Driveclub developer Evolution Studios has suffered layoffs, parent company Sony Computer Entertainment confirmed today.
While Sony didn't reveal the number of people let go by this latest move, it did acknowledge the downsizing and address what it will work on going forward.
"Evolution Studios will now focus on Driveclub as a service going forward, in particular, the important launch of the PS Plus Edition," Sony said in a statement shared with Eurogamer. "We will be restructuring Evolution Studios to ensure that SCE WWS and in particular, Evolution Studios are in the best position to achieve these goals.
"Our first-party development studios are key to our creative strategy and we are very excited about the future projects being worked on and the role Evolution Studios will play."
The UK-based Evolution has been making PlayStation-exclusive racing games for the past 15 years. Prior to developing Driveclub, it was best known for the MotorStorm series, and before that, the World Rally Championship games.
Driveclub was originally intended to be a PS4 launch game back in 2013. Following numerous delays, it was finally released last October. The aforementioned PlayStation Plus Edition, meant to be a free version of the game with select content, has been delayed numerous times due to technical issues with the full game. Sony once again confirmed last month that the Plus Edition has not been cancelled.
From Software's Bloodborne releases exclusively on PlayStation 4 next week, and Sony feels its importance to the system is "invaluable."
Discussing Sony's plans for marketing the game, PlayStation UK product manager Joe Palmer told MCV (via VideoGamer) that highlighting the similarities--and differences--between Bloodborne and From's other major series, Dark Souls, is key. "[T]he Souls games are phenomenally popular, so ensuring that fans are aware of the common ground they share with Bloodborne is a vital part of our strategy," Palmer explained.
"However, it's not just the similarities with previous From Software games that we want to communicate," he said. "How Bloodborne differs from the Souls series will be at the forefront of our communications.
"Bloodborne provides a great chance for us to tap into a highly engaged audience and provide an invaluable contribution to PS4."
Sony's latest console hasn't had a huge number of triple-A exclusives as of late; February's The Order: 1886 was the first such game in some time, although its critical reception likely wasn't what Sony hoped for. What was expected to be perhaps the system's biggest PS4 exclusive of the year, Uncharted 4, was recently pushed back until 2016. E3 is now just over two months away, so it's possible we could be hearing about some kind of replacement for the game before long..
Bloodborne launches in North America next Tuesday, March 24. If you're a fan of difficulty, its New Game Plus option should be right up your alley. And if you both live in Denmark and are willing to donate blood, you can pick up a copy for free.
A fallout between Kojima Productions and its owning publisher, Konami, has led to senior staff at the studio being restricted access to corporate internet, emails, and phone, GameSpot understands.
Along with the restricted communications, key developers at the studio, such as Hideo Kojima, will now have limited opportunities to lend their appearance to promotions of the studio's upcoming game, Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
Power struggles between Kojima Productions and Konami have convinced the publisher to make drastic changes, including amending the employee status of its Metal Gear team. Some senior staff at the studio, including Kojima, now essentially work as contractors, not permanent employees.
The extraordinary measures were revealed by a source within the studio, speaking to GameSpot on the condition of anonymity. The person explained that, once the Phantom Pain project is finished, in all likelihood the management at the studio will disband.
"After we finish MGSV, Mr. Kojima and upper management will leave Konami. They said their contract ends in December," the source claimed.
The person added: "At a team meeting, Mr Kojima explained that team have to be one and make a good game for fans."
In other developments, Konami has begun removing the Kojima Productions logo from all official Metal Gear art, and it has removed Kojima from its executive team. Meanwhile, Kojima Productions' branding has also been removed from Twitter, the official Metal Gear website, and even the LA office listing.
Representatives for Konami would not discuss specifics of the matter when contacted by GameSpot. The corporation has offered a statement, however.
It reads: "Konami Digital Entertainment, including Mr. Kojima, will continue to develop and support Metal Gear products. Please look forward to future announcements."
The corporation's public relations team, based in Tokyo, is unavailable at the time of going to press, due to it being past midnight local time.
An expanded statement from Konami follows: "As we have already announced, we are shifting our production structure to a headquarters-controlled system, in order to establish a steadfast operating base capable of responding to the rapid market changes that surround our digital entertainment business. Konami Digital Entertainment (including Mr. Kojima), will continue to develop and support Metal Gear products. Please look forward to future announcements."
After soft-launching last year in New Zealand, Ubisoft is gearing up to release Driver: Speedboat Paradise, around the world. The developer has announced that the free-to-play arcade-style speedboat racing game, which trades roads for water, will launch worldwide in April for smartphones and tablets.
In Speedboat Paradise, you play a "young, reckless driver trying to make a name for yourself in the ruthless world of underground speedboat racing."
You can relate to that, can't you?
Your "quest for fame and fortune" is interrupted when you cross paths with Driver series protagonist John Tanner. As you could probably gather, Speedboat Paradise is all about escaping his pursuit by driving really fast in a speedboat and doing jumps.
Speedboat Paradise features 32 races across five modes: classic, time trial, endurance, elimination, and duel. Locations include Miami, Cancun, Venice, and the Bahamas. Some races take place during the day, while others are set in the darkness of night.
The game offers numerous boats to earn and collect, either by in-game progress or spending real-world money. In terms of graphics, Ubisoft boasts that Speedboat Paradise features "cutting-edge" visuals and a "realistic wave system."
And in keeping with the Driver theme, players will encounter a variety of seedy characters along the way, including kingpins, car thieves, drug dealers, and more. Check out some images from the game in the gallery below.
The most recent Driver game for consoles was 2011's Driver: San Francisco. No new entries in the core series have been announced.
Electronic Arts will offer more details about Star Wars: Battlefront next month during the Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California. This isn't altogether surprising, as EA's name showed up on the show's schedule earlier this week. At the time, EA wouldn't say why it was attending the event. Now we know.
The Star Wars Celebration takes place April 16-19, though in its announcement today, EA did not say which day of the show it plans to unleash the Battlefront details.
"We could not think of a better or more appropriate place to debut the game officially for the first time than the premier event that celebrates the Star Wars universe and the legions of fans who have fallen in love with it," EA said.
Apart from a brief teaser trailer (above) that showed early in-game footage, EA has kept quiet about Battlefront, a first-person shooter that is in development at Battlefield creator DICE in Sweden. The game is due to launch this holiday, alongside the new movie Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens.
Former Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig has joined EA to work on Visceral's new Star Wars title, though further details about the game are not available.
Are you looking forward to seeing and learning more about Battlefront next month? Let us know in the comments below!
Perfect World Entertainment, which operates massively multiplayer online games such as Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, has suffered a round of layoffs, according to new reports.
Massively Overpowered has heard from a source at Cryptic Studios, a subsidiary of Perfect World and the team behind Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, that 18 people were let go from the company, making up around 14 percent of the developer's total staff.
Meanwhile, the source added that Perfect World's office in Redwood Shores, California was hit "significantly harder" by the restructuring. In a since-deleted tweet, one former staffer referred to the layoffs as a "slaughter."
GameSpot has contacted Perfect World, asking for further clarification into the reports.
Affected staffers made their departures known on Twitter. Among those laid off was Matt Miller, who previously worked at the company as lead designer for City of Heroes.
Development on Champions Online and Perfect World's unannounced projects are unaffected by this week's reported layoffs, according to the source.
Developer TinyCo and Fox Digital Entertainment on Thursday announced a limited-time Star Trek in-game event that will take place March 19 (that's today!) through April 30.
Throughout the six-week event, players will be challenged to explore the USS Enterprise and "boldly go where no mobile game has gone before."
Family Guy the TV show has of course riffed on Star Trek before, and you can expect the game to retain that humor. Here's how TinyCo sets up the story, which will involve time travel:
"After sustaining heavy damage from the Borg, the USS Enterprise and its crew set an emergency course back in time for Earth, year 2015. The Enterprise's Commander William Riker infiltrates Quahog on a mission to protect baby Stewie--whose future self creates technology which threatens the Borg's very existence. With baby Borg Bertram in hot pursuit, Riker enlists Family Guy, Peter Griffin, to repair the Enterprise, save the crew, and protect the future of Mankind… oh, and Stewie too."
Throughout the course of the expansion, you will explore the Enterprise and get to visit virtual representations of The Bridge, Holodeck, Sickbay, and other iconic locations from the Star Trek universe.
Characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation will show up in the game, too, including Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Lt. Commander Data, Lieutenant Worf, Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge, and others. Actors from the show, including Patrick Stewart, are lending their voices to the game.
Some new Quest for Stuff missions will see players exploring other planets to collect resources and rewards, while others will challenge them to blast enemies with the Enterprise's photon torpedoes. TinyCo even teases that other iconic Starfleet characters will show up, including Captain James T. Kirk himself.
The PlayStation Network will undergo regular maintenance this coming Monday, March 23, Sony has announced. The maintenance period will be a short one, lasting just two-and-a-half hours from 9-11:30 AM PDT (12-2:30 PM EDT). What's the maintenance for?
"During this time we will deploy a series of back-end improvements to the network," Sony said in a statement.
This is the same exact wording Sony has used to describe the most recent PlayStation Network maintenance periods, suggesting the upcoming upkeep is nothing out of the ordinary.
The PSN maintenance period comes just a day before the release of marquee PlayStation 4 game, Bloodborne, which uses the network for its multiplayer mode.
PlayStation Network users who have signed into PSN before the maintenance period begins will still be able to play games online and access entertainment apps such as Netflix throughout the downtime.
However, the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home (which itself is soon going away for good), and Account Management will not be available during the maintenance period.
"We thank you for your patience and support and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause," Sony said.
Upcoming music game Rock Band 4 will run at 1080p/60fps when it launches later this year for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. That's according to Eric Pope, a product manager at Harmonix, who says in a new interview that the studio has gone to great lengths to make the game shine.
Harmonix "built a brand new engine for Rock Band 4 to make the most of the new hardware. It's going to look 'next-gen' with more realistic lighting, character models, and animation," he said in the latest issue of MCV, as reported by Videogamer.
"It'll be 1080p and will run at 60fps," Pope added. "I know there's a vocal group of players that want to hear that. But what to me is more exciting is the online infrastructure of the consoles. It will open a lot [of] opportunities for us to support the game in more reactive, timely ways."
In addition, though Harmonix has yet to pin down a specific release date for Rock Band 4, the MCV report states that the game will arrive in October. Activision's Guitar Hero franchise, meanwhile, is also rumored to return this fall with a new, "more realistic" game.
In other news about Harmonix, Boston Business Journal reports that the studio is planning to relocate from Cambridge to downtown Boston. The company's 115 employees will make the move this summer.
Earlier this week, rumors emerged online about a "Marcus Fenix Collection" that would presumably bundle the first three Gears of War games in full-HD for Xbox One. Now, Gears of War developer Black Tusk producer Rod Fergusson has spoken out to set the story straight.
In short, it's not happening. That might be a bummer for some, but Fergusson teased that Microsoft has "other exciting Gears projects" in the works, the first of which might be revealed this June during E3.
I love the passion, but there’s no Marcus Fenix Collection. We ARE working on other exciting Gears projects. I'll see you at E3!
Microsoft acquired the Gears of War franchise in January 2014, buying the action series from creator Epic Games for an undisclosed sum. As part of the deal, Microsoft put its new Black Tusk development team to work on a brand-new Gears of War game for Xbox One.
The Gears of War franchise is one of the Xbox platform's leading series. It has spanned four titles so far: Gears of War (2006), Gears of War 2 (2008), Gears of War 3 (2011), and Gears of War: Judgment (2013). Together, the games have sold more than 22 million copies and generated over $1 billion. Gears of War Exile, rumored to be a Kinect-enabled spinoff, was canceled.
Microsoft and Undead Labs on Thursday released the "debut" trailer for the upcoming Xbox One version of open-world zombie game State of Decay, which is called the Year One Survival Edition.
The trailer, originally shown at a PAX East panel earlier this month, features "all real gameplay footage" instead of cutscenes. The game outputs in 1080p, compared to 720p for the Xbox 360 version.
People who already bought State of Decay for Xbox 360 can transfer their saves and get the Xbox One edition at a 33-percent discount. Returning players will also receive extra goodies such as the character Gurubani Kaur and her exclusive weapons (see the trailer).
The State of Decay Year One Survival Edition launches April 28 for Xbox One and PC. While working on the Xbox One edition of the game, developer Undead Labs discovered hidden penises, though these have been removed for the new version.
Square Enix on Thursday announced that it is bringing yet another one of its Final Fantasy games to mobile devices. The publisher has formed a deal with Nexon Korea to develop a mobile version of Final Fantasy XI, a MMO that originally launched in 2002 for PC and PlayStation 2.
The game, called Final Fantasy XI Mobile, is slated to launch sometime in 2016. It is said to include "impressive graphics" and features designed specifically for mobile devices.
"These optimizations will include improving party organizing systems, enriching solo-play functionality, improving battle functionality, and enhancing in-game events and features," Nexon said in a statement.
A variety of Final Fantasy games are already available for iOS and Android devices, including the original Final Fantasy and, the most recent release, Final Fantasy VI.
In other news about Final Fantasy XI, Square Enix has announced (via Eurogamer) that the PS2 and Xbox 360 versions of the game will no longer be supported after March 2016. The PC edition, however, will continue operation.
Both the iPhone and Android smartphone editions of Hearthstone will be fully compatible with the PC, iPad, Mac, and Android tablet versions, Blizzard has confirmed.
Eric Dodds, one of the principal designers of the popular collectable card game, said in an interview with GameSpot that--much like with the desktop and tablet versions--players will still be given no discernible hints about what device their opponent is playing with.
"When you start a match on a phone, you could be playing someone on another phone, someone on a tablet, on a PC, who knows? It's all one big ecosystem," he said.
One subject which he discussed with less confident language, however, was smartphone battery life. From a full charge, the iPad version can only be unplugged for a couple of hours before battery begins to reach a critical point. Whether smartphones can handle such demand, along with its day-to-day duties, remains to be seen.
"Hearthstone is certainly... it's a beautiful game, so it definitely uses power," Dodds said. "One thing we're constantly thinking about is how to make the most of the phone's battery."
He also appeared to be unsure whether Hearthstone, with its always-online connection policy, would eat up excessive amounts of data on phones.
"I don't know if it uses a lot of data," he said. "You have to have a constant connection though. I wouldn't recommend playing it on a train."
In February, Blizzard released the first images of how Hearthstone would appear on smartphones. Much of the background details have been cropped out, and the UI has been rebuilt, in order to maximize the visibility of minions and cards. The first images can be seen below.
The smartphone version of Hearthstone is expected to launch in a matter of months. Click on the thumbnails below for additional images
Meanwhile, Blizzard is preparing to release the game's next adventure, Blackrock Mountain, in April. At the time of going to press, nine of the expansion's 31 cards have been revealed. You can preview them all in the images below.
Click on the thumbnails below to view in full screen
In his interview with GameSpot, Dodds also takes questions on the Blackrock adventure, the ESL controversy, and discusses how Blizzard balances new cards during the design process.
Class-action claims against Microsoft alleging that the Xbox 360 has a design problem that causes disc gouges can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday. The case, which dates back to 2007, claims that Microsoft "negligently designed and manufactured" the console.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle decided (via Reuters) that a lower court judge misapplied the law in concluding that Xbox 360 owners should be barred from collectively suing for damages in the case. This week's legal decision reverses that decision, allowing for the possibility of a class-action suit.
Plaintiffs in this case allege that the Xbox 360 optical disc drive is "unable to withstand even the smallest of vibrations, and that during normal game playing conditions discs spin out of control and crash into internal console components, resulting in scratched discs that are rendered permanently unplayable."
Microsoft, on the other hand, argues that the vast majority of the Xbox 360 systems don't have any problems with scratched discs. In a statement, Microsoft said only 0.4 percent of systems are affected by disc-scratching. The company further argues that the main cause of gouged discs is actually consumer misuse, not a product defect.
"We've won in the lower court previously and believe the facts are on our side," a Microsoft spokesperson said. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, on the other hand, said they were pleased with the court's decision to allow the case to move forward.
This is not the first time Microsoft has faced legal action over reported problems with Xbox 360 hardware. Following the system's release in 2005, a man sued Microsoft over claims that the system had a design flaw that made it overheat. Microsoft has also faced legal battles concerning the Xbox 360's infamous "Red Ring of Death" hardware issue.
The main menu theme for celebrated Xbox game Ori and the Blind Forest is now available as a free download by way of composer Gareth Coker's official SoundCloud page. A streaming version of the track is embedded at the bottom of this post.
The full, 32-song soundtrack, meanwhile, is available to buy on iTunes and Amazon for $10.
"Thanks to everyone for your ongoing support of this beautiful game," Coker wrote.
Ori and the Blind Forest was released March 10 for Xbox One. Xbox 360 and PC versions will follow.
The game received near-universal praise from critics upon release, with GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd calling it a "rapturous platformer that is as fun as it is beautiful."
2K Games and Turtle Rock Studios on Thursday announced that a host of new content is coming to monster-hunting game Evolve on March 31, including more playable characters, additional maps, the Observer mode, and more. A breakdown of what's coming is below.
Available March 31:
Fourth playable Monster: Behemoth. Free for everyone who pre-ordered Evolve. Otherwise, players can buy the monster for $15 through the Monster Expansion Pack.
Four new playable Hunters: Included with the $25 Hunting Season Pass or $7.50 each.
Torvald -- A Cyborg Assault character with a mortar cannon for an arm
Crow -- A Trapper with a pet Batray for tracking Monsters
Slim -- A genetically modified combat Medic
Sunny -- A Support character equipped with a mini-nuke grenade launcher
Two free maps: The Broken Hill Mine and Broken Hill Foundry. These will launch first on Xbox One before they arrive on PC and PlayStation 4 on April 30.
Players who do not buy Behemoth or the new Hunters are still able to play against or alongside the new characters. 2K says this will add "depth and replayability for the entire Evolve community without dividing players based on what additional content they own."
Poland-based developer Techland on Thursday announced that its open-world zombie game, Dying Light, netted 3.2 million players in the first 45 days following its launch at the end of January. Using that timeframe, Dying Light is now the "most popular title in the company's history," the developer said.
Dying Light still has some work to do to match Dead Island's long-term haul, however, as that game has shipped more than 5 million copies.
To mark Dying Light's sales milestone, Techland released an infographic with some illuminating numbers. One such example is that players have collected $1,250,000,000,000 (that's $1.25 trillion) worth of in-game cash, which is estimated to be around 16X the net worth of Bill Gates, the world's richest person.
Check out the full infographic below.
Following Dying Light's debut, Techland has launched a variety of free content and more, including additional weapons and outfits, as well as a Hard Mode. Going forward, Techland plans to release mod tools for the PC edition of Dying Light. The studio also pledged to actively support all versions of the game with more maps, modes, skills, quests, and "other original content" in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment