It's that time of year again. We have The Game Awards on the horizon, and everyone is trying to guess what big exciting announcements are going to be there, despite the show's continued attempts to pretend that it actually cares about its own awards. This year, things have heated up a little further thanks to almost constant Half-Life 3 rumors and a big statue in the desert, and it feels like almost anything could pop up this year as an unexpected surprise.

Metroid Prime 4 is almost here, bringing an almost two decade wait for a new Prime game to an end. While you'd have thought that would have been a reason to celebrate, a fairly standard Metacritic score and some snippets of gameplay online seem to have whipped up a little bit of a hate storm before the game has even launched.

When it comes to live service games with a heavy multiplayer focus, there's always a choice that developers have to make when it comes to their audience. Do you cater to your casual audience, which will likely be huge, but have a more consistent drop off as the game becomes more stale, or do you cater to your more dedicated audience and lean into the more competitive elements of your game?