Somehow, an entire week has once again passed, and it’s time for us to take a look at the world in gaming news for the seven days we’ve all just sweated through as a nation.
We know we’re harping on the UK’s unprecedented heatwave right now, but honestly, it’s starting to get into our heads. Will it ever rain again? Will we ever see cold weather? Such things are unknown quantities at the moment.
Let’s distract ourselves with some good old-fashioned news rundowns, shall we? Here’s everything you need to know from the gaming world over the last week!
Xbox users suffered a scare thanks to an outage
If you tried to get onto Xbox to do some online gaming this week, you were probably met with an error message, especially if you decided to log on early in the week.
A service error saw many Xbox users unable to access the platform’s services this week, and although it was resolved relatively quickly, it probably left a lot of people disgruntled.
Still, at least Xbox can comfort itself with the knowledge that it is far and away the worst performer in this generation’s console race. It’s the PC users we feel sorry for.
Don’t expect the Switch 3 to outperform any of its rivals
We’re still right at the beginning of the Switch 2’s life cycle, but when it comes to the Switch 3, it’s unlikely the console will be focusing on raw technical power, at least if comments made by Shigeru Miyamoto in a new interview are anything to go by.
Miyamoto said in the interview, which was with Japanese platform Famitsu, that gamers are “no longer just looking for specs” in their consoles, and that Nintendo wants to provide “gameplay that only [it] can create”.
We think Miyamoto is on the right track with this one. The graphics race can only end one way, but coming up with new, innovative, and exciting gameplay concepts is going to stand the test of time as a strategy.
Capcom has had a bumper quarter thanks to a couple of big releases
Pragmata and Resident Evil Requiem have made big waves for Capcom, it turns out, at least if the company’s latest quarterly release is any indication (and we think it is).
The report states that Pragmata has managed to sell over 2.5 million copies worldwide, which isn’t bad at all for a brand new and untested IP with no existing weight behind it.
Meanwhile, Resident Evil Requiem continues to go from strength to strength, with the latest game in the horror franchise managing to surpass 8 million sales since February.
Sony has announced the monthly PS Plus games for August
Three more games are joining the PlayStation Plus lineup for August, Sony announced this week, and these three can be enjoyed by anybody, regardless of which subscription tier you’re on.
First up is zombie sandbox action-adventure game Dying Light 2 Stay Human: Reloaded Edition, which lets you loose in a world full of things to find and zombies to kill (again).
It’s joined by “friendslop”-style game Big Walk and indie survival horror title Signalis. We can especially recommend the latter; it’s a little mind-bending, but its simulation of old-school key-hunting horror experiences is unmatched.
Double Fine has been hit by layoffs
We hate including posts about layoffs in these rundowns, but we’d be doing a disservice to the staff members losing their jobs at some of the biggest studios in the world if we didn’t.
This time around, it’s the turn of Psychonauts 2’s Double Fine, which parted ways with Xbox earlier this year following a major restructuring effort. 23 employees at Double Fine have lost their jobs in this round.
Double Fine’s Tim Schafer says that everyone who was being laid off from the company was “important”, although whether any upper management-level staff were included in this round of cuts is unclear.
EA’s Andrew Wilson raked it in this year
Andrew Wilson, the CEO of controversial publisher EA, raked in a bonus to the tune of almost £30 million this year as a result of Battlefield 6’s success, despite the fact that some of its devs were laid off earlier this year.
That’s around £5 million more than his bonus last year. The money has reached the kind of level where it becomes pertinent to ask exactly how much more he’s going to need before he’s satisfied.
We’re sure that Wilson’s frankly obscene bonus will come as a great comfort to the developers who now have to navigate an extremely uncertain job market hunting for work that will pay barely a fraction of that figure.
Subnautica 2 has already sold 5 million copies
Despite launching in Early Access (and releasing amid significant drama between publisher Krafton and developer Unknown Worlds, no less), underwater survival game Subnautica 2 has already sold 5 million copies.
That’s according to Krafton’s latest financial report, which also reveals that Subnautica 2 has given Krafton its best second quarter on record. We wonder if that will be a factor in future negotiations between the studios.
Of course, the big earner outside of Subnautica 2 was battle royale shooter PUBG: Battlegrounds, which brought in 25% greater revenue this year than it did last year on a year-on-year basis.
There’s a Wuchang: Fallen Feathers sequel on the way
Earlier this year, it was reported that the development team behind the fantasy Soulslike Wuchang: Fallen Feathers was disbanded, but it looks like that hasn’t deterred the game’s main creative force from pushing forward with a sequel.
Publisher 505 Games revealed this week that Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is getting a followup. It’s currently in what the publisher calls the “preparation phase”, so don’t expect to hear from it for a while yet.
Still, we’re very glad that this particular franchise isn’t going away. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers was a surprisingly accomplished Soulslike, and we think its developer deserves another chance to iron out some of the kinks. 505 clearly agrees!
