Microsoft's announcement that four Bethesda studios will be shut down has caused another wave of speculation around Game Pass. Reports claim that Microsoft is debating whether or not to keep bringing major releases, like Call of Duty, to Game Pass due to the revenue drop in sales. Just one day later, Microsoft's Sarah Bond has shut that discussion down.

Sources speaking with The Verge have indicated that the business of Game Pass has been debated many times amongst Xbox employees, with many concerned about the financial hit a game like Call of Duty would take if made available through the subscription service, a move that typically leads to a dip in long term sales.

Now, speaking with Dina Bass at Bloomberg Live (via XboxEra), Xbox executive, Sarah Bond, has poured cold water onto the idea that Call of Duty won't be coming to Game Pass, saying: “We know our core users love game pass, game pass is a gaming subscription, you get a whole portfolio of games, but importantly you get every single one of the games we build day one in Game Pass. And the quality and the breadth of those games has only been going up over time.”

Bond was then asked if that statement includes Activision's portfolio, to which she replied: “Across the whole slate, across the whole slate, you’re going to see some really amazing things. And keeping that as something that is really special for Xbox players is central to us.”

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Microsoft managed to push its acquisition of Activision Blizzard through, in part due to a lot of public support from developers and gamers. Developer sentiment is likely at an all-time low after studio closures and layoffs. If Call of Duty doesn't come to Game Pass this year, they would surely lose a lot more trust from their core audience.

Ubisoft announced a surprising partnership earlier this year, teaming up with the indie studio behind Dead Cells to create a new rogue-like Prince of Persia game. While The Rogue Prince of Persia was initially set to launch next week, the developers have since decided to delay the game, in part due to Super Giant's recent hit, Hades 2. 

Evil Empire has announced that The Rogue Prince of Persia has been delayed. The game was set to launch on the 14th of May as part of the Steam Early Access program, where early buyers can play alpha and beta builds of the game and provide feedback all the way up to release. Unfortunately, the team has not yet announced a new release date, but plans to have one in place by Monday, the 13th of May.

The delay isn't expected to be a lengthy one, so we're likely looking at a delay of a couple of weeks, or potentially a month or two, rather than a push into 2025. Evil Empire will keep The Rogue Prince of Persia in Early Access for around one year, during which time they will finish up the game and get it up to version 1.0. After that, the game is expected to also land on consoles.

The delay is primarily to create some distance between The Rogue Prince of Persia and another highly popular rogue-like game, Hades 2. Hades 1, like Dead Cells, is considered one of the best games in this genre and the sequel so far has done nothing but impress fans, even in its Early Access state. The game has garnered over 100K concurrent players since its release this week and has an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam, based on thousands of user reviews.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Both Hades 2 and The Rogue Prince of Persia are on my wishlist, although I tend to wait for Early Access titles to hit V1.0 before buying in nowadays. Were any of you planning on picking up The Rogue Prince of Persia next week? 

EA has long made it known that it is constantly exploring ways to further monetise its games. The company is already planning to usher in AI tools to cut out a number of human workers and build products faster. Alongside this, EA is also further looking into bringing in-game advertising to more titles. 

This isn't EA's first rodeo in this arena. In-game advertising was popularised by the mobile game market. In one of EA's first experiments with this in a major release, it placed a near full-screen advert for Amazon Prime series, The Boys, in the replay menu for fights in UFC 4. Naturally, this sparked a wave of backlash and the ad was disabled.

Now, EA's Andrew Wilson has begun telling investors about the company's plans to get into the ‘Dynamic Ad Insertion' business, in which adverts will be placed in games based on metrics like ‘habits, history and interests', which sounds … just awful. Sports games will no doubt start displaying ads whenever there is a game break for things like halftime, substitutions or pit stops.

Other potential ways this could be used is via AFK timers. Many often hit pause on their controller and walk away to grab something, or do something relatively quick. Those people may soon walk back to find some kind of unwanted commercial.

Unfortunately, with the amount companies like EA already get away with in the sports game market, in-game ads will almost certainly become a key component in many future games and it will no doubt make the folks at the top of EA all a bit richer.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: This sounds like a terrible idea but if there is money to be made, EA is going to be there chasing that bag. We can only hope that advertisements are mainly reserved to sports games, leaving things like single-player RPGs out of the equation. 

Xbox finds itself embroiled in yet another PR debacle this week, as Fallout 76 players enact an unconventional form of protest. Earlier this year, the gaming community was stirred by Microsoft's decision to release former exclusives on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. Now, Microsoft's recent announcement of the closure of four Bethesda studios, notably Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, has triggered a unique response from fans.

The process of launching nuclear strikes within Fallout 76 isn't a simple endeavour, but the basic gist is, players have to gather nuclear codes, then find a security key card, and then, you need to make your way over to a heavily guarded launch silo and fight your way through to the targeting computer. After that, you can drop a nuke anywhere on the map, including directly on player camp sites. While that little breakdown of the process is quick and easy, it is more of a time investment than it initially sounds.

Phil Spencer's camp burning in Fallout 76 after it was nuked.

pic.twitter.com/iSyGHxaYqI

— PeterOvo (@PeterOvo5) May 9, 2024

Lmao someone nuked Phil Spencer’s camp in Fallout 76 pic.twitter.com/DxfcIdH8ob

— Sam (@Sam_Snydes) May 9, 2024

We don't know exactly who was responsible for setting the bombs off but video footage of players exploring Phil Spencer's destroyed camp have been uploaded by people known to be on his Xbox friends list.

The in-game retaliation appears to be in protest to the recent closures of Arkane Austin, Roundhouse, Alpha Dog and Tango Gameworks. Arkane Austin had a rough year thanks to Redfall, but the studio had previously produced excellent work in Dishonored and Prey. On the other hand, Tango Gameworks was Xbox's sole Japanese studio, an area that Microsoft has been trying to gain a foothold in for years. Just last year, Tango Gameworks released Hi-Fi Rush, one of the best games of the year. However, as the team did not have a greenlit project in the works yet, the studio was shuttered.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Ultimately, this is a harmless bit of fun. Part of the allure of Fallout 76 is the possibility for nukes to drop, although players do rarely engage in the game's PvP systems, with veterans preferring instead to spend their time helping new players near the game's starting areas. 

Rocksteady launched its live-service focused game, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, back in February to negative reviews. Since then, the number of active players has plummeted and the game's first ‘season' of post-launch content has done nothing to move the needle.

Warner Bros executives had already stated it would be a ‘rough year' for its gaming business after the game's poorly received launch. Now following the game's first season, we have a clearer picture of the situation.

As part of WB's quarterly earnings report, sales of the game have been “disappointing”, adding that the game has “generated significantly lower revenues. In all, WB has taken a $200 million hit on Suicide Squad, undoing much of the good work they did in 2023 with the release of Hogwarts Legacy.

“1 total Adjusted EBITDA was $2,102 million, a 20% ex-FX decrease compared to the prior year quarter, primarily driven by the success of Hogwarts Legacy in the prior year quarter while Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League generated significantly lower revenues in the current year quarter”, the report says.

Despite the situation here showing that WB's strong IP can be leveraged well in the single player games market, as Hogwarts Legacy was a worldwide best-seller 12 months ago, WB still has its eyes on more live-service ventures in the future, with plans to create on-going ‘live' games for all its major franchises.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Suicide Squad sounded like a disaster a year ago and the game's lengthy delay did little to help it in the long run. This is a situation of a poor idea being allowed to snowball out of control. However, unless Rocksteady can get a new project greenlit with market research that suggests a decent level of success, we could see WB shut the studio down. Many other studios have been killed off after similarly poor launches. 

The same leaker who revealed that Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut would be coming to PC has now revealed the next major PlayStation game set to make the jump. Given that Horizon: Forbidden West came to PC earlier this year, it should come as no surprise that Sony's other major 2022 exclusive, God of War: Ragnarök, is next on the list. 

Bilbil-kun of Dealabs has published their latest leak, stating that God of War: Ragnarök is coming to PC next and Sony could announce it officially later this month. Given the previous report confirmed Ghost of Tsushima for PC ahead of Sony's official announcement, it seems highly likely that this information is accurate.

Bilbil-kun is also well known amongst discount hunters and patient gamers, thanks to consistent leaks of new PS+ titles, typically within days ahead of an official announcement from Sony. The track-record here is pretty impeccable.

Ghost of Tsushima lands on PC next week, developed by Nixxes, Sony's lead PC port studio. We do not yet know who is working on the God of War: Ragnarok port, but we will hopefully get all of those details before the end of this month.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: God of War (2018) was a huge success on PC when it eventually made its way over. With all of the combat improvements in Ragnarök, I can't wait to finally get to play it with all the control a keyboard and mouse provides. 

Last week's GeForce Now update brought us news on 24 games hitting the service in the weeks ahead. Five more of those titles are now officially on GeForce Now as of today, including Mihoyo's Honkai: Star Rail, a Sci-Fi take on the Genshin Impact formula.

If you are using a Steam Deck, you'll also want to grab Nvidia's new GeForce Now beta installer. Previously, users could get GeForce Now running on a Steam Deck but now, the official installer will go through the effort of grabbing the Linux version of Chrome for you, and the interface is now fully navigable with a controller, so you'll no longer have to rely on touch-screen input, or a handy keyboard and mouse.

As for new games joining GeForce Now, this week's update includes:

• Honkai: Star Rail (Epic Games Store)
• Little Kitty, Big City (New release on Steam and Xbox, available on PC Game Pass, May 9)
• Farmer's Life (Steam)
• Supermarket Simulator (Steam)
• Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition (Xbox, available on PC Game Pass)

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: What do you all think of this week's GeForce Now update? 

Earlier this week, those who got into the closed alpha playtest for Marvel Rivals quickly got to work datamining for leaks. As it turns out, the developers behind Rivals have ideas for as many as 39 characters. However, currently only 14 of them are in the game. 

One player who had access to the playable alpha has filmed a video showing off the full in-game roster of heroes and all of their abilities. The full video is around 29 minutes long, giving us a preview for each character and their role in the game.

I heard you like abilities? (missing like 4 characters but they done shut the server down </3) pic.twitter.com/3NSPEamufA

— Santa Ricky (@_FireMonkey) May 9, 2024

As expected, Marvel Rivals will follow the simple three-class system, with some heroes being tanks, others being healers and the rest being damage-focused. There are 14 characters in the game so far, including:

• Bruce Banner/ Hulk (Tank)
• The Punisher (Damage)
• Storm (Damage)
• Loki (Healer)
• Doctor Strange (Tank)
• Mantis (Healer)
• Rocket Racoon (Healer)
• Hela (Damage)
• Black Panther (Damage)
• Groot (Tank)
• Magik (Damage)
• Luna Snow (Healer)
• Iron Man (Damage)
• Spider-Man (Damage)

Marvel Rivals does not have a release date yet but the game is being planned for a PC launch later this year, with console versions set to follow after. In the months ahead, the developers will be holding a series of playtests, which interested fans can sign up to participate in.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: What do you think of Marvel Rivals so far? Could this end up dethroning Overwatch as the go-to competitive hero-shooter? 

It is time to update those graphics drivers once again. Today, Nvidia is rolling out its latest GeForce Game Ready driver, including optimisations for Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut, which finally comes to PC next week.

Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut will support a number of PC-exclusive features, including Nvidia's DLSS 3 with Frame Generation, DLAA and Nvidia Reflex. The game officially launches on PC on the 16th of May, but the driver is available starting today, so you can get your system ready before the game unlocks.

Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut includes the full base game, as well as the Iki Island expansion. Ghost of Tsushima also has a multiplayer mode, which will have crossplay between PS5 and PC.

You can find the new GeForce Game Ready driver, HERE, or through the Nvidia App.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Are you planning on picking up Ghost of Tsushima next week?

Corsair has made a few key acquisitions in recent years, picking up companies like Scuff Gaming and Elgato to expand into new product categories. Corsair's dominance in the gaming peripheral world appears set to continue, with the company now looking to acquire Fanatec, a leading brand in the Racing Sim scene.

Fanatec is currently owned by Endor AG. Corsair has entered an agreement to acquire Endor, following a company restructuring that will shuffle around Endor's debts, which currently equate to around €70 million. Exactly how much money Corsair is spending on this acquisition has not been revealed.

Once all is completed, Corsair will become the new owners of Fanatec, giving the company a solid foothold in the Racing Sim market. Fanatec has previously made products using licenses from leading car makers like BMW, Porsche and McLaren. These peripherals have also often been supporting by major racing games.

Speaking on the acquisition, Corsair CEO, Andy Paul, said: “Fanatec is an incredible brand with a strong community. This transaction would solve the company’s significant debt load and position the company for growth and continued product portfolio expansion.”

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Soon, it looks like Corsair will be dealing in Racing Wheels and pedals.

EA must have a funny definition for the term ‘unannounced' because the last time that we checked, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf was definitely announced at The Game Awards several years ago. Still, fans will be pleased to know that EA has two ‘unannounced' games coming this year and yes, one of them is actually Dragon Age.

As part of its most recent financial report, EA shared its outlook for the year ahead, confirming that it has two major games on the way, both of which are considered to be unannounced. As it turns out, unannounced isn't entirely accurate, as Eurogamer's sources confirm that one of these two games is in fact Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the long-awaited follow-up to 2014's Dragon Age Inquisition.

Currently, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is expected to launch in Q4 of this year, marking BioWare's first new game release since Anthem back in 2018. The game has been in development for almost a decade at this point, going through multiple reboots and leadership changes along the way.

EA will be making announcements in June alongside many other publishers across the industry, so we should get our first proper look at Dragon Age: Dreadwolf soon.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: We've been waiting for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf gameplay and release news for what feels like an eternity but hopefully by this time next month, all our questions will be answered.

This week, Nintendo finally confirmed its next-gen console plans. The company's president, Shuntaro Furukawa, confirmed that a new console will be announced during the current fiscal year. We were already expecting this new console to be a ‘Switch 2', but Furukawa's additional comments appear to confirm that. 

During an investor meeting this week, Furukawa was asked about Nintendo's upcoming console. As reported by industry analyst, David Gibson, the Nintendo president responded by saying “Switch next model is the appropriate way to describe it”.

This lines up with other recent supply chain leaks, which claimed that the Switch 2 would feature a larger display, newly designed Joy-Con controllers with a magnetic attachment system, an improved dock and of course, more powerful hardware under the hood capable of playing games at higher resolutions, frame rates and graphical settings.

The Switch 2 is also expected to be backwards compatible with original Switch games. However, new titles designed for the Switch 2 will have a tweaked SD card design to stop them from being slotted into an older Switch model. This shouldn't be too surprising, as Nintendo did the same thing with the move from the Nintendo DS to the 3DS.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: As long as Nintendo gives the new console a proper name and not something crazy like ‘Wii U' or ‘The NEW Nintendo 3DS', then the new-gen Switch should be nothing short of a massive success. 

The team at Arrowhead had quite the weekend, after scrambling to reverse a crucial decision from the game's publisher, Sony. In the immediate aftermath of PSN account linking being announced, it came to light that thousands of people had bought Helldivers 2 in countries where PSN is unavailable. To fix this, someone retroactively removed Helldivers 2 from sale on Steam in over 170 countries. Several days later, those countries are still blocked. 

Helldivers 2 sales had to be blocked in over 170 countries, as Sony intended to enforce all PC players to link a PSN account to continue playing. The list of blocked countries coincides with regions where PSN is not available. The issue is that PSN account linking is no longer going to be enforced, in large part due to the number of players that purchased the game in locations outside of PSN's coverage. With this now being the case, many fans had hoped to see the game return to sale in blocked countries, but nearly a week on, the changes to the Steam Store page have not been reversed.

Arrowhead's outspoken CEO, Johan Pilestedt, has now finally commented on this situation. We still don't know why these countries were retroactively blocked from Helldivers 2, and we don't know why this continues to be the case several days on from the decision to drop PSN account linking. However, Pilestedt says that he is in talks with PlayStation and Valve to get this undone:

CEO Addresses Delisted Countries pic.twitter.com/4lHLvFdIAx

— Helldivers Alerts (@HelldiversAlert) May 9, 2024

Helldivers 2 attracted over 200,000 negative reviews on Steam after the changes announced last Friday. With the decision being reversed on Monday, around half of those reviews have been changed back to positive, but others are holding out until the game is relisted in all of the countries the game was available in at launch.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: What do you think of the ongoing Helldivers 2 situation? Given PSN accounts are no longer going to be enforced, it makes little sense to continue blocking the game in countries where PSN isn't available. 

Marvel has not had much success with its AAA games so far, with titles like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy failing to meet sales expectations. However, the company has found great success in the free to play market with games like Marvel Snap and other mobile-focused titles. The next big Marvel game is an unlikely one, a new Overwatch-inspired shooter. So far, we've only had a handful of confirmed characters for the game through the announcement trailer but a recent alpha test revealed a lot more to come. 

Marvel Rivals, the new hero shooter featuring characters from across the Marvel roster, is due to launch later this year for PC, although some digging points to the existence of console versions too. So far, we know that characters like Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Panther and more will be appearing in the game, but it turns out that a massive roster of 39 characters overall is being planned.

According to Miller Ross, a leaker primarily known for sharing datamined information about live service titles like Rocksteady's Suicide Squad, Ubisoft's Ghost Recon titles and Marvel's Avengers, claims that the Marvel Rivals closed alpha build contains data pertaining to a whopping 39 characters overall.

Here is the list as it stands right now:

• Hulk
• Punisher
• Storm
• Loki
• Human Torch
• Doctor Strange
• Mantis
• Hawkeye
• Captain America
• Rocket Raccoon
• Hela
• Cloak & Dagger
• Black Panther
• Groot
• Ultron
• Magik
• Moon Knight
• Luna Snow
• Squirrel Girl
• Black Widow
• Iron Man
• Venom
• Spider-Man
• Magneto
• Scarlet Witch
• Thor
• Mr. Fantastic
• Winter Soldier
• Peni Parker
• Star-Lord
• Blade
• Namor
• Adam Warlock
• Jeff the Landshark
• Psylocke
• Wolverine
• Invisible Woman
• The Thing
• Iron Fist

Marvel has only officially around half of these characters, so don't expect them all to appear in the game at launch. Some of these characters could have been scrapped prototypes, while others might be planned but are being reserved for future content updates. As with any long-lasting multiplayer game, the team behind Marvel Rivals no doubt has a long list of plans for post-launch content.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Will you be playing Marvel Rivals when it comes out later this year?

If you are looking to catch up on Destiny over the next month or so leading up to The Final Shape, then you are in luck. Bungie has made three of the previous three expansions free to play right up to June 3rd, the day before the next expansion drops. 

From the 8th of May until the 3rd of June, anyone can download Destiny 2 for free and play through the Shadowkeep, Beyond Light and Witch Queen expansions. If you are on PlayStation, you can also claim Lightfall for free as part of your PlayStation Plus subscription.

Shadowkeep kicked off what we now know as modern Destiny, where Bungie got its roadmap sorted out, enabling the developers to push out a more cohesive story. This current phase of the game will end with The Final Shape, the last expansion in the ‘Light v Dark' saga, the main story arc that has been in place since Destiny first launched in 2014. Players will be saying goodbye to The Traveler, and likely to Destiny as we know it today.

Moving forward, it appears that Destiny 2 will switch to ‘episodic' content after The Final Shape, with the next major release expected to be Destiny 3.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Are you catching up on Destiny ahead of The Final Shape next month?

While CD Projekt Red said it had ‘no plans' for advanced modding tools for The Witcher 3 back in 2015, the times have changed. The studio announced plans to launch a proper editor for the game, allowing much more comprehensive user-generated content. Now, the RED Kit is officially becoming available. 

The RED Kit is a set of new tools that allow creators to form their own questlines, or make edit existing content in The Witcher 3. This means Skyrim-style expansion and quest mods will finally be possible for The Witcher 3, assuming modders are up to the challenge of creating such content. Assuming mod makers do support the game, this will allow The Witcher 3 to live on for years to come.

Mark your calendars — The Witcher 3 REDkit, an extensive mod editor based on the game’s engine, releases on May 21st, 2024!

It will be available for free for everyone who owns The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on PC.

Wishlist on @Steam, @GOGcom or @EpicGames:

… pic.twitter.com/wCx8CE9SJo

— The Witcher (@witchergame) May 7, 2024

The new mod editor will only be available on PC and there don't seem to be any plans to support mods in The Witcher 3 on any of the console versions. The RED Kit has been available on Steam in beta form for a few weeks now. After testing, CD Projekt Red has now announced that the software will become available to all, for free, starting on the 21st of May.

Unfortunately, while the RED Kit will get you up to speed with CD Projekt Red's proprietary engine, future games from the Studio will be using completely different tech, with games like The Witcher 4 and Cyberpunk 2 being built with Unreal Engine.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: A more comprehensive set of modding tools can only be a good thing. Hopefully this will inject some new life into The Witcher 3, which will make the long wait for the next game a little easier. 

After a longer wait than anticipated, Hades 2 officially launched into Steam Early Access this week. Supergiant's big sequel is getting off to a hot start too, garnering over 100,000 players at launch. 

Supergiant first launched Hades in 2020, with the game being an Epic Games Store exclusive for its first year on the market. Since then, the game has come to Steam, as well as all current console platforms. Hades was a huge critical and commercial success, but Hades 2 appears to be surpassing it in record time. The original game peaked at just over 36,000 concurrent players on Steam. Meanwhile, Hades 2, which has been out for just two days, has garnered over 103,000 concurrent players.

Hades 2 isn't a complete game just yet. The title should spend the rest of the year in early access, getting new content, bug fixes and balance updates along the way. Once the game hits version 1.0, Supergiant will begin bringing the game over to consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. The game will also likely be released for the Switch 2, which Nintendo has begun openly talking about this week.

Hades 2 has launched to an overwhelmingly positive reception on Steam so far, based on around 12,000 user reviews.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Have any of you picked up Hades 2 yet? Given Supergiant's history, this is one of the few times where I may pick up a game in early access rather than waiting. 

In late 2023, Remedy gave us an update on Project Vanguard, announcing that the game was rebooted under the working title ‘Kestrel'. This was one of two experimental multiplayer games in the works at Remedy. Unfortunately, after evaluating the project once again, Remedy has now made the decision to cancel it.

Kestrel, formerly known as Project Vanguard, was originally planned as a free to play title. However, after a reboot, it was decided that the game would be released as a ‘premium' title. Now, it would seem that Remedy has changed its plans again, with Kestrel being officially cancelled today. Speaking on the decision, Remedy CEO, Tero Virtala, explained the upside to this, saying:

“The decision to cancel codename Kestrel allows Remedy to focus more on the other games in its portfolio. Other ongoing game development projects will get experienced developers reassigned from Kestrel. In addition, the planned investment needs for Kestrel are removed and Remedy’s overall recruitment needs are reduced.”

From the sounds of it, the Kestrel team will not be let go. Instead, their experience working on a multiplayer game will be transferred to ‘other ongoing projects'. Given what we know about Remedy's development roadmap, we would assume that the Kestrel team will now be merging with the team working on Condor, Remedy's other multiplayer project. While Kestrel may have been a new IP, Condor is described as a multiplayer game with a unique Remedy twist, set in the Control universe.

Kestrel was being developed in collaboration with Tencent, which had invested in Remedy and the project. Those resources are now being reassigned. In a recent development update, Remedy stated that it expects Condor to move into production later this year, so this move should accelerate that process.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: With those who worked on Kestrel now moving to other Remedy projects, it is likely that some of the ideas behind the game will live on in some form.

Today Microsoft announced some major changes to its first-party studio line-up. Several of Bethesda's studios are being closed down, including Arkane Austin, the studio responsible for Prey (2017) and Redfall (2023). Due to the closure of Arkane Austin, Redfall's promised DLCs will no longer be coming out. 

While Redfall didn't exactly sell well, there were still a few die-hard fans who ponied up for the game's more expensive editions, which included access to future DLCs, including two new playable characters. It has been a year since the game came out and Arkane has been silent on future content ever since, aside from one update that improved the game's performance on consoles by adding a 60FPS mode. Now we know why things have been so quiet – there is no more Redfall content on the way, in fact, the team responsible for putting the game together is being let go.

Signup here https://t.co/wb1R4m4emj to receive details on how eligible players can receive this credit. pic.twitter.com/69Os17kpQ8

— Arkane Studios (@ArkaneStudios) May 7, 2024

In a statement shared to social media this afternoon, Arkane confirmed that its Austin studio is closing and as a result, there will be no further updates for Redfall. However, the game's online services will remain active for anyone who does want to play the game, although we would expect that to change in 2025.

Any Redfall players who did own the Hero Pass either by purchasing the game's Bite Back Edition, or by purchasing the Bite Back Edition upgrade, will be “eligible to receive the value of the upgrade” but specific details on exactly what this means are scarce. It is possible that the cost of the Bite Back Edition Upgrade will be refunded to your Microsoft account to be used on another game. However, we've also seen situations like this in the past where a code for another game is offered instead. We should get more solid details on how this will be handled later in the week.

While Arkane Austin will no longer exist, Arkane Lyon is still alive and well. The Arkane Lyon studio is the very one responsible for Dishonored and more recently, Deathloop.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Redfall never looked particularly interesting to me and so far, it looks like I dodged a bullet. Still, it always sucks to see announced DLC cancelled down the line, and seeing an Arkane studio shut down certainly stings too. 

While Microsoft hasn't interfered with Bethesda's operations much since acquiring the company in 2020, that is slowly starting to change. A round of lay-offs earlier this year impacted several Bethesda teams. Now, a few studios are also being shut down, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks.

An announcement penned by Xbox Studios lead, Matt Booty, has surfaced online today after being sent to internal staff at Microsoft. In this announcement, we learn about some major changes happening behind the scenes at Bethesda. For starters, Arkane Austin, the studio responsible for Redfall and Prey, is being shut down. Additionally, Microsoft's only Japanese studio, Tango Gameworks, is also closing down, just one year after shipping Hi-Fi Rush, which was arguably the best first-party Xbox game of 2023.

Alpha Dog Studios, Bethesda's mobile-focused studio primarily known for Mighty Doom, is also closing down and the game Mighty Doom will be ‘sunset' in August. Finally, we have Roundhouse Games, which is not closing down. However, the team will be absorbed by Zenimax Online Studios to aid in work on The Elder Scrolls Online and other projects.

Microsoft refers to this as a “consolidation” of Bethesda teams, which will enable the company to “invest more deeply” in Bethesda's portfolio of IP both new and old. However, fans will no doubt be displeased to see that an Arkane studio has been closed, as well as Tango Gameworks. Arkane is known for some of the best single-player games Bethesda has ever published while Tango Gameworks was Microsoft's only foothold in Japan, a part of the world that Microsoft has had issues establishing itself in for years.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: What do you think of Microsoft's recent decisions regarding Xbox and its studios/workforce?

Helldivers 2 has made plenty of headlines since launch but it was finding itself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons last week. On Friday, Arrowhead and Sony announced plans to require PSN accounts in the PC version of the game, despite the fact that the game was sold in over 170 countries where PSN is not available. This led to an uproar, with over 200,000 negative reviews being posted on the game's Steam Store page. Now that the decision has been reversed, thousands are no flocking back to Steam to remove negative reviews. 

On Monday, Sony and Arrowhead announced that after further discussion over the weekend, the decision had been made to drop PSN requirements for Helldivers 2 on PC. This means anyone who owns the game can continue to play without linking a PSN account. Given that PSN is only available in 70 countries, and the game was already sold to players in many unsupported regions, this decision is for the best. Had the plan gone ahead, thousands of players would have been locked out of the game, and it would have cost a fortune in refunds to those affected.

Now that this disaster has been avoided, tens of thousands of Steam gamers have returned to the Helldivers 2 store page to return their reviews back to positive. Over 200K negative reviews were posted over the weekend and so far, around 80,000 of those have now been changed back to positive.

There is still a long way to go to get the game's overall rating back up to positive from mixed, but efforts have begun and as we've already seen, Helldivers fans tend to get results when focused on a unified goal.

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KitGuru Says: Arrowhead's positive rating for Helldivers 2 will no doubt be restored eventually, just as long as no further PR disasters take place.