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.

According to five separate sources - and later seemingly confirmed by Nintendo themselves - the Switch 2 appears to’ve been delayed til 2025. Nintendo is advising publishers that its next-generation console will be delayed until the early months of 2025, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Sources close to the matter have reported that troubled Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM have let go of 24 staff, and cancelled its latest project - for the third time. We now know this included the last writer on Disco - Argo Tuulik - who has now spoken out:

It’s the people on top – the motherfuckers in sailing shoes and bowties – that fucked Harry, fucked Kim, fucked Robert, Rostov, Helen, Olga, Cash, fucked Elysium, fucked you and me too. They are not artists, they are professional fuckers.

He believes the studio “will forever remain a studio known for a single game”, with all members of the ZA/UM art collective now gone, but also reminds us of their promise: “Un jour je serai de retour près de toi.”

According to a new report, FROMSOFT is now the sole owner of the Elden Ring IP, no longer sharing rights with Bandai Namco. This change was seemingly facilitated via investments from Sony and Tencent.

I really want to like this game. It has a really well defined and executed identity and the overarching gameplay loop is super fun at a high level. What stopped me from having a great time won’t stop everyone: the gunplay and movement is chunky and cumbersome by design - and indeed fits the tone well - but it’s a bit too heavy and laborious for me. Still think it’s a super cool game, but it’s not my preferred feel.