Valve asks Portal 64 developer to cease project following Nintendo concerns

Nintendo has now confirmed the specific date and time that online services will be shut down for 3DS and Wii U software, and there’s less than three months to go. 

It’s that time of year again! With January winding down, Nintendo fans await confirmation that The Big N is getting ready to present its first Nintendo Direct of the year! Ever since these started several years back, fans have been pumped for when the next one will arrive and what will be shown. This particular Direct will be important because it’s not just the first event of the year for Nintendo but because it’s presumably the last “full year” of Switch content. We only have one “original title” coming out via the Princess Peach game, and that seems pretty “light.”

Nintendo has quite a big collection of IPs they could return and deliver a new game for. One of the franchises that had been a bit dormant as of late is Star Fox. This is a franchise that hasn’t seen a new game release since the Nintendo Wii U. However, you can point to the previously released Star Fox 2, a title that was intended to be released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. If you recall, that game did come out during the heyday of mini-console releases for Nintendo. But beyond that, we haven’t seen a new installment released. That could change here soon. 

Half Mermaid, led by Sam Barlow, is known for making video games using FMV, and they often require the player to sort through footage to solve mysteries. But for the studio's next projects, it seems the mystery will begin before the games are even announced – today, two Steam listings were posted on Half Mermaid's developer page, but most of their information is redacted.

Only three days after Palworld launched, which fans have been calling 'Pokemon with guns' since it was announced anyway, someone made a mod that turned the player into Ash Ketchum and Pals into 'mons. But less than a day later, it has already been taken down by Nintendo.

The director of Pocketpair’s open-world survival-crafting game Palworld has defended the game’s artists, and has asked people to stop sending them abuse and death threats. 

Leaks have insisted for a while now that Nintendo’s next-gen console is set to launch in the second half of 2024, and with the Switch not far away from entering its eighth year, that doesn’t seem hard to believe in the slightest. Of course, if the Switch’s successor is indeed just months away from launching, you’d assume that at least some developers in the industry will have access to development kits so they can work on games for the console- and sure enough, as per a GDC survey, that does seem to be the case.

In a survey asking over 3,000 developers what platform they're currently developing for, 8% responded with the Nintendo Switch successor. 

Tekken 8 will be making some changes to its accessibility features after players and specialists raised concerns when playing the demo.

Valve may have had a change of heart about fan-made tribute projects “borrowing” its intellectual property. GamesRadar+ reported on the Steam maker’s DMCA takedown notice sent to the creators of Team Fortress: Source 2, a passion project porting TF2 to the more modern Source 2 game engine. In addition, the Steam maker squashed a Portal demake for the Nintendo 64, hinting at a possible shift toward a more protective corporate strategy from the typically lenient Valve.

Halo has had a period of tumultuous recent years under the development umbrella of 343 Industries. The iconic Xbox franchise, that laid down the blueprint for first-person multiplayer shooters during its heyday, has faltered with recent releases. Halo Infinite, which came out in 2021, received critical acclaim at launch, but fans cooled off on the title as 343 scrambled to push out timely seasonal multiplayer updates to keep players hooked. While Halo Infinite saw a resurgence in player count when its season 5 content launched late last year, the game's unannounced battle royale mode has reportedly been cancelled.

The developer of the now-cancelled Portal 64 demake has said they were not shocked when Valve asked him to stop work on the project.