With spooky season now well and truly behind us, it’s time to look ahead to Christmas and the holiday period, and this is usually a pretty busy time for gaming.
The Game Awards are, technically speaking, just around the corner; in early December, we’ll likely get a slew of new announcements and reveals, so we may well be waiting for any truly seismic news until then.
Of course, as usual, that doesn’t mean nothing is happening, so grab a hot drink (probably a gingerbread latte, now that coffee shops are refusing to serve pumpkin spice), and let’s see what’s been going on in gaming this week!
Battlefield’s battle royale mode is real
Battlefield RedSec was announced this week; it’s a Battlefield-centric battle royale game, and it’s free-to-play, even if you don’t happen to own Battlefield 6.
EA describes the game as a “bold new take on the battle royale genre”, and the studio says that all gameplay-changing features in Battlefield RedSec will be “free or earnable”, so there’s no pay-to-win here.
RedSec launched alongside the first Battlefield 6 season, which introduces new weapons, a new map, and a new gameplay mode, among other things.
A Crash Bandicoot animated series might be coming
Rumours abounded this week that a Crash Bandicoot animated series could be in the works courtesy of streaming giant Netflix.
Those rumours indicate that the series is currently in development, and while they initially pointed to Sonic Prime’s WildBrain as the architect of said series, the original article was subsequently amended to retract that assertion.
Still, if there is a Crash Bandicoot series in development, it’ll be nice to see the chaotic marsupial venturing out of his usual video game cave and into the world of animated shows; we think the property will lend itself well to the format.
Indie horror Darkwood is getting a sequel
Darkwood is one of the best indie horror games you (probably) haven’t played, and this week, another excuse to check out the original appeared: the game is getting a sequel.
Developer Ice-Pick Lodge (whose name you may know from the Pathologic series) and publisher Hooded Horse are promising a followup offering “new lands and waters to explore” and “new creatures to slay”.
The original Darkwood is a deeply unsettling adventure, and we can’t say we thought it left a huge amount of room for a sequel, but we’re excited to see what these two studios do with this one.
Amazon’s New World is ending development amid big layoffs
MMORPG New World, which launched back in 2021, is ending active development and switching to maintenance mode amid thousands of layoffs at the retail giant.
The game’s servers will remain active for the foreseeable future, but there won’t be any more major updates, so what you’ve got right now is largely what you’ll be playing for at least the next year or so.
It comes as Amazon lays off thousands of employees across many of its divisions, citing advancements made by AI as the reason for staff members losing their jobs.
Hideo Kojima had no idea he was offered a Matrix game
This week, it emerged that the Wachowski sisters once considered Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding creator Hideo Kojima for a Matrix video game.
Not only that, but Kojima himself had no idea that he was in the running for the project, and that nobody told him at the time that such a game was being considered.
For what it’s worth, Kojima says he was busy working on Metal Gear Solid 2 at the time, and probably wouldn’t have been able to accept “right away”. Still, he says there “could’ve been a way to make it work” if someone had told him.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting a Switch 2 upgrade
As outlined by Nintendo this week in a brand new trailer, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, which gave so many of us something comforting to do during the COVID-19 pandemic, is getting a Switch 2 upgrade.
The Switch 2 Edition of the game will bring improved visuals and performance, of course, as well as Joy-Con 2 mouse control support to help you shape your island in an even more precise fashion.
It’ll arrive alongside a major free update that brings a new hotel for you to manage, as well as a host of other new items and improvements (for both Switch 2 and Switch!).
Nintendo’s Palworld lawsuit dealt a blow by the Japanese patent office
Nintendo suffered a setback in its lawsuit against Palworld developer Pocketpair this week courtesy of the Japanese patent office, which rejected one of the gaming giant’s applications.
Specifically, the patent office essentially says that Nintendo’s attempt to patent a system of creature capture is invalid, which means it can’t use this as ammunition against Pocketpair.
Whether or not this means Nintendo changes tack or appeals the decision remains to be seen, but it won’t be good news at Nintendo HQ.
GTA 6’s Rockstar has been accused of union-busting
Rockstar, the studio behind the hugely anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6, was accused of union-busting this week after firing a number of developers who were apparently involved in union work.
The developers were fired for “gross misconduct”, according to parent company Take-Two, but Bloomberg’s above report states that all of the employees in question were part of a union group on Discord and were either already part of a union or were planning to organise.
Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain president Alex Marshall described the firings as “one of the most blatant and ruthless acts of union-busting in the history of the games industry”. Yikes.
The Silent Hill 2 remake is probably coming to Xbox
Microsoft’s Xbox hardware might be in trouble financially, but that doesn’t mean new games aren’t coming to the platform, as evidenced by a new ESRB rating that emerged this week.
The rating makes clear reference to “Xbox Series” under the “Platforms” heading for Silent Hill 2, and while it’s technically possible this could be the original game, it’s far more likely to be last year’s remake.
The game has already been available for PC and PS5 since October last year, so bringing it to Xbox Series X/S would make a lot of sense.
