Codemasters Has Been Hit with Layoffs

The YouTube algorithm is a truly wretched piece of tech, but just as a broken clock is right twice a day, sometimes YouTube will cough up an absolute gold mine. I would confidently describe the hundreds of Elden Ring videos on veganiele's channel, which I randomly found earlier this week, as one such gold mine. This brave Tarnished has been beating Malenia, renowned as the RPG's hardest boss, with every melee weapon in the game, without taking a single hit and often fighting at level one, for over a year straight. 

With AMD dominating the handheld PC market, thanks to the Ryzen 7 7840U APU, it was only a matter of time before somebody decided to give Intel a try. That someone just so happens to be OneXPlayer, a brand that has a pretty decent track record with handhelds, such as the great OneXFly. It's just announced the X1, part of a new line up called the OneXPlorer series, with Intel's new Meteor Lake-powered Core Ultra chip handling all of the duties.

A number of employees at Embracer-owned developer Slipgate Ironworks and publisher 3D Realms have reported on social media that they’ve been impacted by layoffs. However, it’s not currently clear how many people have been affected, and there's been no official confirmation or messaging yet.

The Last of Us multiplayer game has been cancelled. In a blog post, developer Naughty Dog confirmed that the development on the promised online experience within the post-apocalyptic universe, which it was calling ‘The Last of Us Online,' has been stopped. The astonishing news comes just a month after game director Vinit Agarwal assured fans that the project was still happening despite the numerous reported setbacks, including the laying off of 25 employees. One can't simply release a live-service game into the wild and expect it to thrive. It desperately needs post-launch content for years to come, indirectly impacting a studio which is otherwise known for creating memorable single-player narratives.

According to a report from cyberdaily.au, Insomniac Games, the studio behind the Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank games, has been hacked by a ransomware group. The group, who call themselves Rhysida, provided proof that included a screenshot of Insomniac's upcoming Wolverine game as well as character art for various Marvel-owned characters.

We’d known for a while now that Naughty Dog was working on a standalone multiplayer Last of Us game, but recent months have raised questions about what state the project is in behind-the-scenes. Reports have claimed that its development team has been scaled back, and that though it hadn’t been completely cancelled, it had been put “on ice”. And though the project’s director confirmed as recently as last month that it was still in the works, that is officially no longer the case.

The Last of Us Online was  announced as a standalone multiplayer title during last year’s Summer Games Fest showcase and in May this year Naughty Dog gave us an update saying the project was still going ahead but they needed more time. They assured fans that the game was still coming.

Naughty Dog has officially announced that it is canceling its highly-anticipated online multiplayer game based in the universe of The Last of Us, claiming that it would need to take more attention away from its single player projects than it wants to.

It looks like more Embracer studios have been hit with layoffs. 3D Realms founder Scott Miller (via GamesIndustry), who doesn't work at the current incarnation of the studio but runs reborn indie publisher Apogee Entertainment, said on Twitter that «a lot of people, including core devs» at 3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks have been put out of work.

The long-awaited New Game Plus update for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has been delayed to "early 2024," but the patch is now set to include a host of other big additions.

Dead Cells developer Motion Twin is set to deliver another helping of lightning-fast battles and breathtaking visuals next year with its new game Windblown, and if you simply cannot wait, fear not, as this stunning 2D action roguelike is here to fill the void. 

Guildford.Games Ltd – a not-for-profit initiative introduced to «showcase the local industry and bring the concentrated, creative talent within Guildford to the attention of the world» – has confirmed its 2024 event will kick off on 16th February 2024.