Koei Tecmo is Establishing a New Studio to Work on AAA Games

Jeff Strain has a pretty impressive resume, co-founding both Guild Wars developer ArenaNet and State of Decay creators Undead Labs, but things don’t seem to be going as well for him lately. Today it emerged that Possibility Space, one of the new studios Strain has founded with his wife under the larger Prytania Media umbrella, is closing for a rather unusual reason.

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Xbox Game Pass users can now play Shadow of the Tomb Raider as part of their subscription. The critically acclaimed action adventure is the ninth title to reach Xbox Game Pass in April 2024, and the 50th since the turn of the year.

Apple News is testing a new game for iOS 17.5 called Quartiles, which requires players to organize a grid of 20 syllables into 5 four-syllable words. Spotted by Gadget Hacks, the interface for Quartiles looks a lot like the New York Times’ newest hit, Connections. Did Apple News sherlock the New York Times?

Just a year and a half after the release of God of War Ragnarok, fans are already excited for the next game in the revamped franchise. A new job listing from Santa Monica Studios, spotted by the Portuguese website Geekinout, has many speculating that development on a third title is already underway.

A team led by the former creative director on Destiny announced Tuesday that they’re working on a new game under parent company ProbablyMonsters, the studio founded by former Bungie president and CEO Harold Ryan. That new development team is named Hidden Grove, and is working on an original “multiplayer competitive adventure game” built on Unreal Engine 5.

From games being taken off stores with little to no notice, to older consoles’ storefronts going permanently offline, to online-only experiences being rendered effectively unplayable once their servers are taken down, the list of things that pose a threat to game preservation continues to grow worryingly longer, though some chosen few companies have been taking admirable steps to work against that.

After a fairly positive launch for Rise of the Ronin, developer Team Ninja has been wasting no time in shipping patches and optimizing the game's overall experience, with the latest fixes coming bundled in two quickfire updates. The newest patch notes reveal changes across a spectrum of areas in Rise of the Ronin, from combat to navigation.

One lucky PlayStation 5 owner has recently come across a 45% discount on Rise of the Ronin at Walmart. The hefty price cut was spotted less than a week after Rise of the Ronin officially hit the store shelves.

More than three years after former Dragon Age lead designer Mike Laidlaw was revealed to have joined forces with fellow games industry veterans behind the likes of Assassin’s Creed under newfounded studio Yellow Brick Games, the developers are finally teasing their first game. And yup, it’s definitely a fantasy game!

Just over a year ago, Shinji Mikami - he of directing the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4 fame - was confirmed to be leaving Tango Gameworks, the studio that he had co-founded over a decade earlier to create a modern successor to his survival-horror classics, The Evil Within.

Tango Gameworks founder Shinji Mikami has reportedly started a new studio.