A week after Nintendo sued its devs for “facilitating piracy at a colossal scale”, Yuzu has agreed to a $2.4M settlement and the shutdown of the Yuzu and Citra emulators. They’ll also cease all related activities and hand over domain, tools, and modified hardware to Nintendo. Read the final judgement here, and Yuzu’s statement here. While Nintendo are definitely setting an example here, the settlement means no legal precedent is being set.

There’s a temptation to talk about Pacific Drive with reference to genres: survival, extraction, roguelite, action, adventure, driving… But it’s doing something really cool with it’s tone and atmosphere, making it something altogether unique. Clever progression, tactile UI, great music, terrifying SFX, and a world worth exploring. Cool game.

After several years of radio silence, Neostream - the team behind potential vapourware Little Devil Inside - have re-emerged with six minutes of new footage and a relatively lengthy post on Kickstarter.

Began with a dream of two brothers. You supported.
…
Thank you all. For everything. We’ve not forgotten. Never will.

I backed this nearly ten years ago so won’t be holding my breath… but the footage does look great.

Bloody hell. EA is the latest to announce staff layoffs, cutting 5% of its workforce and moving away from licensed IP to focus on owned IP and sports games. Two EA studios were spun up to develop Black Panther and Iron Man games, and Respawn were working on Star Wars stuff, so those folks likely don’t feel great. This sucks, man.

Man, it doesn’t end. In a media release titled Difficult News About Our Workforce, SIE announce the laying off of around 900 employees: London Studio to close entirely, Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, and Firesprite impacted. Bloody hell.

Let’s goooo! Any new Pope game is an event, and an excuse to dust off the Playdate is doubly exciting. Mars After Midnight releases March 12.

Jason Schreier reports that British studio Supermassive (Until Dawn, The Quarry) will lay off 90 workers. This news comes like a month after PlayStation Productions announced a film adaptation of Until Dawn… Sad.

In a conversation with IGN, Hidetaka Miyazaki has said that “there is a high possibility that we would delegate the responsibility of director to those other Souls-ish games going forward.” He elaborated, “I think it’s very likely that we’ll see new directors going forward. And I think if we do that, I’d like to step away from that supervisory role and give them full direction and full control over those projects.” :(

Finally! The Elden Ring DLC trailer is here. H U M A N I T Y R E S T O R E D

Balatro absolutely rules. And this is coming from someone with abject disdain of poker… Traditional poker hands are your basic tools, but that’s about as far as the connection goes. The rest of Balatro is a wickedly clever, psychedelic, insta-classic roguelike through which you’ll devise cunning ways to break the game. Cards and modifiers are tightly designed, crisply defined and delightfully synergistic. Again, Balatro just rules. Play it.