2024-01

CI Games, the publisher behind last year's Lords of the Fallen and the Sniper Ghost Warrior franchise, has laid off 10 percent of its staff, as first reported by GamesIndustry.biz. The publication says its sources pointed to laid-off staff posting about the job cuts on LinkedIn, but has since received confirmation from CI Games. It's currently unclear how many people 10 percent of the company translates, too, considering CI Games is a publisher that also owns studios like Lords of the Fallen developer Hexworks and Sniper Ghost Warrior developer Underdog Studio.  CI Games CEO Marek Tymiński told GamesIndustry.biz the following:  "To preserve business strength and stability, CI Games has made the tough but necessary decision to implement a targeted round of redundancies, affecting approximately 10 percent of employees across the company," Tymiński told GamesIndustry.biz. "We would like to thank each of them for the part...

Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive has reportedly laid off 45 people, Kotaku has learned. The publication says those with knowledge of the situation at the studio said the layoffs only affected people at Behaviour's Montreal, Canada studio, with those 45 affected let go last week, between January 9 and 11.  However, Kotaku notes it was also told layoffs at the company began in December. The layoffs reportedly included cuts in various departments at the studio. Last month, Behaviour Interactive announced it was working with Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games on The Casting of Frank Stone, a new single player game set in the Dead by Daylight universe.  Game Informer has reached out to Behaviour Interactive PR to ask for confirmation of these layoffs and if affected employees will receive severance, and will update this story if it learns more.  These Behaviour Interactive layoffs...

Bethesda has announced The Elder Scrolls: Castles, a new mobile experience from the team behind Fallout Shelter. Like Fallout Shelter, Castles is a management sim, with Bethesda stating in an X post that “you'll build your own dynasty where every day in our world is a year in the game's world. Citizens are born, they die, rulers change, and can be betrayed.” Players control their own castle over multiple generations of rulers, families, and subjects. Decision-making dictates how well your kingdom operates and how content your subjects are; unhappy citizens may plot to overthrow you.  Your castle can be expanded with new rooms and items, plus workstations for underlings. It appears to feature a turn-based combat system with players equipping heroes with gear to battle enemies and gather resources to grow their kingdom. Though the game's App Store page states...

Star Trek: Discovery makes its way to the tabletop by the way of the mirror-verse. The cat-and-mouse chase between the U.S.S. Discovery and the I.S.S. Charon forms the basis for team play and conflict....

Developer Supermassive Games' branching-narrative horror, Until Dawn, which exclusively hit PlayStation in 2015, is the latest video game to get the film adaptation treatment. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Shazam! and Annabelle: Creation director David F. Sandberg will direct the Until Dawn movie.  It, Annabelle, and The Nun screenwriter Gary Dauberman is "doing a pass on the script," which was originally written by The Invitation writer Blair Butler, according to THR. This Until Dawn movie adaptation is being produced by Screen Gems and PlayStation Productions, two divisions within the wider Sony company. It is described as an R-rated horror movie.  Notably, Until Dawn used various movie and television actors for its cast, including Rami Malek, Hayden Panettiere, Jordan Fisher, and more. There's no word about whether this adaptation will bring back any of them to reprise their roles.  While Sandberg is perhaps best known as the director of...

When Rock Band initially launched in 2007, Harmonix touted it as a platform for players going forward. While subsequent launches and peripherals joined the mix in the succeeding years, the main pillar for that claim is the developer's steadfast support of the Rock Band platform through its aggressive downloadable content schedule. Today, however, the studio announced the end of Rock Band 4 downloadable content. The news comes more than two years after Harmonix was acquired by Fortnite and Unreal Engine developer Epic Games. Epic has since leveraged the studio's expertise for a side game within Fortnite called Fortnite Festival, which utilizes gameplay similar to the Rock Band. In the time since the studio's acquisition, the developer has closed the online servers for Rock Band 3, ended post-launch support for Fuser, and now, has ended Rock Band 4's more-than-eight-year run of...

Nightingale's Apex Creatures can be found in their specific biomes – Humbaba in the swamp; Eoten in the forest – when using the Hunt major card when opening a portal. They can also be found in the multiplayer “Vaults,” dungeon-like challenges meant for the endgame. The materials harvested from these creatures prove to be incredibly valuable for the average Realm Walker, so hunting them is well worth it. ...

Thunderful Group, the company behind games like 2023's SteamWorld Build and Lego Brick Tales, has announced plans to lay off roughly 20 percent of its workforce, as first reported by GamesIndustry.biz. Kotaku notes that 20 percent of the company's workforce is about 100 employees. As for why, Thunderful CEO Martin Walfisz cites the company's need to reduce costs.  "Since I joined as CEO in the fall of 2023, we have evaluated the current business and the future position of Thunderful," the company told GamesIndustry.biz. "To ensure and strengthen the viability of the group, we have found no alternative other than to reduce costs and focus the business on areas with the best future growth and profitability prospects. "It has been difficult to make these decisions, and it saddens me that we will have to say goodbye to many skilled colleagues and partners....

With 60 figures featured throughout Dungeons & Dragons' 50 years of history, miniature maker Wizkids has announced their biggest booster set so far, slated for release this July....

PTW, a support studio that's worked with some of the industry's biggest companies like Blizzard, Capcom, and Sega, has laid off about 45 people, as first reported by Kotaku. PTW was previously called Pole To Win and its services include quality assurance, studio support, and localization. Last week, on January 11, someone with knowledge of the studio told Kotaku about the layoffs, noting that roughly 45 people lost their jobs.  The person with the knowledge of PTW also told the publication that the majority of those laid off live outside the United States – it has studios in North America, Europe, and Asia – and were QA workers. However, jobs were cut in other departments, too, Kotaku notes.  "PTW made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce in several countries where we operate," a PTW spokesperson told Kotaku. "This decision was not made lightly – Our company's...