Update Patch | April 2024
April happened and I’m fed up with discussing real-world events in these introductory paragraphs given how terrible the world is. This month, plenty was available for gamers and non-gamers. Whether it be Stellar Blade, Tales of Kenzera: Zau, Harold Halibut or a TV adaptation of Fallout, it was hard not to be entertained. This month also saw startmenu’s fifth birthday, and with that in mind, we’ve added to the Update Patch a new writer’s note section, where I shall offer a few short thoughts on a particular subject that month. Because as we know, there aren’t enough opinions out there.
1. Xbox’s Financial, Indie & Future Announcements
Microsoft had a busy month of announcing Xbox-related happenings, some bad and some not-so-bad.
The company provided its Q3 FY24 earnings release which had some mixed indications for Xbox’s financial performance. The company reported that revenue from content and services was up by 62% and largely driven by the company’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did mention in an investor call (as detailed by The Verge) that following the release of some Xbox first-party games, the company had “7 games among the top 25 on the PlayStation Store, more than any other publisher.” However, console sales were down by over 30% and CFO Amy Hood mentioned that forecasts say revenues from Xbox hardware are expected to decline in the next quarter.
Concerns on the finances aside, the company had an ID@Xbox Showcase in partnership (bafflingly) with IGN. Prominent announcements and highlights included a gameplay demo of Thunderlotus’ follow-up to Spiritfarer in inconceivably 33 co-op player game 33 Immortals, a spooky trailer for horror point-and-click game Centum, a cinematic story trailer for Dontnod’s next project Lost Records: Bloom & Rage due in late 2024, the next Jackbox pack, updates on Vampire Survivors and Dungeons of Hinterberg, and Kaizen Game Works’ (Paradise Killer) next game entitled Promise Mascot Agency which wins the best title award.
Xbox also took the time to announce a showcase for further announcements in June, with its Summer Games Showcase to be held on the 9th of June with an undisclosed and not at all Call of Duty-related Direct Showcase following the event. Those who saw last year’s event with the showcase followed by the 40-minute Starfield Direct presentation will be familiar with the style here.
2. Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase
Microsoft wasn’t the only company showcasing the indie space, as Nintendo had its own Indie World event earlier in the month.
Headline announcements included the next SteamWorld game entitled SteamWorld Heist 2, with the game due to feature naval combat alongside the usual tactical combat coming on 8th August of this year. Simogo (Sayonara Wild Hearts) also showed further details of its next game published by Annapurna Interactive, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, with spooky mansions and puzzles abound. Lykke Studios also had an extended showcase of chilled cross-stitch puzzler stitch.
Additional details also came on indie cat game Little Kitty, Big City coming on the 9th of May, Atari shockingly announced a revival of the Yars franchise with Yars Rising from the fine folks at WayForwardt and following previous delays, 3D platformer Europa confirmed a new release window for later this year.
3. Embracer Makes Like A Banana and Splits
Hey Lars… It’s not good that you’ve probably been on this website more times than me at this point…
Embattled Swedish games corporation Embracer Group announced its intention to split into three new entities. The new companies will be tentatively titled Asmodee Group, Coffee Stain & Friends, and Middle-earth Enterprises & Friends.
For those unfamiliar, Asmodee is a board game publisher that, through its subsidiaries, has published games such as Pandemic, Catan & Ticket to Ride. Coffee Stain & Friends is made up of Coffee Stain Studios (Goat Simulator), Ghost Ship Games (Deep Rock Galactic), Tarsier Studios (Little Nightmares), and a number of other gaming subsidiaries. Middle Earth Enterprises & Friends retains the licences to Lord of the Rings and Tomb Raider and will encompass studios including Crystal Dynamics, Dambuster Studios, 4A Games and others.
Explaining the rationale for the move, Embracer Group co-founder and CEO Lars Wingefors gave this statement “This move has been made with the intention to unleash the full potential of each team and provide them with their own leadership and strategic direction… I intend to remain part of [the companies] as an active, committed, and supportive shareholder of all three new entities”.
The move comes following a raft of layoffs and divestitures for the group. In the wake of this, Wingefors spoke to GamesIndustry.Biz, accepting that “I'm sure I deserve a lot of criticism, but I don't think my team or companies deserve all the criticism. I could take a lot of that blame myself… I still feel I have the trust from many or all of my key entrepreneurs and CEOs that have joined the group.”
4. The Fallout From Fallout
As mentioned in the intro, thanks to how well the Amazon Prime adaptation of Fallout has done critically and commercially, there has been a renewed focus on the games this month.
When it comes to the impact of the show, both Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 have seen huge boosts in player counts. According to SteamDB at the time of writing, the MMO hit its all-time peak of concurrent players on the 21st of April with 73,368 players and the 2015 single-player entry had its biggest player base since launch with a peak of just over 187,000 players on the 28th of April.
The timing has coincided with a next-gen update for Fallout 4, although the update has stumbled in the early days of its launch. The patch resulted in many mods becoming incompatible with the game and the patch’s promised choice of quality and performance options only launched with a working performance mode.
The most substantial of these issues is the impact this update had on the huge and soon-to-be-released Fallout London mod, which the development team lead Dean Carter has explained will be delayed to make sure it releases as the “best mod possible for all [their] followers” with the size of it described as a “DLC-sized” mod and has been worked on for over four years.
5. The Crew, LittleBigPlanet 3 And More Games Disappear
The month has also seen a renewed focus on the delisting of games following news of a number of games going offline.
Sony had confirmed that the LittleBigPlanet 3 servers on PlayStation 4 with users still able to access the offline features and any user-generated levels stored on the console. More concerningly were the reports that following the closure of its servers in March, players were unable to access always-online racer The Crew at all. Since then, PC Gamer reported that players who have tried to load the game found a message on the game’s page saying “You no longer have access to this game”. Those booting the game from the install directory in Steam have been only able to access a demo version, with all these indicating players’ licences for the game have been revoked.
This paired with the forthcoming delisting of three Capcom games (Dark Void, Dark Void: Zero and Flock)has once again raised the issue of server closures, digital ownership and the lack of actual ownership players have of the games they purchase. Groups such as the voluntary group Does It Play have raised awareness around the problems physical and digital products may face, and Ross Scott of YouTube channel Accursed Farms has launched the Stop Killing Games website where users can sign petitions in their respective countries to raise the issues with the politicians.
6. Take-Two Add To The Layoffs
Fun reminder that Strauss Zelnick is on of those CEOs with so much time and money he can just spend his days getting weirdly ripped…
The industry continues with layoffs for developers, and this month publisher Take-Two announced that 5% of its workforce would be reduced in a “cost reduction” programme.
As detailed by Reuters, this amounts to approximately 600 employees who will be let go and the cuts also will result in an unspecified number of cancelled projects. The company said it will be able to make an annual cost saving of $165 million as a result of the move. Take-Two had just over 11,500 employees as of March of last year, and charges from the cancellation of projects and severance packages will amount to $200 million.
The move comes following the announcement that the company was purchasing Borderlands maker Gearbox from the aforementioned Embracer Group for $460 million in stock and that horror studio Bloober Team (Layers of Fear, The Medium) has two unannounced projects for Take-Two.
7. BAFTA Game Awards
The 2023 Awards Season concluded with the BAFTA Game Awards, which unsurprisingly saw Baldur’s Gate 3 picking up 5 awards including Best Game.
Elsewhere in the show, some titles not particularly well celebrated elsewhere received recognition. Sad Owl Studios’ Viewfinder picked up awards for Best British Game and New Intellectual Property, and the Game Design award went to Mintrocket’s Dave The Diver. The BAFTA also presented its yearly special award to the charity SpecialEffect, with the award accepted on the night by founder and CEO Dr Mick Donegan MBE.
Whilst the night didn’t have announcements as is customary at the ceremony, it did have some updates on games from BAFTA winners of past ceremonies. This included an update on the next game from My Child - Lebensborn developers entitled My Child - New Beginnings, Polygon Treehouse (Röki) providing an update on Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island and others.
Other winners included; Alan Wake 2 picking up awards in Artistic and Audio Achievement, Nadji Jeter grabbing the winner for Performer in a Leading Role after his work as Miles Morales in Spider-Man 2, and Super Mario Bros. Wonder picking up awards in the family and multiplayer categories.
Patch Notes:
Reedpop announced dates for the games convention EGX, with the event combining with MCM Comic Con on the 25th - 27th of October at London’s ExCeL centre.
Microsoft wasn’t the only company with sales news. Landfall confirmed that co-op horror Content Warning hit 1 million sales after its release on April 1st, and Dragon’s Dogma 2 hit 2.5 million sales forcing Capcom to revise earnings forecasts for the better.
Larian Studios has confirmed that following Baldur’s Gate 3, the studio is beginning work on two new projects.
Speaking of new projects, the latest Lord of the Rings game has been unveiled as Tales of the Shire from developer Wētā Workshop and publisher Private Division.
The Triple I showcase this month highlighted plenty of exciting announcements, including Slay The Spire 2, The Rogue Prince of Persia from Dead Cells team Evil Empire, and updates from games including 33 Immortals, Hyper Light Breaker, Risk of Rain 2 and more.
Atlus revealed its next game, Metaphor: ReFantazio, will be released on the 11th of October later this year.
Ubisoft faced backlash following concern that missions centred around Jabba The Hutt In Star Wars: Outlaws were to be locked behind Gold and Ultimate editions of the game. The company responded with a statement to Eurogamer saying Hutt and their cartel “will be part of the experience for everyone who purchases the game, regardless of edition”.
Deadline reported that LaKeith Stanfield (Sorry To Bother You, Knives Out) has been in discussion to produce and star in a film adaptation of Strange Scaffold’s El Paso, Elsewhere.
Epic continues with more events and updates to Fortnite, including the appearance of Billie Eilish, and the ability to block toxic emotes from other players.
Eurogamer reported that staff at UK retailer GAME are to expect redundancies in the near future.
Writer’s Note:
Much was made of The Game Awards’ inability to appreciate developers, whether it be the 30-second speeches or the lion’s share of the show going to trailers and the numerous non-gaming celebrities, feedback from developers and industry professionals was scathing, with most notably Fallout: New Vegas director Josh Sawyer decrying the show as an “embarrassing indictment of a segment of the industry desperate for validation”.
For organiser and host Geoff Keighley, I understand the need to balance getting the show funded with honouring developers. The musical performances are also uniformly good. But the balance can be much better, and that balance was more eloquently shown at this month’s BAFTA Gaming Awards.
The lack of trailers and announcements, with a few short videos from BAFTA alumni, are a chore for some. To say the quiet bit out loud though, awards shows are always meant to be a bit boring. By nature, they are shows in which an industry pat themselves on the back. However, what BAFTA seems to understand better is that award shows serve as a cultural pause in a world moving faster than ever, an appreciation of what people have done in the space. That was seen in the lack of controlled speeches including great speeches from Baldur’s Gate 3 composer and the team at Sad Owl Studios (Viewfinder), the tribute to industry professionals who passed away, and the show’s focused runtime. It isn’t perfect, but if the Game Awards wants to improve, it has somewhere to take some cues from.
