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Square Enix just laid off over 100 employees across their U.S. and U.K. divisions. They cited AI, but the Japanese side hasn’t been touched. Maybe the writing in the upcoming titles will have a more classic flavor.

@ANoobis
Problem is:

A) There’s no point in making this except to shoehorn in retcons, so there’s no point in hoping for that not to be the case.

B) They already fucked up a Halo CE: remaster once, what has this company (and it IS the same company, I’m not being fooled by the “Halo Studios” rebrand) done in all that time to make you think it’s going to be good this time around?

Frankly, this is a game that doesn’t need to exist and frankly, no-one is asking for. No-one except Microsoft execs that remember the time Halo was a money-printer that could sell an entire console off it’s mere existence and what that money farm again…

But they do not - or will not - understand that it was the passion and artistry behind Halo, the mythological and biblical metanarrative, the tightly-paced 30 seconds of fun gameplay, a company that was well connected with their community and a community that was given all the features needed to take the game, run with it and make it their own…Halo was all of these things, and more.

The company making it now has trouble putting a Team Deathmatch playlist in ready for launch. And good luck hoping Forge or Theatre will be launch features either, if you’re lucky they might add them in 3 years later…

By brother in Christ: Halo’s dead. I was there when it died: November 6, 2012.

There was a funeral for it.

I went through Denial during Halo 4’s lifecycle, Anger and Bartering after Halo 5: Guardians was released…

…Loss after that debacle.

By the time Infinite was announced, I’d already entered Acceptance. I’ve accepted Halo is dead, i’m just waiting for everyone else to catch up with me so I can stop being “that asshole laughing on the side and eating all the popcorn” and become “the guy who brought popcorn for us all to share while we watch this never-ending trainwreck”.

I hope the Halo remake feels like the original. It’s a brown UE5 game now, but if it plays right, I can deal. And as long as none of the changes are lore related. It would suck to have terminals with entries from the Banished and alien Forerunners shoehorned in.

@ANoobis
I am of two minds about this: on the one hand console exclusivity and the console wars were always retarded and benefited no-one except the corpos so, more people being able to play one of my favourite video games of all time is a plus

On the other hand, Halo used to be so great it could sell Xbox consoles purely by itself…it’s a sign of how much irreparable damage 343/Halo Studios and Microsoft mismanagement has done to the series.

Halo is coming to Playstation in 2026. Another remake of Halo: CE is in the works, and this one is cross-platform. At this point, I don’t see any reason why Microsoft wouldn’t exit the hardware market after this generation.

TheGamer just let go of several editors and a whole team of writers.

Massive Entertainment, lately known for The Division, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, and Star Wars Outlaws, is going to be seeing a round of layoffs.

Because it’s loosely associated with J.K. Rowling. That’s why.
Also, she probably collects royalties from it, and it’s known that she donates to ‘TERF’ causes.

@ANoobis
Yup, this is truly another idiotic throwing of a fit and tantrum episode. Its fishing for so much empathy and emotional validation, along with going along with projecting hatred and contempt for those who say things they hate to see and hear. Indeed, most contemporary game journalists, especially at Kotaku, Gamerant, IGN, and similarly, Polygon, are either ignorant goons who write what they have been told to write in accordance with their handlers, are deliberate and disingenuous liars, or are mentally ill with varying kinds of trauma, abuse and genetic errors within.

The game journos are already lining up to declare the Hogwarts Legacy sequel boycott. I don’t even know why. The first one had a trans character, allowed you to play a trans character, and ran the population of 1800s Scotland through a 2020s California-compliance filter. I doubt the second one will do anything different.

The rumors that Xbox is getting out of the console market are back. This time, people seem to be taking them much more seriously, since they originated with a leak from someone who is supposed to be a Microsoft insider. Even if Microsoft doesn’t want to follow Sega’s example, it might just be time to anyway. Xbox sales are so weak that retailers are phasing out their Xbox stock, and their first-party titles are multi-plat now.

To me, the last good game in the Far Cry series was FC 3 or maybe 4. Rainbow Six stopped being good somewhere around the Xbox 360/Wii/PS3 era, and Assassin’s Creed hasn’t been good since Black flag or so. Yeah, even worse than EA and Zenimax.

@ANoobis
And here I thought it couldn’t be any worse then letting ze French handle things…I forgot that China is always waiting in the wings to pounce on unsuspecting companies…

To everyone: Please don’t purchase any more Far Cry, Ass Cred or Rainbow Six games…every penny will go towards Winnie the Pooh’s planned Invasion of Taiwan. >.<

Ubisoft and Tencent’s first joint venture, Vantage Studios, just went into operation. Vantage is now handling Far Cry, Assassin’s Creed, and Rainbow Six.

@Anonymous #C28B
Silver Lake Technology Management, L.L.C., a private equity firm based in California, and Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner’s investment firm.

@ANoobis
I wonder who the other 1 or 2 primary buyers are…

EA is being purchased for $55B. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is one of the parties acquiring it. Once the sale is finalized, EA will no longer be a publicly traded company.

@ANoobis
Where in Texas?

Almost 3,000 Switch 2’s were stolen from a truck in Texas.

I am finding myself getting away from AAA games more and more. They all feel so similar now. I play almost exclusively Switch (I’m not getting a Switch 2 for a year or two). But I’m also stuck with my studies and I’ve been procrastinating a lot last week and I have to make up for it this one.

@Anonymous #A6A0
The problem there is that some companies rather stubbornly hold out on high prices - looking at Nintendo specifically with that one.

People just need to discipline themselves into being willing to not pay for it at all until companies start being more reasonable, even if that means waiting a few more years, ten more years even. XP

They can be forced to capitulate eventually, but not unless people are willing to wait as long as it takes for the asking price to drop, to be willing to potentially deprive themselves of “the big new game” indefinitely if needs must.

Never buy full price. Wait for a sale. You waited years for the release, you can wait another month or few.

@Twiface
All the more reason for people to stop buying the new trash.

They can only normalise it if idiots still actually buy the things. There are so many older games that are of far superior quality that they can play instead.

Mario Kart World has just released, priced at $80 USD, and seems to be selling well. The Outer Worlds 2 has also been announced, priced at $80 USD.

Many people across the internet have spent the past two weeks complaining about it, but it appears as though $80 has been normalized the standard price for AAA games going forward.

Microsoft laid off about 7,000 people a few days ago. Around 1,900 of those layoffs hit Xbox, Bethesda, and Activision Blizzard.

Polygon has just been sold off and most of its employees seem to have been let go. It was bought by Valnet, owner of TheGamer and GameRant, so I don’t expect a change in editorial direction. Clearing out the Polygon writers probably has more to do with overhead.

Giant Bomb has also effectively ceased operating as of today. It’s ostensibly still going, but it’s been hollowed out and is on pause. It may be brought back in some form, or Fandom may just shutter it in a while. Either way, Giant Bomb’s done in its current form.