It’s once again time for a look at what’s been happening in the gaming news world this week, so if you had any other plans this morning (or whenever you happen to be reading!), prepare to postpone them.
As always, it’s been an eventful week, so while we’re settling into the between-major-shows lull (that is, of course, not an official term), you won’t want for entertainment.
Grab your favourite drink and your favourite chair, take a seat, and join us as we run through the week’s events in the gaming world!
Master Chief’s voice actor isn’t happy with the White House
This week, Master Chief voice actor Steve Downes, who’s voiced the Halo protagonist since the series’ inception, decried the use of a clip depicting the character in a White House pro-Iran War video.
Downes called the clip “disgusting and juvenile war porn” and demanded that the White House remove his clip from the montage, which also shows other pop culture characters, “immediately”.
Of course, the White House probably won’t do any such thing, but it’s nice to know that Downes opposes the use of his voice in this way, at least.
EA has laid off some of its Battlefield staffers
In another episode of “just because your game is successful doesn’t mean you get to keep your job”, EA laid off a number of staffers across its Battlefield development studios this week.
Confirming the layoffs to IGN, EA said they were down to a “realignment” happening across all of the studios, which include outfits like Motive, DICE, and Criterion.
This doesn’t mean that EA will stop supporting Battlefield 6, however; the publisher says it’s still committed to keeping the game going and providing regular updates, although we’re sure that won’t come as much consolation to those who’ve lost their jobs.
Resident Evil Requiem is getting story DLC
Rejoice, fans of this year’s most talked-about survival horror game, because Resident Evil Requiem is getting story expansion DLC sometime in the future.
This news was revealed by Requiem director Koshi Nakanishi on X, with Nakanishi also confirming that the game is getting a new minigame and a photo mode sometime soon in the video.
We don’t yet know what the story DLC will focus on, but if the last few Resident Evil games are anything to go by, we can perhaps expect a new character to take the protagonist reins.
Fortnite raises the price of its V-Bucks…
Epic announced this week that V-Bucks are about to become more expensive in Fortnite, with the price of the currency’s bundles going up starting from this week.
Apparently, the costs are being raised so that Epic can “pay the bills”, because “the cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot”. We can’t imagine the game isn’t still massively profitable, but hey.
The Fortnite Battle Pass will now award fewer V-Bucks to players as well, but on the bright side, it’ll cost fewer V-Bucks to purchase, so everything should level out on that score.
…and Save the World is going free-to-play
It’s a double whammy of Fortnite news this week, as Epic also revealed that the game’s original Save the World mode will be going free-to-play soon.
As revealed on the game’s new official website, Save the World will stop charging you to play it on April 16th, and registering beforehand will allow you to contribute to a community goal and unlock rewards.
If you’re sick of getting sniped by sweaty lifers while you’re just trying to complete missions in the Battle Royale mode, then this one might well be for you.
Microsoft has killed its “This Is an Xbox” campaign
After revealing a very early glimpse at what it’s working on for its next hardware generation, Microsoft seemingly killed off its “This Is an Xbox” marketing campaign this week.
The original Xbox Wire blog post pointing to the campaign appears to have been removed, and links to it seem to be dead from other blog posts as well, so it looks like everything is no longer an Xbox.
This is probably because Xbox wants you to buy its new hardware when it’s released, but if you’ve already got an Xbox in your house, the incentive for doing so is significantly reduced.
Pokemon Pokopia is selling well, it seems
Nintendo revealed this week that its cosy spinoff Pokemon Pokopia has set a decent pace for sales, managing to pass 2.2 million units sold within its first four days.
That means it’s still lagging quite significantly behind the mainline Pokemon series, but given that this is a spinoff designed to appeal to more niche audiences than the core RPGs, that’s arguably to be expected.
Let’s hope that this shows Nintendo that experimenting with Pokemon and allowing other developers to create interesting games in that world is worth it.
Cyberpunk 2077 probably isn’t getting any new content
CD Projekt Red took to social media this week to confirm that no, its sprawling RPG Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t getting any new content, but that if anything changes, fans will be informed.
The studio’s announcement comes in the wake of rumours that The Witcher 3 will be getting a brand new expansion sometime in the near future, thus sparking suggestions that the same treatment would be given to Cyberpunk.
Now that we know that isn’t the case, you can safely reinstall your copy of The Witcher 3 and archive your Cyberpunk data, unless you’re embarking on another replay. No shame!
Warner Bros. Montreal seems to be laying off employees
In a round of news that arrived just as the week came to a close, Warner Bros. Montreal appears to be laying off a number of employees across many of its departments.
As noted by Eurogamer, several WB Montreal employees reported that they were looking for work on social media, so while the layoffs haven’t been confirmed, there’s strong evidence to suggest they’re happening.
The layoffs would follow years of bad news for WB’s gaming division, with huge flops like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and MultiVersus contributing to a downturn for the media giant’s interactive sector.
