News
In its 41st year, the Golden Joystick Awards returned to an in-person format in London lastnight. Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 stole the spotlight, securing a record-breaking seven awards, notably Ultimate Game of the Year. Check out complete list of winners here.
Valve have announced the Steam Deck OLED: 7.4-inch 90Hz OLED custom Samsung screen, 1,000-nit HDR peak brightness, 50 watt-hour battery, and a bunch of other little improvements. It’s not the Steam Deck 2, but it looks very nice. The Steam Deck OLED ships November 16th - unless you’re in Australia, in which case we’re still boned.
Ten years after the release of GTA V, and in line with their 25th anniversary, Rockstar have confirmed the first look at the next in the franchise will be dropping early next month. In a series of tweets, Rockstar president Sam Houser reflects on the company’s history and speaks to his excitement for “many more years of sharing these experiences”.
Remedy have provided an interesting (and very impressive) look behind the technical curtain of Alan Wake 2 and its engine Northlight in a new blogpost. AW2 has been universally praised for its visual technical achievements (among other things), so it’s great to be able to read about some of the tools and tech they created or utilised.
Nintendo officially announced a live-action film adaptation of The Legend of Zelda. Wes Ball, known for The Maze Runner, will direct, with Nintendo and Sony Pictures to co-finance. Shigeru Miyamoto and Avi Arad, producer of Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, lead the production. Miyamoto stated, “It will take time until its completion, but I hope you look forward to seeing it.”
Microsoft is teaming up with Inworld AI to create AI tools for Xbox game developers. The new partnership features an AI copilot for crafting characters, scripts and dialogue. Hard to ignore the seemingly tonedeaf or just careless timing; proudly announcing this amid thousands of ongoing layoffs in the industry, not to mention the concerns around labour issues and exploitation associated with generative AI.
Since its inception, the Epic Games Store strat was to throw money at developers to secure exclusives, and burn millions to give away free games every week. This being a money sink is not surprising, but revealed today in the Epic v. Google trial was confirmation that it is indeed still not profitable. Epic VP/GM Steve Allison testified on the witness stand that focus is still on growth. Reminder that we learned during Epic v. Apple that Epic’s goal was to secure half of all PC gaming revenue.
After two years of research and production, Fredrik Knudsen’s ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ examining EVE Online is here. And it’s six hours. Six hours. EVE has over 20 years of community lore spanning the rise and fall of empires, espionage, piracy and everything in between - so settle in and enjoy this monumental documentary.
Following a successful launch, Lies of P director Ji Won Choi has confirmed plans for and showcased some art from forthcoming DLC. He also mentions some balance and QOL changes, a couple of which are huge improvements. Watch the full Director’s Letter here.