Square Enix has plenty to share on several iconic franchises including Life is Strange, while Sony partners with the premier fighting game tournament series in this week’s gaming news. Game Rant has compiled some of the biggest gaming news stories from this past week together into a concise post for fans and enthusiasts to stay up to date on the most important events in the industry per week. Highlighting the most relevant stories, this list is not inherently and totally objective, and will not contain every news story this week. Rather, this is intended for gaming fans who want a quick rundown on the largest/most impactful stories that occurred in the last week in games.
Tons of news came in this week’s roundup of gaming news, including Square Enix’s March showcase revealing the upcoming Life is Strange: True Colors, more info on Forspoken, formerly Project Athia, Avengers, and more. Sony has partnered with another esports company to jointly acquire the EVO fighting game championship series. Activision experiences layoffs, despite CEO Bobby Kotick receiving a $200 million bonus as well as Activision itself receiving record revenue. Former Stadia VP Jade Raymond move on to her own independent studio to develop a PlayStation-exclusive IP. All that and more in this week’s roundup of games industry news.
Square Enix had quite a bit of announcements and updates to share in its first ever “Square Enix Presents” digital showcase. Alongside the confirmation of rumors surrounding a new Life is Strange game, Square Enix also had several updates for soon-to-release and existing games in the publisher’s lineup. Here are the highlights from that showcase:
- Life is Strange: True Colors Revealed: Alex Chen, an Asian American woman with a mysterious psychic power, endeavors to solve the mystery of her brother’s death in the picturesque western town of Haven Springs. Using the “psychic power of empathy” to discover the true emotions of others, Life is Strange: True Colors is notably the first Life is Strange game that doesn’t take place from a high schooler protagonist’s perspective.
- Life is Strange and Before the Storm Remasters: Alongside True Colors‘ Ultimate Edition release on September 10, players will also receive the Life is Strange remasters. Both the original Life is Strange, as well as Life is Strange: Before the Storm will receive updated visuals and animations.
- Project Athia Becomes Forspoken: Several months after the game was first revealed at PlayStation’s event, Project Athia‘s official title is now Forspoken. Following the story of a Frey Holland, she’s transposed into a fantasy world where she must adapt with magical abilities to survive.
- Outriders final trailer: Ahead of the game’s April Fool’s Day release, Outriders is launching day-and-date on Xbox Game Pass, as well as separately on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC, PS4, PS5, and Stadia. The showcase went further in-depth on the loot systems
- Marvel’s Avengers Receiving War of Wakanda expansion: Alongside details of the Operation Hawkeye — Future Imperfect expansion available now, Crystal Dynamics also showed off the “War of Wakanda” expansion coming later this year, alongside the expected reveal of Black Panther joining Avengers‘ roster.
The Evolution Championship Series, often considered the premier tournament of the year for fighting game communities, has now been acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Partnering with startup RTS, esports arm of the Endeavor company, PlayStation and RTS are jointly acquiring the EVO series under the PlayStation banner. Mark Julio, head of business development for EVO, also made it clear that this does not inherently affect which games are eligible for competition.
Tony Cannon, co-founder of the EVO championship series, expressed optimism in the wake of the acquisition:
“Both companies bring a wealth of experience and share our passion for what makes the fighting game community so great. We are looking forward to working with them to launch Evo to the next level while remaining true to our roots.”
EVO 2021 will take place in August of this year, and will be organized entirely online due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
In spite of Activision Blizzard’s record revenue earnings prior to BlizzCon, the company has made the decision to lay off over 50 employees from various departments. Shortly thereafter, it seems CEO Bobby Kotick plans to receive a $200 million bonus payment thanks to a “Shareholder Value Creation Incentive” clause in his employment agreement. This, of course, has led to backlash from gaming fans as well as Activision Blizzard investors, noting the payout is deeply unethical.
One of the hardest-hit portions of the company was the esports programming departments, responsible for live events related to competitive activity like Call of Duty tournaments. Employees who were laid off also received severance, “job transition support,” and even $200 Battle.net gift cards as some form of recompense.
A little over a month after Google had announced the shuttering of its first-party development studio, Stadia Games & Entertainment, Jade Raymond moves on to bigger and better things. Formerly leading in-house development of Stadia games, Jade Raymond has now established her own independent game development studio, Haven Studios. Announced on the PlayStation Blog, Raymond also announced the studio’s inaugural project would be a PlayStation-exclusive IP as well.
Graphics card technology continues to see worldwide shortages, as a new report gives an update on Nvidia’s manufacturing timeline in 2021. According to Digitimes, Samsung’s manufacturing of the chipsets required for Nvidia’s Ampere architecture have been met with “difficulty.” Digitimes’ report expects shortages to last throughout the year, echoing the same sentiment from Nvidia CFO Collette Kress’ comments earlier in the year stating that “supply does remain tight at this time.”
Recently, Atlus had issued out another feedback survey to fans, including some questions regarding Xbox players. While the overall survey remains relatively the same as previously issued feedback requests, an additional platform was added to several questions regarding game releases: Xbox. Of course, this lead to speculation that games from the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei would eventually come to Microsoft’s platform, something seemingly affirmed by Windows Central Editor Jez Corden.
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