Piranha Bytes, devs of Gothic and Elex, are next on Embracer's chopping block

Pikachu stars in the music video for Jax Jones' new single Never Be Lonely.

As the new year kicks into high gear with an amazing slate of PS5 game releases like The Last of Us Part II Remastered, Tekken 8 and Helldivers 2, along with FINAL FANTASY VII Rebirth later this month, we’re pleased to roll out another PS5 system software beta today with a number of quality-of-life enhancements and new features.

Roguelike action game Ancient Weapon Holly will launch for PlayStation 5, Switch, and PC via Steam on March 8, followed by PlayStation 4 at a later date, publisher and developer ACQUIRE, and publisher Aniplex announced. It will cost 1,980 yen in Japan. It will support English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Polish language options. A demo is currently available for PC.

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.

Embracer-owned studio Black Forest Games reportedly plans to lay off approximately half of its employees.

Embracer’s latest round of layoffs affect two studios, one of which had just been announced to be working on a major AAA.

Global electricity demand from data centers, cryptocurrencies and artificial intelligence could more than double over the next three years, adding the equivalent of Germany's entire power needs, the International Energy Agency forecasts in its latest report.

AI Roundup: Several notable developments took place in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) today, January 24. Pope Francis warned against the dangers of AI, acknowledging that he too became the victim of a deepfake photo last year. He called for regulation of AI that will enable its use towards the greater good. Meanwhile, a new study claims that North Korea is developing AI and machine learning (ML) to achieve a wide range of tasks.

The Embracer-owned studio Piranha Bytes, developer of the Gothic, Risen and Elex games, has acknowledged it's in «a difficult situation» as it faces potential closure.

There have been many instances of asteroids passing by Earth in the last few weeks. Just yesterday, a 45 feet wide asteroid flew past the planet at a distance of approximately 3 million kilometers. Due to such close calls with asteroids, NASA, ESA, and other space agencies have developed technology to track these space rocks in their orbits, and even deflect them in case a potential impact scenario develops. Using its tech, NASA has now shed light on an asteroid that is expected to pass Earth today, January 23. Know all about this close approach.

Aftermarket keycaps are one of the best and easiest ways to customize your mechanical keyboard, but there’s a problem: though there are lots of sets to choose from, when you’re buying low-cost keycaps on Amazon, quality issues run rampant. Warped space bars; funky, oddly spaced legends, colors that look ever-so-slightly and maddeningly off. Every purchase feels like a roll of the dice: you might get a good set but you may be stuck returning it with days of wasted time behind you.

German developer Piranha Bytes might be the latest studio to end up on Embracer Group's chopping block, although it's not over yet.