What’s up in a Kharkiv bomb shelter is a snapshot of life within a bomb shelter during the bombing of Ukraine, letting players hear the sounds of music interspersed with explosions as they talk to the other people within the shelter, hearing stories inspired by real people and friends who shared in this experience. Game …
343 Industries rebrands to Halo Studios, picks Unreal Engine to help revitalize the franchise
343 Industries is changing its name to Halo Studios as part of a larger “new dawn” for itself and the flagging Xbox franchise. On Sunday, the Halo Infinite developer revealed it would switch from its in-house Slipspace engine to Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5 for multiple projects in development for the series. Per studio head …
Deep Dive: Narrative mapping and simultaneous storytelling in Wayward Strand
Game Developer Deep Dives are an ongoing series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren’t really that simple at all. Earlier installments cover topics such as the technical design of impossible spaces in the …
Voodoo acquires BeReal and immediately makes layoffs
Nearly a full month after it was bought by Voodoo, BeReal has cut 28 positions. As spotted by GamesIndustry, the social platform made cuts across its engineering, QA, and marketing divisions. Per COO Roman Salzman, the layoffs were “mostly part of a refocus on France/Europe-based talents.” “Not going to bore with details, keeping it simple …
Channeling calm and creating new ways to play in Rain World: Downpour
Rain World: Downpour returns to a harsh, beautiful world, giving players an array of soft, cute creatures called slugcats and tasking them with trying to survive in a world that’s extremely hostile to them. Game Developer spoke with the team at VIDEOCULT to talk about how they designed the abilities of their new playable slugcats (and …
Deep Dive: 5 lessons learned from 10 years of Ingress
Game Developer Deep Dives are an ongoing series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren’t really that simple at all. Earlier installments cover topics such as the scientific modeling behind the irrigation and water …
Twitch axes in-chat badge identifying game developers
Twitch is eliminating a badge that signified game developers in a chat stream. The removal goes into effect today, October 21, (or “soon after”), and accounts with the badge will automatically lose it without any input required. The badge was first introduced in 2022 as a way for developers “to be more visible and verifiable …
Deep Dive: Cultivating the soft art of Shumi Come Home
Game Developer Deep Dives are an ongoing series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren’t really that simple at all. Earlier installments cover topics such as UI and difficulty levels in Cook Serve Forever, …
Deep Dive: Cultivating randomness in the peculiar branching narrative of Astronaut: The Best
Game Developer Deep Dives are an ongoing series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren’t really that simple at all. Earlier installments cover topics such as the player-centric approach helped Dead Cells evolve into …
Net sales down at Capcom, but company on track to meet financial targets
Capcom said it has “outperformed” expectations during the quarter ended June 30, 2024, despite net sales and operating income tumbling year-over-year. According to the publisher’s latest fiscal report, net sales decreased by 32.5 percent year-on-year to 29.5 billion yen ($190.5 million) and operating income fell by 46.4 percent to 12.8 billion yen ($82.6 million). Ordinary …