narrative adventure To a T will launch on May 28th 2025 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X/Game Pass Ultimate, with the previous Xbox One port now scrapped.
ID@Xbox Showcase: Highlights from the event include Balatro releasing on Game Pass along with its new cosmetic update including a first party Xbox IP in Fallout and a personal favorite indie in Bugsnax, Mike Bithell’s team announced that their game Tron: Catalyst will launch on June 17th 2025, a March 18th Early Access date for 33 Immortals by Thunder Lotus, a May 8th launch and Day 1 Game Pass Ultimate release for Revenge of the Savage Planet, gameplay footage for Ratatan with a 2025 release window, time travel Metroidvania Echo Weaver will come to Xbox One/Series/Game Pass Ultimate at launch, Moonlighter 2 is Day 1 Game Pass and showed new gameplay, and Don’t Nod will publish a new RPG by Tiny Bull Studios coming this year, The Lonesome Guild.
February 25th: After Jason Schreier reported on turmoil at WB Games only two weeks earlier, he just dropped the latest in a never-ending long line of devastating bombshells for this capitalism-ravaged industry: Warner Bros is completely shutting down the legendary Monolith Productions and canceling their Wonder Woman game outright instead of proceeding with its rebooted development, and WB is closing both MultiVersus developer Player First Games and mobile studio WB San Diego as well.
Seven years after launching their last game, four years after leadership was chased off by WB’s mismanagement, the developers of No One Lives Forever, FEAR, Condemned, Shadow of Mordor, and more are all gone, leaving 131 people unemployed. It’s the loss of not just a historical studio but an all-time technical innovator. If you’re interested in what Monolith’s previous leadership is doing next, keep an eye out for EA studio Cliffhanger Games and their Black Panther project.
Callisto Protocol and REDACTED developer Striking Distance Studios has once again fired employees, with parent company Krafton insisting that it remains operational despite those laid off saying that most devs are gone.
Xbox officially delayed Fable 4 to 2026 for additional polish, releasing new gameplay footage at the same time to tide fans over. It is expected that the additional dev time will also allow the game to reach more platforms Day 1 instead of having any timed exclusivity to Xbox Series S|X.
Konami and Bloober Team announced that they are moving forward with a second collaboration for Konami IP after the success of Silent Hill 2 Remake. There are no further details, and I’d be shocked to see Bloober do a non-horror game, but we can’t be sure this early.
February 26th: After months of negotiations since protests began against Don’t Nod, the SJTV union in France has successfully secured a deal with the developer to amend its layoff plans by improving severance support for those affected, compensating anyone who participated in the strikes for their time off, and creating an avenue for workers to choose to leave instead of being forced.
Paradise Killer creators Kaizen Game Works officially announced that their second game, open world Yakuza-alike Promise Mascot Agency, will launch on April 10th 2025 for PC, Switch, PS4/5, and Xbox One/Series.
Valve is now rumored to be launching a new wireless VR headset in late 2025, said to cost $1200 for the headset and bundled games, six years after Valve Index launched for $1000 with Half Life Alyx.
February 27th: You know the Ukrainian Metro 2033 developers 4A Games? Well, I have quite a story for you: 4A was founded in Ukraine when it spun off from the Stalker studio GSC Game World, but in recent years, the original Ukrainian office became secondary to the new headquarter studio in Malta, which is where the next Metro game is currently in development. Now, the Ukrainian office has just officially announced that it is rebranding and going completely independent from 4A and its parent company Embracer Group. This ‘new’ 110+ person studio is now titled Reburn and is developing La Quimera, a Latin America set sci fi first person shooter cowritten by Nicolas Winding Refn of Drive and Neon Demon fame.
32 members of Apex Legends’ French voice dub cast have rejected the latest contract offered to them by EA and thus departed from their roles in the live shooter over a clause which required them to train generative AI to ultimately replace them. At the same time as this classic EA bullshit, the publisher that just gutted Bioware for the nth time has quietly made one rare good move. EA has elected to take several classic Command & Conquer strategy games and basically give them directly over to the fans without strings attached, by publicly releasing their source code and adding full Steam Workshop support.
Limited Run Games released a new trailer for their Gex Trilogy remastered collection, showing gameplay and scheduling a Summer 2025 launch window.
Sony announced that PlayStation VR2 will receive a permanent price cut from $550 down to $400. My condolences to anyone who already bought it before now.
Pokémon Presents: After the usual minor mobile updates, multiplayer arena battle game Pokémon Champions was revealed: a Stadium successor of sorts developed by Game Freak’s new subsidiary department Pokémon Works, the game has no current release window but emphasizes crossplay between mobile and console versions in the trailer. The game will be compatible with Pokémon Home and Gen 9, making every Pokémon that’s been on Switch useable for battle.
Then the event closed out with an extended look at the year’s mainline game, offering a gameplay reveal trailer for Legends Z-A an entire year after its announcement teaser, and still only updating the release window to Late 2025 even though everybody knows by now that translates to November. Legends Z-A will expand the exploration mechanics with jumping and climbing across city rooftops, and it will officially use an expanded take on the real-time battle and capture systems from Legends Arceus. It predictably features X&Y returnees like Mega Evolutions AZ and his Floette in this new evolution of Lumiose City where wild Pokémon can safely live in zones reclaimed by nature. Chikorita, Totodile, and Tepig are the game’s starters, while Zygarde is teased for a big role.
February 28th: Bandai Namco leaked upcoming projects by filing public trademarks as they have reliably done for many years, and this one is a particular doozy: Once Upon a Katamari, not an existing game remastered/rerolled, this is a never before seen title for the series, suggesting a brand new game. It would be the first new Katamari game since Touch my Katamari, the PS Vita one 14 years ago.
Thunderful subsidiary developer Coatsink revealed that they are making Islanders: New Shores, a sequel to their city builder Islanders. It will launch in Summer 2025 for PC, Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X.
PlayStation announced that it will publish two new third party games as part of its initiative to support game development in India: 3D platformer Lokko by Appy Monkeys and action game Weloadin by Bloody Boots.
MercurySteam fully revealed their first game since 2021’s Metroid Dread: fully 3D medieval action game Blades of Fire, scheduled to launch May 22nd 2025 from publisher 505 Games for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X. The game’s signature mechanic will be a unique and in-depth weapon customization system.
Xbox scheduled the release date for the PS5 port of Forza Horizon 5 as April 29th 2025. The port is both digital-only and requires a Microsoft account.
Ten years after first launching their Turok remaster, Nightdive Studios has just released a major upgrade for it on all platforms, which includes updating it from BC mode on PS5 and Xbox Series S|X to native optimization.
March 3rd: Developer Studio Fizbin announced that it will be shuttering after 14 years once they launch their latest game Reignbreaker on March 18th. They were acquired by Thunderful in 2023 and gutted by the parent company last year.
Rockstar announced that is has acquired Sydney-based longtime production partner Video Games Deluxe and rebranded it to Rockstar Australia. VGD worked on the La Noire remaster and the recent upgrades to the GTA Trilogy remasters, and is led by Brendan McNamara, who founded the original LA Noire devs Team Bondi. You might recall that McNamara’s leadership at Bondi led to 12 hour work days, extensive crunch, refusal to credit departed employees, and more.
The co-directors of Visions of Mana have found their new homes after NetEase unceremoniously killed their studio: Ryosuke Yoshida joined Square Enix and will probably keep working on the Mana series, while Kenji Ozawa just announced his independent and self-funded Studio Sasanqua, where his explicit goal is to create a better environment for creators than big publishers by fully assuming responsibility for failures onto himself as executive management rather than punishing individual developers while he remains unharmed like we have seen so very many times.
The Among Us developers’ Outersloth initiative for supporting indies had two new announcements: One Btn Bosses will launch on March 13th as the first Outersloth release, and a new game has been picked up by Outersloth: Game Full of Bugs.
Insomniac’s previous VR games were found to have completely disappeared from the Meta store in a concerning sign for the future of the market even by the standards of the wider games industry.
Xbox’s Activision Blizzard King started putting out AI-generated social media advertisements for nonexistent mobile games in order to gauge interest in the IPs featured like Guitar Hero and Crash Bandicoot. The ads feature fake mobile store links which actually lead to surveys to discuss the potential future of the fake game.
March 4th: After the previous delays, the Trump administration went through with its planned 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports, increased tariffs on China from 10 to 20%, and threatened tariffs on Brazil, India, and South Korea for good measure. Tariffs will create a disastrous trade war with longtime allies, sink the stock market, and broadly affect consumer goods by further increasing the already devastating effects of current price inflation, including an impact on games software and hardware manufacturing. The US is careening towards another recession and I haven’t even gotten to the staggering layoffs that have occurred largely from the federal government’s essential services being completely gutted. This was the worst February for layoffs since the last recession in 2009.
Two days after the tariffs went into effect, their negative reception led to another month-long pause issued, this time only for tariffs on USMCA-compliant goods, which covers half of Mexican imports and less than 40% of Canadian imports. Due to the tariffs’ impact still remaining, the impermanence of the solution, and the clear untrustworthy nature of the administration, Canada did not lift its counter-tariffs.
For as much as this could affect the games industry, one major concern has already been addressed. Nintendo recently revealed that it had already accounted for this issue by diverting support from its China supply chain to its Cambodia and (especially) Vietnam supply chains in order to minimize the impact of this event on the Switch 2 launch. Let’s all be real cool and keep Vietnam off Trump’s mind, shall we?
Ethan Gach for Kotaku reported on new layoffs at PlayStation which affected “many” at the San Diego-based Visual Arts support team and a Malaysia-based internal support team as well. While some of these layoffs were directly related to the recent project cancelations at studios like Bend, they also reached far beyond that.
Acclaim Entertainment, yes that Acclaim, the dead for 20 years industry eyesore I wrote about way back when, has been unexpectedly revived as a publisher after its trademark was purchased, much like Intellivision and Atari. The new Acclaim will be focused on supporting indie teams and new original IP as well as resurrecting Acclaim’s previous back catalog. It’s led by an advisory board which includes Alex Josef (producer of Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion) and wrestler Jeff Jarrett.
Tom Henderson continued his extensive line of Ubisoft coverage by reporting that the Far Cry multiplayer spinoff has just been rebooted after new assessment and thusly delayed again, This is only two years since it spun off from Far Cry 7, which is still targeting a 2026 launch as of his December ’24 report.
March 5th: Tom Henderson reported that Ballistic Moon, the infant developer whose only title was the failed Until Dawn Remake last year, has virtually closed down with 60 people fired and no active development after the remaining founders couldn’t acquire new partnerships and funding.
At the last second before launch, NetEase announced an indefinite delay for the console ports of the new live service hero shooter Fragpunk, leaving only the PC release still arriving on March 6th. Compensation will be provided for all console players due to the progress advantage PC players would otherwise have, and extra compensation for those who preordered.
The New York Times reported that Discord is planning for an IPO later this year, which users anticipate will further damage the quality of the gaming social platform due to the common pressures from shareholders for endless growth, or even the risk of a private equity acquisition.
March 6th: Frogwares has opened a Kickstarter campaign for 100,000 euro to complete The Sinking City 2, releasing the game’s first gameplay footage alongside it. The developer is based in Ukraine where it has suffered the extra non-production costs of operating around an active warzone.
Nexon announced that it will stop supporting PS4 and Xbox One for its live service shooter The First Descendant less than a year after launch, outright delisting those ports as of June 19th and focusing exclusively on current-gen hardware.
Skullgirls DLC developer Hidden Variable announced that they were departing from the series as of January 21st and suing publisher Autumn Games in LA County Court for breach of contract by withholding $1.2 million worth of pay.
Two GameBoy games were newly added to Nintendo Switch Online, Mario’s Picross and the highly acclaimed/widely requested Donkey Kong ’94, a puzzle platformer with over 100 levels.
Nacon Connect 2025: The half hour presentation featured multiple game reveals, including two Lovecraft games with Cthulhu: The Cosmic Abyss and multiplayer game The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu. Cosmic Abyss is a story-driven first person horror adventure game built in Unreal 5 by developer Big Bad Wolf and set in Lovecraft’s underwater city of R’lyeh. It’s scheduled to launch in 2026 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X. Next was The Fading of Nicole Wilson from One-o-One Games, a first person horror narrative adventure about an amateur ghost hunter, scheduled to launch in 2025 for PC, Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X. Midgar Studio’s fantasy action RPG Edge of Memories is scheduled to release in Late 2025 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S|X.
2023 roguelike Ravenswatch revealed new playable characters Romeo and Juliet coming in May. Developer Teyon announced two games: their sequel coming later this year, RoboCop: Rogue City -Unfinished Business, which is set entirely in a towering housing complex filled with action, and racing game Rennsport, both for current-gen consoles. The Occultist is another first person horror game scheduled to launch in 2026 from DALOAR. Multiplayer game Dragonkin: The Banished was shadowdropped into early access. Lastly, Hell is Us appeared again from the recent Sony shows with extended direct gameplay.
March 7th: As reported first by Tom Henderson and more fully by Rebekah Valentine at IGN, Apex Legends/Jedi Survivor developer Respawn has canceled another project in very early development, a multiplayer FPS still in the initial incubation phase, and laid off a number of employees on that project.
Dino Patti, cofounder of Limbo/Inside developer Playdead and currently the head of Jumpship, has revealed that he’s been receiving legal threats from fellow Playdead cofounder Arnt Jensen for the better part of a decade since their relationship ended on bad terms and Patti left their studio.
Tripwire Interactive and Embracer Group suddenly delayed Killing Floor 3 from a March 2025 launch date to an undefined later point in the year.
March 8th: The criminal trial has officially started for several former Ubisoft executives that were arrested in 2023 and fired in 2020 after their laundry list of workplace abuses became public knowledge.
March 9th: A panel at South by Southwest premiered the latest trailer for Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, showcasing ten minutes of major story footage and announcing that it will launch on June 26th 2025 for PS5 at a $70 retail price. Just as I predicted, due to development timelines and preexisting arrangements, the game will be a timed exclusive for PS5 before coming to PC, Xbox Series S|X, and perhaps Switch 2 at later dates. Besides the usual gonzo Kojima narrative content, one particular aspect of the trailer is provoking reactions: there are lookalikes of both Solid Snake and Metal Gear Rex.
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