Xbox are reportedly closing or spinning off Psychonauts developers Double Fine, Hellblade studio Ninja Theory, and South of Midnight creators Compulsion Games, as Microsoft commence efforts to yet again “reset” their billion dollar gaming business after already laying off thousands of staff, cancelling games, and closing several studios over the past couple of years.
Mostly decent open-world ninja sim Assassin’s Creed Shadows is getting its last big update today, as Ubisoft begin the process of shooing players away from the year-old RPG and towards the gleaming, nipple-adding newness of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced. The Shadows patch even includes an unlockable outfit based on Edward Kenway’s pirate garb, displaced only 150 or so years out of its appropriate time period for your synergistic brand awareness pleasure.
In the time-old tradition of marketing, EA have announced something ancient as though it’s just been thought up by the boffins in the advertising lab. Their big new moneymaking wheeze to squeeze every last penny out of their games: billboards.
In a press release that stretches into essay-length territory, EA sing the praises of their new ad platform, which is “transforming how brands connect with audiences”. Companies looking to hock their wares can now pay EA to plaster themselves over any and all in-game advertising slots.
We’re over the hump of this week’s Steam Next Fest now. The vent wraps up on Monday, so really we only have the weekend to muscle through and then we’re free from the demo life. We can go back to consuming games only in their entirety, leaving these pintxos of play behind.
As ever, thank you for your recommendations in the comments. While we won’t get through all 5 billion demos before the 22nd, I feel like we’ve already unearthed some winners.
Last week saw the release of Meccha Chameleon, a Japanese indie game in which groups of players hide from other players armed with shotguns. The twist over similar prop hunt games (that I’ve played, anyway) is that you can pose and freely paint your character’s body, disguising them within each map’s colourful scenery. I had a feeling the idea might catch on – it’s the kind of novelty item that makes for good Youtubage. I wasn’t expecting it to sell two million copies.
One of the game’s loveliest qualities is that, strictly speaking, you don’t need to play it to play it. You can just skim through the screenshots of exceptionally skilled or foolish feats of camouflage on Reddit and the Steam forums. Here’s a few that made me chuckle.
It’s not a good week to be in the games industry (again). As Xbox reportedly prepare to either shutter or spin off Double Fine, Ninja Theory and Compulsion, Don’t Nod, original developer of the Life is Strange series, look to be in hot water of their own. As it currently stands, it appears that Don’t Nod will run out of cash come November this year.
Copa City is a football game in which you do everything but play football. The playing of football is the empty centre of this strategy gaming doughnut – the calm in the eye of a storm of city-building and tycoon management mechanics. You’ve been hired by some famous real-world clubs to organise their matches, a job that extends from outfitting the stadium itself to plonking down fanzones, drink stalls and mascots in the streets beyond.
Over the course of 14 days, you price tickets for the stands, and divide them up between the three main spectator groups – ultras, core supporters, and families. You plot routes through the city to the stadium, place camera crews, hire security, and oversee your volunteers. Then match day comes, and you sit back and sob with pride as hundreds of boisterous, cherubic soccer enthusiasts process towards the pitch, in a spectral onslaught of party smoke and streamers.
About a year ago, Saber Interactive offered up the fairly surprising reveal of a Hellraiser game in the form of Hellraiser: Revival. It’s a singleplayer joint, one that sort of reminds me of Outlast in vibe, and now a year on from that reveal Saber have locked in a seasonally appropriate (roughly) release date.
Last month the European Commission promised that they would provide a response to the Stop Killing Games campaign that seeks to gain more protections around online game server shutdowns into law. That reply has now come in and, essentially, it’s not the result Stop Killing Games were after.
**Slay the Spire 2: Major Update #2 Overview**
On June 18, Mega Crit launched the second “Major Update” for *Slay the Spire 2*, merging four beta branch patches from April 17 into a single substantial patch for the primary game. While those acquainted with the beta experience might find few surprises, the developers promise that this update will present “a few significant changes that will be entirely new for everyone.”
### Key Changes from Beta Patches
For players who haven’t interacted with the beta patches, there are key changes that deserve emphasis. Several elites, including Skulking Colony and Infested Prism, have undergone considerable adjustments in difficulty. A more debated change involves the Act 3 boss, Doormaker, which faced backlash from players, resulting in extensive review-bombing. In response to this criticism, Doormaker has been completely eliminated from the game and substituted with a new boss named Aeonglass.
### Exciting Additions in Major Update #2
Although the primary content of the update closely mirrors prior beta patches, Major Update #2 features some thrilling new elements. Chief among these is the addition of Steam Workshop support, allowing players to download mods directly via the Steam client. While mods were available since the game’s early access, this addition greatly streamlines the installation process. At the time of the update, 420 mods for *Slay the Spire 2* were already available, including one that intriguing reintroduces the Doormaker.
### Fixes and Enhancements
Another major enhancement rectifies a serious bug related to the game’s pseudo-random number generators (PRNGs). This issue caused certain game mechanics to be less random than intended. For example, Neow’s Bones Ancient relic was yielding the Debt curse 54% of the time—a significant deviation from expected randomness. Mega Crit’s fixes restored intended functionality and inadvertently brought back a card that had originally been planned for inclusion, the Rebound card, which had been absent due to the bug affecting the Trash Heap event.
### Community Sentiment and Future Updates
As the update is deployed, there is curiosity about whether the exclusion of Doormaker will influence the game’s reception, especially given the numerous negative reviews tied to this boss. Players are also eagerly awaiting the upcoming beta patch scheduled for two weeks, hoping for more content and enhancements.
In summary, Major Update #2 for *Slay the Spire 2* showcases a mix of fixes, new content, and features requested by the community that seek to improve the gameplay experience while addressing player feedback.