If you’re based in the US, you’ve probably already begun your countdown to Thanksgiving, which falls on the fourth Thursday of November each year.
You may or may not also be processing some feelings about this year’s US election, but either way, we welcome you to join us as we take another look at what’s been happening in the world of gaming this week.
As ever, there’s plenty to chew on and dissect, so whether you’re trying to avoid the non-gaming news or not, let’s take a look at the biggest news in the gaming industry over the past seven days!
Star Wars Outlaws gets a new creative director
You might think it’s a little odd for a single-player game that’s already been released to get itself a new creative director, but that’s what happened for Star Wars Outlaws this week.
New creative director Drew Rechner promised in an announcement that he would continue to improve and update the game in order to make it the game fans truly wanted to see.
Given that Star Wars fans have historically proven a…difficult bunch to impress, we think that might be a touch optimistic on Rechner’s part, but given that his ambitious plans include overhauling stealth, combat, and exploration, he seems to be on the right track.
Nintendo is still planning to announce a Switch successor before March
This year, Nintendo announced its intention to reveal the successor to the ageing Switch console sometime before March, and this week, the company’s president assured sceptics that was still the case.
Shuntaro Furukawa told Reuters that Nintendo’s plan to announce the Switch 2 this fiscal year hadn’t changed, but that doing so before January was “quite difficult”.
Furukawa put this difficulty down to a desire to sell more Switch consoles in the holiday season; he said that a Switch 2 announcement would “divert attention” away from the Switch “in the middle of the critical year-end shopping season”.
The Switch 2 will be backwards compatible
Elsewhere in Nintendo news, we learned this week that the Switch’s successor will be backwards compatible with original Switch games, which presumably made Switch owners everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.
Furukawa shared this news himself on social media, confirming that he had affirmed the backwards compatibility of the console “at today’s corporate management policy briefing” (this message was originally posted on the 6th).
It would have been somewhat silly for Nintendo to disallow players to enjoy the Switch’s library on the console’s successor, but Nintendo has a somewhat spotty history when it comes to sensible decision-making, after all.
Take-Two has sold its indie label Private Division
This week, we learned that Rockstar Games’ parent company Take-Two Interactive has sold its indie label Private Division, although the company didn’t disclose who the buyer was.
Speaking alongside the company’s financial results for the second quarter of the fiscal year, exec Karl Slatoff said the label had been sold “to focus our resources on growing our core and mobile businesses for the long term”.
Most of Private Division’s IP has also been sold along with the label, although Take-Two will continue to support action RPG No Rest for the Wicked, which possibly suggests that game enjoyed a higher level of financial success than Private Division’s other properties.
Grand Theft Auto 6 is still slated for an autumn release
That same Take-Two financial briefing also told us that Grand Theft Auto 6 is still scheduled to arrive sometime in autumn next year, putting paid to potential delay rumours.
The game was listed as part of Take-Two’s upcoming release slate, which also included titles like action prequel Mafia: The Old Country and looter-shooter Borderlands 4, both of which are set for release sometime in the next fiscal year.
Not having a concrete GTA 6 release date is a bit frustrating, but we think we’ll hear something more in the next few months, so don’t despair.
Roblox is cracking down on child safety
Gaming platform Roblox announced this week that it will implement new child safety measures in order to protect younger users on the platform, which has been a particular focal point of criticism aimed its way in recent months.
A post on the Roblox forums declares that the platform will now restrict users under the age of 13 from searching for experiences without an age rating, and these users will also be prohibited from accessing Social Hangouts or Free-form User Creation experiences.
In short, this essentially means that under-13s should find it more difficult to be able to use some of the features that critics have identified as hotspots for some of Roblox’s most problematic elements.
A competitor to The Sims has been delayed
inZOI, a competitor to EA’s mighty The Sims franchise, has been delayed to 2025 in order to allow its developers more time to work on it and polish it to perfection.
The game’s producer and director Kjun announced the news this week on Steam (although that post just points to a Discord message, which is a touch disappointing).
inZOI will now release on March 28th, which is technically the first concrete release date we’ve heard from the game as well, so at least that’s something!
A God of War Ragnarok update now lets you turn down puzzle hints
If, like us, you were particularly frustrated at Kratos’ companions’ insistence on helping him solve the “puzzles” in God of War Ragnarok, you’ll be pleased to know there’s now an update that lets you turn down the frequency of said hints.
It comes as part of the game’s 6.00 update, which also includes enhancements for the PS5 Pro and an extra audio accessibility option that adds descriptions to cinematics throughout the game.
Of course, it could be argued that many of the players who were already frustrated by the puzzles now know how to solve them anyway, and so the ability to turn down the hints comes a day late and a dollar short, but at least it’s there now!
