Gaming
Microsoft ad Activision have recently made the unfortunate decision to cut 1,900 jobs, resulting in more layoffs within the video game industry
Microsoft and Activision have recently made the unfortunate decision to cut 1,900 jobs, resulting in more layoffs within the video game industry. This news is undoubtedly disappointing for both the affected employees and the gaming community as a whole. It serves as a stark reminder of the challenges faced by the industry, where job security can often be precarious. These layoffs further highlight the need for companies to prioritize stability and support for their employees, especially during uncertain times.
According to a report from IGN, Microsoft has made the decision to lay off 1,900 employees within its gaming divisions. Internal teams at Microsoft, Bethesda, and the recently acquired Activision Blizzard have all been impacted. Xbox head Phil Spencer recently addressed the staff, assuring them that those impacted by the situation will be provided with appropriate severance benefits in accordance with local employment laws. Furthermore, additional support will also be extended to them during this time.
According to Spencer, the job cuts are a direct consequence of the company’s efforts to establish a strategic plan and cost structure that can sustain its expanding business. The companies have established priorities and identified areas of overlap to facilitate their mutual growth.
He goes on to say, “In a move that has undoubtedly caused much distress, the company has chosen to downsize its gaming workforce by about 1,900 positions, affecting a significant portion of our 22,000-strong team.” The Gaming Leadership Team and I are fully dedicated to approaching this process with the utmost care and consideration. According to Spencer, Microsoft expressed its gratitude towards the individuals who brought “creativity, passion, and dedication” to the games they were involved in. In a surprising turn of events, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra has made the decision to depart from the company amidst the recent layoffs. Additionally, the highly anticipated survival game Odyssey has unfortunately been cancelled.
As game developers such as Activision and Bethesda shift their attention towards creating games for the Xbox Series X, it’s worth noting that popular franchises like Call of Duty and select Bethesda games are still being released and supported on the PS5 and PS4. These layoffs are expected to have a significant impact on development times and content production, following Microsoft’s acquisition of the Activision slate of developers for a staggering $69 billion last year.
The recent wave of layoffs, which adds to the previous cuts at People Can Fly and Black Forest Games, has resulted in a staggering number of job losses for video game developers this year. It’s disheartening to see the industry facing such challenges. This represents a significant portion of the total layoffs that took place in 2023.
Gaming
Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made
As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.
Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”
You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Gaming
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5
You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.
The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.
The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.
The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.
Gaming
This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive
Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.
For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”
Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.
Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.
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