Gaming in Sweden. Reviews, Walkthroughs, News

Apple escalated its feud with Epic Games on Wednesday, blocking the Fortnite video-game maker from launching its own online marketplace on iPhones and iPads in Europe.

European regulators may soon weigh in on the ongoing dispute between tech giant. Apple blocking Epic from launching a separate game store on iOS may violate EU rules that went into effect last year.

Epic Games, the studio behind Fortnite, has announced that Apple terminated its developer account, blocking the company from creating and supporting the Epic Games Store on iOS. For those unfamiliar, Epic Games recently revealed that Apple had approved its Sweden AB developer account, which it had planned to use as a way to bring Fortnite to iOS devices in Europe. However, Apple has terminated this account, with Epic Games criticizing the decision publicly.

As revealed ahead of time by dataminers, new weapons, armour and equipment are coming to Helldivers 2 as part of the new Warbond, Cutting Edge — and we can spill all the beans on the details and release date.

The European Union has said it’s investigating Apple’s decision to terminate Epic Games’ iOS developer account.

Apple has terminated Epic's iOS developer account, putting a big roadblock in front of the studio's plan to bring Fortnite back to iPhones and iPads in Europe. Epic has published some, er, highlights from its correspondence with Apple on the subject, and they're some of the most hilariously spiteful bits of corporate messaging you will ever see.

Fortnite developer Epic Games says that Apple has terminated its Epic Games Sweden AB's developer account, which was intended to release the Epic Games Store and Fortniteon iOS devices in the European Union (EU).

Roblox has announced a new experience starring Chucky, which players can now check out. Roblox is a platform that gives its players great freedom to create experiences such as fighting games, simulators, and RPGs. Another reason Roblox is famous is the crossovers with famous pop culture properties, although its list of collaborations goes far beyond that.

Earlier today, rumours started swirling that PlayStation was moments away from announcing its acquisition of Arrowhead Game Studios, the Swedish team behind the wildly successful Helldivers 2. While the two parties already have a strong relationship – Sony has published both of the Helldivers titles – founder Johan Pilestedt was quick to pour cold water on the reports.

Apple has blocked Epic's bid to launch Epic Games Store and Fortnite on iOS devices because it doesn't trust the games giant.

Apple and Epic Games have been in an ongoing battle over App Store policies, and now the frenzy has taken a new turn. In a surprising turn of events, Apple has decided to terminate Epic Sweden's developer account globally due to its untrustworthy behavior, calling it a threat to the iOS ecosystem. The company's decision took a U-turn a month after it approved Epic's developer account, and it remains to be seen if the company will comply with the Digital Markets Act.

Epic's plans to launch a version of its Epic Games Store on iOS in the EU have stalled after Apple terminated its developer account, calling the company «verifiably untrustworthy» — and the much-trumpeted return of Fortnite to iOS has been impacted too.

The boss of Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead has denied a recent rumour that Sony is buying the studio.

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No, Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios isn't being purchased by PlayStation.

If you’re looking for a new Switch game to play with your kids following titles like Bluey: The Videogame and Disney Illusion Island, get ready to meet the Moonmins. Snufkin: Melody of Moonminvalley comes to Switch and PC this week, giving the cartoon vagabond his own game. Developed by Hyper Games, the adventure title aims to capture the cartoon joy of Moomin, a Swedish children’s series, with some musical twists.

In what promises to be one of the most talked-about weddings of the year, the impending nuptials of youngest son,, to industrialist daughter, kicked off with a star-studded pre-wedding celebration in Gujarat’s Jamnagar. The extravagant celebrations started off on March 1st and wrapped up on March 3rd.

Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB will sell one of its largest subsidiaries, Saber Interactive, to a group of private investors in a deal worth up to $500 million (roughly Rs. 4,142 crore), according to a person familiar with the transaction.

Gearbox Entertainment was one of the companies Embracer purchased during its massive buying spree that was followed by widespread layoffs and studio closures. As reported by Kotaku, the Borderlands maker is poised to be sold out, and more information will be shared next month.

Swedish video game and media company Embracer Group AB is reportedly selling Saber Interactive, the developer responsible for the upcoming Star Wars: The Knights of the Old Republic remake. Knights of the Old Republic was a ground-breaking addition to the original Xbox back in 2003, not to mention the Star Wars franchise. KOTOR's release was met with critical acclaim, and the title has even appeared on many «best game of all time» lists.

Players everywhere have been liberating the galaxy of Helldivers 2, however, it now appears that mechs could make up a major part of a new update.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake developer Saber Interactive has reportedly left embattled parent company Embracer in a $500 million deal to become a privately owned company.

Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile is gearing up for a worldwide release on March 21, marking the end of its limited beta phase through 2023. This highly anticipated free-to-play game will be accessible on both iOS and Android platforms, offering an immersive experience with iconic maps such as Verdansk and Rebirth Island. Developed by Activision, the studio recently acquired by Microsoft for $69 billion, the mobile version promises a seamless shared progression with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone on PC and consoles.

Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile will be released worldwide on March 21, 2024, Activision has announced.

Though Helldivers 2 has been a hit, its launch has been anything but smooth. Various bugs, glitches, and server issues forced Arrowhead Games to temporarily cap the possible number of concurrent players.

What makes a game truly worthy of a full-blown remake? We’re currently in an era where remasters, remakes and reimaginings are the norm, where games can receive massive free face-lifting updates, and where even acclaimed AAA hits are getting built again from the ground up within a decade f their original debut – yes, The Last of Us, we’re looking at you.

Legendary first-person shooter Doom has once again proven it can be played in the most unexpected places.

Some games take weeks to find an audience. Some take months. And then there's Helldivers 2, which has become an instant hit, surpassing more than 1 million copies sold in its first three days of launch. So, what's next?

Call of Duty: Warzone's newest edition, Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile, is expected to be released worldwide soon, and a new gameplay video has shown off its impressive graphics. The new version of Call of Duty: Warzone has been available for some time in certain regions, but Call of Duty's biggest regions have been left out of the picture so far.

Arrowhead has teased “exciting” plans for Helldivers 2 after seemingly resolving the game’s server issues.

It took just over two weeks and some loss of sleep, but Helldivers 2, the smash hit co-op shooter from PlayStation and Sweden’s Arrowhead Game Studio, now actually works. Which is to say, the game cruised through peak play hours over its third weekend with minimal login issues, and with the majority of players able to get online and work together to save managed democracy, eliminating one bug (or robot) at a time.

If you thought the days of porting Doom onto every possible device known to humanity were over, think again. Now, get ready to slay demons while also maintaining a neat yard. You may be a lover of violent FPS games, but you’re also a responsible adult now.

Doom is getting ported to a range of lawn mowers from Husqvarna as part of a free update set to roll out in spring. This unusual release will add to the ever-expanding list of devices that can run Doom, one of the most ported games of all time.

Helldivers 2 is the new must-play shooter in town, and it turns out the engine it was built on is already extinct. 

When dramatic parents panicked over the satanic influence of Doom in the 90s, maybe they had a point. Doom has burned through people's souls and minds, filling them with a desire to play Id Software's seminal shooter on every device they can. The question "Can it run Doom?" has driven these demonic vassals to make it playable on everything from tractors to teletext. These hellbound hearts are even daring to corrupt the totemic device of American liberty: the lawnmower. Come April, you will be able to play Doom on the Husqvarna Nera line of robotic automowers. Is nothing sacred?

SteamWorld Build publisher Thunderful said the game «fell slightly short of expectations», as its company restructure is «off to a good start».

PlayStation 5 and Steam hit Helldivers 2 was built on an engine that was discontinued after work on the game began.

A number of veterans from Sweden's games industry have established a new studio called Cult of the North.

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Helldivers 2 isn’t just blowing up like a traditional bomb – it’s becoming more of a nuclear blast. The game, developed by Arrowhead and published by Sony, is quickly establishing itself as one of the biggest third-person shooters on the planet – and it’s attracting the players to prove it. Despite being limited by server capacity, the title set a new concurrent users record on Steam overnight, topping a peak of over 255k.

Helldivers 2 is the 2024 hit no one saw coming – well, at least since Palworld, anyway. The game just keeps getting bigger and bigger on PC, where it’s now surpassed Destiny 2’s all-time peak players total by attracting 333k concurrent users overnight. It’s worth noting that with PS5 owners added in, the game’s highs are even higher.

Developer ZA/UM reportedly cancelled a standalone expansion to Disco Elysium back in 2022, said to be «one to two years away from completion» then, and the third project in as many years to be consigned to the endless void. Now, roughly a quarter of the studio is facing redundancy, which makes us want to put on sad disco music and contemplate the grim, seemingly inevitable fate that awaits all video game developers.

The Epic Games Store will be coming to iOS in Europe thanks to provisions in the European Union (EU)'s Digital Markets Act (DMA). 

Swedish games firm Starbreeze has said that Payday 3 has not met its expectations.

Epic today published its Epic Games Store 2023 Year in Review blog post, revealing some metrics for the PC storefront and affirming plans to launch an iOS store in Europe this year.

Epic Games will begin developing a mobile version of the Epic Games Store for launch on iOS in Europe, the company has said, now it has officially received an Apple Developer Account.

Starbreeze Studios has confirmed that Payday 3 is still not meeting expectations. The latest entry into the long-running co-op heist shooter franchise was released in September 2023, but Payday 3 quickly suffered a decline in player numbers thanks to a myriad of bugs and glitches found within the game.

In a recent statement by CEO Lars Wingefors, it was revealed that Embracer Group plans to continue its «restructuring» model of cutbacks in order to prioritize shareholders above all else. Having just announced even more layoffs for Embracer Group, this latest statement by the CEO has left many fans in shock.

A quarter of Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM's total workforce — approximately 24 employees — is reportedly facing redundancy following the cancellation of a standalone expansion for acclaimed RPG Disco Elysium, said to be «one to two years away from completion».

Embracer Group, the Swedish video game and media company that owns a huge number of subsidiaries, including Plaion, Saber Interactive, and THQ Nordic, has confirmed that it’s laid off around 8% of its staff since the start of its restructuring program last year.

Embracer has publicly disclosed they have laid off 8 % of their staff.

A couple of months ago, PAYDAY developer Starbreeze announced it was making a Dungeons and Dragons co-op game after licensing the popular franchise from Wizards of the Coast.

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios has said it’s planning to staff up in response to the success of the title.

Helldivers 2 experienced a somewhat chaotic descent from high orbit, deploying onto PS5 and PC simultaneously and paying for it, with players experiencing matchmaking issues and unable to link up with their comrades. Thankfully, developer Arrowhead is doing its part to keep the intergalactic war effort going. Confirmation of a hotfix has been received and is expected imminently on PS5, having already been deployed on PC.

Here’s a tiny window into what it’s like for a smaller developer to have a game they’re working on blow up. Arrowhead Game Studios’ bug-squashing third-person shooter Helldivers 2 launched simultaneously on PC and PlayStation 5 on Thursday, and it’s a hit, breaking into the top 10 most played games on Steam and becoming PlayStation’s biggest Steam launch to date.

Indie games are known for their daring and often groundbreaking approaches to visuals and storytelling. Ultros is a new indie title coming to PS4 and PS5 on February 13. The game is a twisted, time-looping sci-fi adventure. It’s packed with high-stakes action, clever twists on classic game design ideas, intriguing, and often unsettling environmental storytelling, and crazy-colorful pop-psychedelic visuals that makes you wonder if the game came with its own built-in blacklight. 

Helldivers 2 has become an unprecedented success for Sony on the PC platform, surpassing more than 150,000 concurrent users over its opening weekend and over 1 million copies sold globally.

Arrowhead Game Studios has confirmed that a number of Helldivers 2 server issues persist following the game's latest update. The developer also shared a suggestion for how Helldivers 2 players can side-step at least one of these problems while it's working on deploying a more permanent solution.

When playing any character-driven videogame I sometimes experience a sensation akin to my eyes unfocussing, and remember that I'm not, strictly speaking, controlling a body in a world, but interacting with a simulation that includes representations of a body and a world. The character is just an interfacial node in a vast tangle of visible and invisible elements; by moving the character, I cause objects, surfaces, creatures to load or unload, spring into motion or change colour and a million things besides.

Swedish games firm Paradox Interactive reported a 34 per cent increase in revenue for the 2023 calendar year.

Swedish developer Arrowhead Game Studios (Magicka) has released the third-person shooter game Helldivers 2 on PlayStation 5 and PC, immediately achieving strong results on the latter platform. According to Steam data, Helldivers 2 peaked at 81K concurrent players around five hours ago, surpassing God of War's previous record of 73K for a PlayStation launch.

Black Forest Games, a German video game developer subsidiary of THQ Nordic, which Embracer Group owns, is reportedly planning to lay off around 50% of its employees. Last December, two Danish developers owned by Embracer Group, 3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks, announced that over half of their staff would have their roles eliminated. With that announcement, around 1000 people were laid off by Embracer in the second half of 2023. Now, Black Forest Games is seemingly the latest developer to be affected.

Room for another mass layoff post, before we end the day? This one is actually two separate stories but in a bid to conserve resources and make our frontpage slightly less depressing to read, I am going to roll them together. Black Forest Games, the Embracer-owned creators of the Destroy All Humans! Remake, are reportedly cutting 50% of their workforce - around 50-60 people. Outriders developers People Can Fly, meanwhile, have laid off 30 developers who were working on an unannounced Square Enix game.

The latest game to introduce AMD FSR 3 support is Mortal Online 2, the Unreal Engine 5 first-person sandbox MMORPG developed by Swedish studio Star Vault.

Following the end of Overwatch League, Blizzard has unveiled new plans for its competitive Overwatch esports circuit.

Apple plans to introduce significant changes to the iOS App Store, allowing users to download apps from third-party sources. The company is reaching a deadline imposed by the EU under the Digital Markets Act, which requires the company to allow the installation of apps from outside the App Store. The company has until March 6 to implement the app sideloading, and iOS 17.4 appears to be the update that will bring the necessary changes.

Blizzard has announced an exclusive, multi-year partnership with esports company ESL FACEIT Group for Overwatch 2 esports events. Previously, professional Overwatch esports events were held as part of the now-defunct Overwatch League.

We’re not even a month through 2024 and it’s looking to be a rough year for the games industry. Massive developer and publisher Riot Games, home to League of Legends and Valorant, announced today it has laid off 530 employees or roughly 11% of its workforce. Legends of Runetterra, Riot’s competitor to Hearthstone, is also seeing a reduction in team size and will shift focus to its Path of Champions PvE game mode. Riot Forge, a division of Riot Games that focuses on teaming up with established developers and creating unique single-player experiences in the Runterra universe, will also be sunset.

RPG developer Piranha Bytes has responded to the reports claiming the company is on the brink of closure, asking the fans not to write it off just yet. While that particular request is optimistic, the overall contents of the company's latest statement still raise concerns about its future.

What appeared to be a tease for a possible new title in the Quake series, Quake 6, was briefly spotted during Microsoft's most recent Xbox Developer Direct. The tease sparked a myriad of discussions regarding a potential new game in the franchise, which has largely lain dormant in the past few years.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, a new whip-cracking adventure coming from Wolfenstein studio MachineGames and avowed Indy fanboy Todd Howard, was revealed on Thursday to be a first-person game. Well, mostly. Players will see through the eyes of Indiana Jones on a globe-trotting story where they’ll explore ancient temples, recover mysterious artifacts, and punch, shoot, and whip Nazis.

Piranha Bytes is on the verge of closure, several industry sources have said. Currently owned by the Embracer Group subsidiary THQ Nordic, the celebrated RPG developer has been in business for nearly three decades.

To celebrate the first trailer of Bethesda's upcoming Indiana Jones game, executive producer Todd Howard stole a Golden Idol from the developer working on it. 

Around a third of developers say they were impacted by layoffs at their workplace over a 12-month period.

Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios, the team behind the poorly received shooter Payday 3, has addressed the negative feedback the title has received, revealing in a new blog post the current progress of its efforts to improve the game. In addition, the company told fans it will reveal more details on how it plans to course-correct in the near future.

Dead by Daylight studio Behaviour Interactive has reportedly made a round of layoffs.

PlayStation Productions and Screen Gems (part of Sony Pictures Entertainment) are working on a movie adaptation of Supermassive horror hit Until Dawn.

Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive is reportedly the latest studio to be hit by layoffs this year.

Swedish video game holding company Thunderful Group is to implement a «restructuring programme», which will see around a fifth of its workforce laid off.