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Earlier today, Bethesda announced that in the lead-up to Starfield's upcoming Shattered Space DLC, players would be treated to the game's first land vehicle, the Rev-8, in an update coming later tonight. Well, it's now later tonight, and Starfield's 1.13.61 update is now live.
The big centerpiece of this patch is, …
Earlier today, Bethesda announced that in the lead-up to Starfield's upcoming Shattered Space DLC, players would be treated to the game's first land vehicle, the Rev-8, in an update coming later tonight. Well, it's now later tonight, and Starfield's 1.13.61 update is now live.
The big centerpiece of this patch is, of course, the Rev-8. It's the game's first land vehicle, and we got our first look at it earlier today in a trailer. It's kinda cute, bouncing around craters and things with its little hover jets and turret. Take a look:
The update isn't just car-centric, though the Rev-8 is a pretty big deal. There are a number of new settings being added such as a frame rate target setting allowing players to pick between 30, 40, 60, or uncapped on VRR displays. Non-VRR displays will still be able to select between 30 and 60, though players are warned screen tearing may occur on non-VRR displays if 60 is selected. There's also a new setting allowing you to prioritize between visuals and performance, and toggling Vsync on and off. And there are new Xbox Series S performance options added as well.
Gameplay-wise, the majority of the changes appear to be fixing various bugs or minor other adjustments to make gameplay a bit smoother.
Today's update comes ahead of a much larger DLC expansion entitled Shattered Space, which we learned today would be releasing on September 30. Shattered Space was first revealed back in June at the Xbox Games Showcase and is the game's first story expansion. It takes place on the homeworld of House Va'Ruun and includes a new planet, weapons, spacesuits, gear, and more.
We gave Starfield a 7/10 in our launch review, saying that it "has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist."
The full patch notes are below.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Five years ago, ustwo games announced it was developing a third entry in the critically-acclaimed puzzle series, Monument Valley. Now, after all that waiting, it's finally coming out on December 10, 2024, and it will be exclusive to Netflix Games at launch.
In a trailer at Opening Night Live today, we got our first real look at Monument Valley 3. It's both familiar and new, featuring a new little protagonist named Noor carrying a lantern. Per a press release, Noor is searching for a new source of power "before the light of the world fades, forever." As before, the player uses the touchscreen to move M.C. Escher-like environments around and create paths for the character to progress.
Monument Valley 3 seems to use similar spatial and visual puzzle styles to its predecessors, but it looks like the lantern-carrying protagonist will occasionally have to lead other characters effectively through the mazes. The very first game starred a single protagonist, while the second featured a mother and her child navigating mazes together and explored themes related to their relationship. Both games were critically acclaimed for their design, with Monument Valley 2 winning the Game Award for Best Mobile Game in 2017, and winning best Puzzle at the 2018 Webby Awards.
Monument Valley 3 will technically be coming to both iOS and Android like its predecessors, but at launch will only be available via the Netflix Games app. Additionally, both Monument Valley and Monument Valley 2 will come to Netflix Games on September 19 and October 29, respectively. Netflix, as we've previously written, has struggled to lure in large amounts of subscribers, and has reportedly been discussing internally whether or not to add in-app purchases or ads to its games platform in the future.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
How the Grand Theft Auto publisher's indie label is dying a slow death behind the scenes.
In recent weeks, reports have surfaced that Take-Two is shuttering Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games and OlliOlli World developer Roll7. Now, IGN has learned that not only are these closures imminent, but they are a part of a larger move by Take-Two to either sell …
In recent weeks, reports have surfaced that Take-Two is shuttering Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games and OlliOlli World developer Roll7. Now, IGN has learned that not only are these closures imminent, but they are a part of a larger move by Take-Two to either sell off or shut down the entirety of its indie label, Private Division.
Earlier this month, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick told IGN that Take-Two "didn't shutter" its owned indie studios Intercept Games and Roll7. At the time, that was technically true; both studios are currently operational, but they won't be for long. Speaking to multiple anonymous sources familiar with the matter, IGN has independently confirmed that Intercept Games is set to close on June 28, following a notice period required by the Washington State WARN Act. Roll7, too, is similarly winding down, though a small team remains to tie up loose ends.
Meanwhile, Take-Two wants to offload Private Division, one way or another. In February, IGN understands employees were told layoffs were imminent, but not given specifics on how many, why, or what was happening. Then, at the end of April, employees of the label were told by management that Take-Two would no longer support Private Division, at which time almost all the staff were laid off.
A small crew remains to support the remaining announced games with which Private Division has publishing deals: Moon Studios' No Rest for the Wicked (which is currently in early access), Wētā Workshop's Tales of the Shire, and an untitled project from Game Freak. Take-Two has backed out of two other publishing deals it had previously agreed to under the label - one previously reported deal with Bloober Team, and another sources described to us that would have been with Ghostrunner developer One More Level.
Though Private Division and its associated studios appear in danger of vanishing entirely, Take-Two is looking for other options...albeit with mixed success. The publisher has been in talks to find a buyer for the Kerbal Space Program IP, with or without Intercept Games attached. IGN has learned that discussions took place for such a deal with strategy game publisher Paradox Interactive, but fell through, and it's unclear if another buyer will materialize in time.
Take-Two is also in discussions to sell off Private Division, and has found interest from a private equity firm. Though a deal has not been agreed upon yet, sources were aware that conversations are being facilitated in part by individuals with connections to Moon Studios leadership. But two of my sources expressed apprehension about such a deal and its connections, citing a 2022 VentureBeat report alleging "oppressive" work conditions at Moon Studios. One source I spoke with confirmed that "everything" in the report was "true and worse" and another called the studio's founders "cruel" and "a nightmare" to work with.
All those I spoke to for this story expressed frustration at Take-Two leadership for alleged mismanagement of the label, and called out chief strategy officer and Private Division head Michael Worosz for poor leadership. Sources say the label was often saddled with unreasonable sales targets, and pressured to release games before they were ready, with Kerbal Space Program 2 being a notable recent example. And yet, all of those I spoke to shared feelings of sadness surrounding the fate of Private Division, citing the team's sincere mission to help smaller, independent studios, especially those that were newer and less established.
"The people at Private Division were amazing, talented, passionate individuals who loved what they did and also really cared about each other as a team and as people," one person said. "We loved our projects, we worked hard, and we fostered a great environment internally. I would love to work with any of them again. The pain point was always Take-Two and associated leadership forcing our hand. The whole layoff situation proved what we already felt. Take-Two could not care less about its employees."
Take-Two declined to comment for this piece; Moon Studios did not respond in time for publication.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Games within games.
Rockstar Games co-founder and Grand Theft Auto writer and producer Dan Houser is hard at work on a new game with his new studio, Absurd Ventures. And we think we know a little more about what that game looks like, including its setting, which is a new sci-fi universe the …
But the publisher has no further updates on the status of either.
Earlier this month, Take-Two announced a cost reduction plan that included project cancellations, the layoffs of 5% of its workforce, and other spending cuts. Amid this announcement came reports based on internal documentation that seemed to confirm Take-Two was closing OlliOlli World developer Roll7 and Kerbal Space …
Just in time for GTA 6.
Grand Theft Auto 5, an 11-year-old game that's been released on three generations of consoles and which continues to sell roughly five million copies every three months, has at last surpassed a big milestone: over 200 million copies sold in its lifetime.
This news comes from Take-Two's earnings report today. For …
Update: Annnnnnnd they already solved it.
Mind-bending puzzle metroidvania Animal Well just released yesterday, and already a community of players is tearing the game apart to find its many, many, many, many secrets. Right now, that includes a ridiculously complicated puzzle that requires at least 50 different people to participate. And just one day after …
U.S. sales reports suggest Capcom's action RPG is blowing the competition out of the Brine.
It's natural that everyone's been a little antsy about Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth lately. For weeks, analysts and fans have been discussing the game's potential underperformance compared to its predecessor, Remake, amid worries this might impact the future of the 7 Remake trilogy. Today, we got a …
2024 looks quiet....if you're not looking at the incredible indie space.
There’s an uncomfortable sense among the gaming community, as industry layoff numbers stack up, project after project is cancelled, and as console life cycles slow, that we’re on the cusp of a bit of a video game dry spell. That feeling isn’t totally unfounded - there are very few AAA …
Activision Quality Assurance United is the first Activision union to form under Microsoft
A group of roughly 600 quality assurance (QA) workers at Activision under Microsoft have successfully voted to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), becoming Activision Quality Assurance United.
Activision Quality Assurance United is the first to unionize at Activision since the company was acquired by Microsoft, and the largest …
A group of roughly 600 quality assurance (QA) workers at Activision under Microsoft have successfully voted to unionize with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), becoming Activision Quality Assurance United.
Activision Quality Assurance United is the first to unionize at Activision since the company was acquired by Microsoft, and the largest video game worker union in the United States. It incorporates central QA workers at Activision offices in Texas, Minnesota, and California, and is distinct from other recent QA unions under Microsoft such as the Zenimax QA union and groups at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany.
The group has organized with the support of a CWA-Microsoft neutrality agreement signed in 2022, wherein Microsoft committed to taking a "neutral approach" toward unionizing and refrain from hindering union discussions at the company, as well as offering a streamlined process for choosing to join a union. This is notable especially in light of the hurdles faced by Raven Software and Blizzard Albany in forming their unions prior to the acquisition, as both groups accused Activision Blizzard of union busting efforts.
"There was no one specific catalyst, but more so just recognizing as QA workers we often have the lowest protections and lowest pay of any workers in the industry even though our work requires expertise, skill, and is absolutely essential to the success of the companies where we work," said Tom Shelley, technical requirements specialist at Activision and member of the newly formed AQAU.
"The CWA Labor Neutrality Agreement is a historic agreement and unprecedented at a tech company of Microsoft’s size. By recognizing our union, Microsoft is making good on its promise to respect our ability to decide for ourselves about union representation. We encountered no union-busting at a time when most US companies - especially tech companies — regularly spend millions on anti-union consultants to prevent workers from speaking up for themselves. We hope this will inspire other workers to form unions and raise industry-wide expectations for pay, benefits, and respect for workers' rights."
The group expects to bargain with Microsoft over a new contract, particularly over asks such as better pay and benefits, more promotional opportunities, and a clear career development track. Currently, Zenimax QA workers are bargaining over their first contract with the company, which thus far includes agreements on subjects such as subcontracting and artificial intelligence.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Developers reveal how they’ve been impacted by the layoffs sweeping the games industry.
Earlier this week, 900 individuals were laid off from Sony PlayStation. The affected studios included well-known developers Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, and Guerrilla Games, with PlayStation London shutting down entirely.
These layoffs come just weeks after the DICE Awards, which saw Insomniac and Guerrilla both win prestigious awards for …
The maker of Crash 4 and Spyro Reignited is ready to return to its roots.
Amid mass layoffs, studio closures, and general industry uncertainty, today began with a handful of studios and companies reclaiming control of their own destinies. We learned this morning that Saber Interactive and Gearbox are reportedly breaking free of Embracer Group. And now, it looks like Crash Bandicoot developer Toys …
EA remains committed to a third Star Wars: Jedi game.
Today, EA announced a major company shake-up that will result in roughly 670 individuals, or 5% of its workforce, losing their jobs. As a part of that same reorganization, Respawn's Star Wars FPS in-development at Respawn is being canceled.
Following CEO Andrew Wilson's announcement of the cuts today, EA Entertainment …
CEO Andrew Wilson says EA is adapting to "accelerating industry transformation."
Electronic Arts has announced that it, too, is undergoing mass layoffs, with plans to let go 5% of its total global staff, or roughly 670 individuals.
In a note today sent to staff, CEO Andrew Wilson said that EA is reacting to "accelerating industry transformation where player needs and motivations and …
Ad astra per aspera.
“Most companies die with a bad launch, this one actually came out stronger.”
That’s a line from New York University’s Stern School of Business professor Joost van Dreunen, quoted in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year. He was describing the transformation undergone by developer CD Projekt Red …
“Most companies die with a bad launch, this one actually came out stronger.”
That’s a line from New York University’s Stern School of Business professor Joost van Dreunen, quoted in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year. He was describing the transformation undergone by developer CD Projekt Red from the rocky launch of Cyberpunk 2077 in 2020 to the triumphant release of major DLC Phantom Liberty late last year. And it was with understandable pride that Phantom Liberty game director Gabe Amatangelo opened his talk at the 2024 DICE Summit, quoting that exact line.
Amatangelo went on to describe to DICE attendees just how CD Projekt had accomplished such a monumental task, focusing on the most difficult part: rallying a discouraged and frustrated team around a belief that such a thing could be done. When Cyberpunk 2077 launched, he said, it seemed everyone around them knew that something had gone wrong at his company. The woman who worked at the local coffee shop. His landlord. Everyone. The perceived failure was almost inescapable.
That left Amatangelo with the critical job of rebuilding internal morale. He led by focusing on positives, encouraging the team to celebrate the elements of the launch that had gone well. He worked to build trust, so that developers who needed help felt they could ask for it. And he worked with the team to come up with a handful of key drivers that would enable the production of the DLC to be a success. These included distributing ownership over decision-making and other checks so that the game director role wouldn’t be a bottleneck on production, integrating and empowering QA closely with the rest of the team even in early development, and just…setting aside time for developers to actually play the game. A lot.
After Amatangelo’s talk, I spoke with him about how the team is carrying these lessons forward into its next Cyberpunk project, currently dubbed Project Orion. In addition to what he shared in his DICE talk, Amatangelo expanded on a number of learnings he’s carrying forward into the new game. He emphasizes the importance of contingency planning and the need to share backup plans both up and down the chain of command – and to have multiple backup plans, just in case. He tells me about the importance of putting oneself in the player’s shoes when establishing a new story or world, and imagining what they might hope to see or do in that space so that you don’t let them down.
And he reiterates the importance of making sure studio environments are environments of trust. “One technique, and a lot of the guys and gals that work for me know that whenever I put an idea forward, because of my position, sometimes people might not want to challenge it. So if I see that vibe, I'll then just play devil's advocate and I'll start to break apart my idea. Sometimes they'll be like, ‘Wait, so do you want to do this or not want to do this?’ I'm like, ‘I'm not sure. Let's talk about it.’ We established a good chemistry and trust in my circle, my direct report circle, and I think that was replicated a lot as well.”
I was especially curious about Amatangelo’s plans in light of the announcement that he’s heading up a new CD Projekt studio in Boston. Announced earlier this year, the Boston studio is CD Projekt’s first studio in the United States, and will primarily be focused on Project Orion.
I ask Amatangelo what it’s like starting a new studio at such a challenging time for the industry as a whole. Amatangelo isn’t responsible for the cuts last summer to 10% of CD Projekt Group’s workforce based largely in Poland, but he does now find himself in the position of trying to build up a new studio in North America at a time when a lot of developers are looking for work. Over 10,000 developers worldwide lost their jobs last year, and roughly 6000 have been impacted thus far in 2024. Amatangelo calls it “one of the most difficult things going on right now,” but he’s hopeful the industry will bounce back... and maybe learn some important lessons about planning in the process.
“I think maybe there'll be a maturing of structuring of certain facilities and aspects,” he says. “We're seeing that with the rumors around consoles and stuff. I think we're trying to figure out how to restructure things in a meta sense a little bit. But the bottom line is that the bottom line isn't going away. That's not decreasing. More people are interested in being immersed and taking a breather from day to day, so to speak, and having an opportunity to expand their minds or blow off some steam, stuff like that. It's not going away. So I think it'll sort itself out, but, obviously, some turbulent times.”
Speaking of maturing and restructuring, I ask Amatangelo specifically how, as studio head, he plans to work to mitigate crunch at the new studio he’s leading, especially given the company’s history with the practice.
“Similar to the techniques used throughout Phantom Liberty, you plan as best you can,” he said. “It's all about getting ahead of seeing what might come up in the future and scoping accordingly, resourcing accordingly, and also being flexible. If you put in some extra hours this week, take some hours off next week. Because, admittedly, even at a certain point, there was where [responsibility] landed on me and I was like a bottleneck, and I'm like, ‘All right, I'm going to have to do some double time this week. Otherwise, too many people are pulled out, and then next week I'm taking some time off.’ You do the best you can to mitigate that, but as long as there's that kind of climate and understanding of helping each other. Then when I took some time off, some of my reports rise to the occasion and fill in the gaps while I'm out, and you just do that at all levels.”
That’s how Amatangelo is thinking about it now in the early stages of the studio. The real test, the months leading up to launch, is still several years off. Project Orion is still in its early stages. Amatangelo points out that there really aren’t clear lines determining when a game enters different phases of production, but Project Orion is currently in what he calls the “fun phase” of game development.
“In the perfect world, when you're making a game, it's all ideation and concepts and putting stuff in concept art and then moving to the next stage once you're feeling solid about your ideas or maybe your story outline, and then you start prototyping things,” he says. “We're in that stage, but it's kind of blurred, like prototyping some things as well as concepting some stuff and working on the story. So, yeah, we got some prototypes going on. We've got some exploration, some pipeline setup, some story ideas being thrown at the wall, back and forth, concept art, that kind of phase, the fun phase.”
Amatangelo isn’t sharing much more about what Project Orion is at for now. I did ask him if game console tech is where he wants it to be to meet his ambitions for the game, especially given recent online discussions about new generations of Xbox and PlayStation consoles. And sure, Amatangelo wishes tech was further along... but he admits he might always be wishing for that. “I wish there were Holodecks, you know what I mean?”
One relevant example is AI, which Amatangelo himself brought up to me when he asked if I had stayed to listen to a later DICE talk between Xbox’s Haiyan Zhang and the ESA’s Stanley Pierre-Louis on video games and AI. Amatangelo tells me he himself had been listening to an AI expert talk about large language models and generative AI recently, when they expressed how it would always be “unknowable” how these models arrive at their conclusions. While their comment was intended to be a positive one, Amatangelo says he finds that idea terrifying. He’d rather keep AI busy with menial tasks rather than content creation.
“My gut tells me that AI for pipelines, for tools for helping with, let's call it, the busy work that no one really likes to do a lot of times, I think there's a lot of promising stuff on that front,” he says. “It allows developers to have more satisfying jobs overall because they could spend more time on the creative elements. So that's my optimistic take with AI and stuff like that.”
But as the game director of the next Cyberpunk, he admits the worst case scenarios, even if they terrify him, are useful fodder for storytelling at least. “On the other end, I got science fiction,” he says.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Phil Spencer appears to be dispelling recent rumors that Xbox is fully ditching physical disc, while remaining clear-eyed about the increasing consumer demand for digital games.
In a recent interview with Game File, journalist Stephen Totilo asked Spencer about a slate of rumors last month that Xbox was shutting down its physical game production divisions, exacerbated by leaked court documents showing an enhanced, all-digital Xbox in the works. Though Spencer made a point to address a number of the recent Xbox rumors in a podcast and Xbox Wire post last week, he skipped over the physical games question until pressed on it in the Game File interview.
“Gaming consoles themselves have kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive,” he said. “And this is a real issue, just in terms of the number of manufacturers that are actually building drives and the cost associated with those. And when you think about cogs that we're going to go put in a console — and as you have fewer suppliers and fewer buyers — the cost of the drive does have an impact.
“But I will say our strategy does not hinge on people moving all-digital,” he added. “And getting rid of physical, that's not a strategic thing for us.”
He also told Totilo that the reports Microsoft had laid off people on the teams responsible for physical games, while true, were more about “alignment of our teams across ZeniMax, Activision and Xbox. So we have teams that are in charge of physical retail, inclusive of selling games in physical outlets. So that's what the team action was. It wasn't about us getting rid of the capability.”
Digital gaming has been on the rise ever since it was introduced, and in recent years a number of publishers have seen it make up an overwhelming share of their total sales. For instance, Take-Two just reported earlier this month that 95% of the company's total net bookings were digital. Though Take-Two is an extreme example, other publishers aren't far behind, making it unsurprising that companies like Xbox might at least back off of releasing every game as a physical edition. And indeed, games such as Alan Wake 2, and Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name are foregoing discs entirely even as companies like Best Buy start to phase out physical media sales.
For now, it seems Xbox is committed to continuing to offer at least some physical games. But don't be surprised if more and more games across all publishers go digital in the coming years.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
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