Blackbird Interactive’s next big thing is Homeworld 3, out February 2024, but Homeworld 3 has a little cousin, Earthless, which tells approximately the same tale of a big colony ship fleeing across the galaxy, but takes the form of a deck-building roguelite cardgame. Never one to say no to a bout of space strategy, I fired up a preview key over the weekend, and while I wouldn’t say my pulse has jumped to hyperspace, I’m certainly enthused.
After making four wildly popular Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks last year, Magic: The Gathering is giving the same love to Doctor Who. Today we’re excited to reveal 14 cards from those decks, including multiple from the iconic Weeping Angel-fueled episode Blink, alongside a chat with Principal Game Designer Gavin Verhey about the cards themselves and how this crossover is a “dream project” for him.
Click through the gallery below to see 10 brand new Doctor Who cards and 4 Planeshift cards from the upcoming decks, and read on to see our full interview with Verhey. Wizards of the Coast will also be hosting a Doctor Who debut livestream on the MTG Twitch and YouTube channels on Tuesday, Oct 3 at 10am PT with even more reveals.
IGN: Okay, to start, from one big Doctor Who nerd to another, how excited are you to finally be able to show off these cards?
Gavin Verhey, Principle Game Designer: SO EXCITED!!
For those who don’t know me, my name is Gavin Verhey and I’m a Principal Game Designer on Magic. I’m also a GIGANTIC Doctor Who fan. I have visited Doctor Who conventions, cosplayed as the Doctor, slept on the sidewalk to get into the San Diego ComicCon panel, and even used to have a full-scale TARDIS in my home. So to say this was a dream project is… Putting it lightly!
Do you have a favorite of the bunch we just revealed? Has your favorite overall been shown off yet?
You all have some real sweet previews today – including a couple of my favorites! But I have to call out Genesis of the Daleks as an epic saga that I really enjoy.
In this iconic fourth doctor episode, we see where the Daleks came from – and what led Davros to do so. It pumps out so many Daleks: when people read this card during playtests, it was always “wait.. For EACH lore counter??” That’s so many Daleks!”
You also get the end of this episode featured on another of your previews: Crisis of Conscience, where the Doctor has to decide if he wants to destroy all the daleks or not – if he has the right to commit genocide himself. It’s a powerful moment – and in Magic, choosing how and when to sweep the board can go a long way!
We also revealed four new planechase cards, which is a mechanic that makes a lot of sense for Doctor Who. How did you decide which locations felt significant enough for their own planechase cards?
A lot of hearty debate! *laughs*
Truly though, it took a ton of discussion. We tried to get locations from a mix of different episodes with different locales, ranging from locations in the past to planets to even spacecraft. That way, it really does feel like you could end up anywhere in space and time! It was also a way to show off some episodes that didn’t otherwise make it onto cards. There are so many episodes of Doctor Who and only so many cards to make, that planechase gave us a few extra places! For example, we didn’t end up with any specific card design that calls back to the episode The God Complex, which was an episode many of us liked – but we were able to get it into the planechase deck. You’ll have to wait to see what it does though!
Today we got to show off Blink, based on the iconic episode that introduced the Weeping Angels, as well as a couple cards themed around it. Weeping Angels are getting a lot of representation across all the new cards, what drew you toward exploring them in multiple different ways rather than just a single creature card or the like?
In general with Doctor Who, we tried to “go wide” on references instead of referencing the same thing over and over. It just gives a higher chance you find something from your favorite episode. That said, when it comes to some particularly iconic episodes and especially villains, we wanted to break that rule to give them the attention they deserve. So there are many Daleks, Cybermen, and yes, of course, Weeping Angels. Now, there’s only one actual Weeping Angel creature card in the set – but there are other cards that depict them – like some of the ones you are showing today!
Any concerns about printing thousands of new images of angels, all of which will now become angels themselves?
It’s a risk we were willing to take. Sorry in advance.
Understanding that the new saga cards represent episodes from the show, was it painful to make a card called Blink that doesn’t “blink” in the way Magic players might expect?
We talked about this for a very long time. We even started with Weeping Angels blinking out creatures, meaning you exile them and then return them, but ran into two problems.
The first was that that didn’t feel like the Angels. The Angels zap you back in time, and your chance of coming back is extremely low. It can happen but you’ll need some time travel shenanigans. A guaranteed blink that brings you back at the end of turn didn’t make sense.
Second, the whole catchphrase around the Angels is DON’T BLINK. It felt a little odd to then… blink something.
We thought we could get this Blink joke somewhere else. Like, for example, on Don’t Blink!
To that end, the card Don’t Blink seems like the absolute perfect mash-up of Magic and Doctor Who flavor. How did that card come about?
Yes, indeed! This card has kind of a funny story.
Originally, this was a split card: Don’t // Blink. Don’t countered a spell, and Blink blinked a creature. Cute, right? But do you see the problem?
It’s this: each half of a split card is its own separate card name, and once we decided we were going to do a saga called Blink, we couldn’t have two cards both named Blink!
So I started thinking about solutions. And realized there might be something even better here: a card that explicitly punishes blinking! That would be quite clever. It also works pretty well in the environment because the Paradox Power deck and Timey-Wimey deck both do a lot of bringing in from exile. Once I happened upon that, it became the clear winner.
A card like Gallifrey Falls No More also strikes me as a beautiful fusion of Magic mechanics and the flavor of the source material. When you explore older mechanics like Fuse for one-off Commander cards like this, do you go looking for an idea to fit a mechanic you know you want to use, or did this just seem like the right fit for a moment you knew you wanted to depict?
Right on, I love this card! If you don’t know the moment from the 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor, there’s debate over this painting as to if it’s called No More or Gallifrey Falls. But at the end of the episode, they realize it’s actually called Gallifrey Falls No More. It’s such a beautiful representation of this moment, with two halves you get to bring together using the fuse mechanic.
A lot of returning mechanics in Universes Beyond is about things that fit the flavor super well. A specific word or ability that just gets at the essence of what is going on. For example, we’ve seen The Foretold Soldier who has Foretell – a perfect name connection – and this fusing so you do both at once is just delightful.
We’ve seen the occasional Commander/Universes Beyond card get tried out in Magic’s Legacy format recently, stuff like Forth Eorlingas! from The Lord of the Rings and Triumph of Saint Katherine from Warhammer 40,000. I know you design these cards with that in mind, so do you see it as a “miss” when one performs super well in 1v1 Constructed, or is it just a natural part of how those formats evolve now? Any cards already on your radar from these decks?
We try not to make cards in these decks that hit competitive eternal formats, and actually have some passes aimed at catching them. It’s not the end of the world if a card does hit (especially if it’s a more reactive card: reactive cards are generally safer than threats in eternal formats), and when you make nearly 200 new cards you expect some will at least intrigue Legacy players. That said, we’d rather aim to have them not see play in Legacy and hopefully it ends up cool if a couple break through to see some light play. What we really want to avoid is another card like True-Name Nemesis, which is both unfun in one-on-one play and becomes extremely popular in the format. Forth Eorlingas! And Triumph of Saint Katherine are both much more reasonable than True-Name was in its era.
Thanks for having me today, and I hope you enjoy all the hard work we put into these decks! Allons-y!
Tom Marks is IGN’s Senior Reviews Editor. He loves puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and Magic: the Gathering. You can follow him on Twitter @TomRMarks.
Amazon Prime Big Deal Days is both too hard to say and weirdly close to the most recent Prime Day. And yet, as expected, it’s set to be stuffed senseless with computer kit; there are already dozens of offers on SSDs, gaming mice and keyboards, and laptops ahead of the main event on October 10th-11th. Also: loads more. This guide to the best early Prime Big Deal Days PC gaming deals (urgh, see?) will pick out the highlights for your consuming convenience.
The majorest of major disclaimers: these early deals aren’t yet subject to the defining rule of Prime Big Deal Days, specifically that its juciest savings will only be for Prime members. In other words, any deals on this list, right now, are available to everyone.
You’re reading the sixth chapter of my eight-day travelog recounting my unbelievable trip to Japan to cover the 2023 Pokémon World Championships.
7:00 am – I have some hot tea with honey with my breakfast lasagna. My voice seems to be holding up alright.
7:20 am – I meet up with the media group and get ready to take a tour of the main stage.
7:30 am – We’re taken up on the Worlds main stage, pose for a group picture, and are told we have 30 minutes to explore. And boy is there a lot to see! The Worlds stages traditionally feature iconic elements of the hosting city and have grown in elaborateness over the years. I remember being blown away seeing the Washington, D.C. Worlds stage that had the giant skeletons of Fossil Pokémon.
The Yokohama stage is massive and features the main presentation area and four distinct zones to spotlight each game, each one styled after a different season. Signature Yokohama landmarks such as the Cosmo Clock 21 ferris wheel and the Yokohama Landmark Tower. The stage looks spectacular from the crowd but getting to see the craftsmanship up close makes me appreciate little details, like how different colored seasonal leaves from each of the four sections come together in the center where the presenter stands. Walking the stage from end to end feels like going to a Pokémon theme park, with standees of different Pokémon like Mew and Squirtle scattered about, and much like Disney World and Universal Studios, I feel a pang of sadness when we’re told we have to leave.
My last stop is the TCG table that I’ve seen a hundred times from afar on stream, so it feels surreal to actually stand in front of it. I sit down in the padded chair and run my hands across the desk marked with the TCG playzones and wonder if I’ll ever make a successful Worlds run and get to play here one day. Yeah, when Tepigs fly.
9:10 am – We wrap up and exit the stage. As we walk to our next activity, Cody from ScreenRant tells me he noticed I really seem to enjoy breakfast more than the average person.
9:52 am – We brave the relentless heat once more and head to Pokémon Matsuri Park.
We’re attending a Japanese-styled summer festival at Rinko Park. We arrive to see a large, wooden tower topped with a huge Poké Ball, which is standing in the center of a grassy field. It’s covered with Pokémon decorations and is known as a yagura stage. Atop the tower is a taiko drummer pounding away, and a woman starts the Bon Show by singing a cute Pokémon song for the kids in attendance, instructing them to parade around the tower and perform some Pikachu dance moves. It’s the cutest thing in the world. But it’s so hot and humid that it’s unbearable, and we retreat under a tree across the field and watch from afar.
It’s marginally better under the tree. My clothes are so drenched with sweat they’re sticking to my body and I’m feeling a little light-headed.
A Pokémon rep encourages us to try some of the Pokémon-themed carnival games, such as Poké Ball Throw or Magikarp Fishing, and I see that the heat isn’t stopping the kids, so what excuse do I have? We stand in line for about 30 minutes to try our hand at Voltorb’s Rollout, where we have three tries to roll a Voltorb down an obstacle course without letting it fall off and land it in the goal. I manage to succeed on the final try and as my prize to myself I immediately head over to the Full Restore Tents where there’s shade and misting fans, aka Heaven on Earth.
11:30 am – Mercifully, we’re done with the festival and I return to the hotel to take the coldest shower of my life yet somehow still feel warm.
12:40 pm – I head to the media room inside the convention center and eat some little sandwiches for lunch, then we get ready for our interview with someone who has only been described as a “special guest.”
1:00 pm – That special guest, as it turns out, is The Pokémon Company COO Takato Utsunomiya. He’s wearing glasses, a nice suit with a black and yellow checkered tie, and a white shirt dotted with little Unowns. We’re speaking to him through a translator but it’s clear to see he has a good sense of humor. He laughs and smiles a lot and is full of little anecdotes about his life and his experiences with Pokémon.
He says that his first Worlds was in Hawaii back in 2010, and he was moved by how amazing the show was and had wanted to bring it to Japan ever since. Now, 13 years later, his dream is finally realized. However, he says that bringing Worlds to Japan was very challenging, and I get the impression that it isn’t likely to happen again, at least not anytime soon. This makes me appreciate how special this trip is even more than before. Talk turns to whether Pokémon is “beholden” to a certain release schedule, and he says The Pokémon Company is currently having conversations about its constant release schedule. And with that, our Q&A is over.
2:30 pm – I head back down to the tournament hall and bump into French player and Pokémon TCG champion Stéphane Ivanoff. He talks to me about how Worlds is usually held in North America but he really appreciates how it’s now being held in other places around the world. He says coming here to Japan shows him how Pokémon is still a huge phenomenon among the Japanese people, and he’s seen tons of people outside the venue wearing Pikachu stuff and participating in the activities, even if they’re not involved in the competition. He’s wowed by how the city of Yokohama has been transformed for Worlds and says how nice it is to see Pokémon recognized outside of the tournament hall. All this makes him proud to be a competitor.
3:00 pm – I continue my lap around the hall and meet a staff member named Demarcus. He has multiple Pokémon plushies resting on his hat and shoulders and says he’s really enjoying helping run the event. He tells me that Japan is not built for tall people. He says he has to crouch to take a shower, get through doorways, or even walk down the hall. He looks to be about 6’5, if not more. I can totally see what he means.
3:10 pm – Earlier I requested an interview through Pokémon, and now it’s time. I meet up with a Pokémon rep and they introduce me to Diane Schemanske. I had heard some buzz about her on Twitter, where she’s known as “The Best Schemanske,” so I wanted to write an article about her unique experience. She and her son Alex both qualified to compete in the Pokémon TCG World Championship. A mother-son duo is incredibly rare in the Pokémon competitive scene.
She shares the story of how she started playing the same time her kids did, 13 years ago, and always traveled around the world with them to compete. Alex went on to become a multi-time Pokémon champion. Diane had come close to earning enough Championship Points several times before, and this year she finally crossed the finish line, earning her a spot to play in the prestigious tournament alongside her son.
She tells me she got four wins and four losses and was knocked out on the first day of the competition, but that didn’t matter to her because she was proud of herself for making it here and had fun playing and getting to know her opponents. I think about how any competitive gaming scene would be a bit better if more people had Diane’s attitude.
3:43 pm – I pop outside to grab a drink from a vending machine, although I barely have any idea what I’m ordering and wind up with a fizzy apple drink with a bitter aftertaste.
I see a Japanese couple playing on a window ledge next to the elevator. Miraidon ex versus Chien-Pao/Baxcalibur. I don’t see them wearing badges so I ask what brings them here, and they say they weren’t able to get into the event but they just wanted to come play and have fun.
3:50 pm – A man stops me to ask for directions to the Pokémon store and I point him down to the far end of the convention center. There’s a massive line of people, you can’t miss it. I ask him what brings him to the tournament. He says he and his girlfriend are from Taiwan but they live in Japan. He works at a local Pokémon card shop and came to Worlds to see if he could buy a pair of spectator badges to watch some games inside the hall, but they’re so expensive that he hasn’t been able to secure them yet. He says even if they don’t get inside, he’s just happy to be here because he’s been a fan of Pokémon since childhood and it’s really cool to be here and see famous players walking around. I wish them luck on getting inside. It seems like they’d really enjoy it.
4:35 pm – I make my way back inside and watch a Pokémon TCG match. I’m sitting next to a couple from France wearing spectator badges. They tell me they’ve always wanted to visit Japan and are huge Pokémon fans, so they planned a trip around Worlds, then they’ll explore the rest of the country. They say they went to Worlds in London last year, and it was fun, but nothing compares to the hype generated by the Japanese people because they’re so passionate about Pokémon. I ask where they’d like to see Worlds next year and they say Paris. I should have seen that coming.
6:40 pm – The second day of Worlds is starting to wrap up, with finalists being decided for each division. Pokémon Unite will decide a winner tonight, but the rest of the finalists will battle it out for the top prize tomorrow. The TCG Masters tournament seems to be running long, so I go hang out by the top tables to see which players are in contention for top cut. A big group of people starts to form to watch the final round of Swiss and I look around to see it’s a murderer’s row of Pokémon TCG talent. Lots of top players who were knocked out of the contest but stuck around the venue to root for their teammates.
I see a handful of judges are huddled around Table 3, which is usually a sign that a rule was broken and they’re deliberating on what the penalty should be. A friendly guy fills me in on what’s happening and it turns out to be Isiah Cheville, Pokémon TCG champion extraordinaire. He explains that one of the players received a Double Prize Penalty for making a gameplay error. Even though I’d never met Isiah before, I’ve read his articles on PokeBeach.com and tried out some of his decks. The chance meeting reminds me of how big Pokémon events like Worlds brings people together who would otherwise never meet.
A match with one of Isiah’s friends named Ras Wolpe finishes. Ras didn’t get the win, and as he exits the play area he looks absolutely devastated. Who could blame him? Isiah gives him a big, long hug.
6:55 pm – I see Sam Chen finishing up his final match and race over to finally get a look at what he’s playing. Mew VMAX. One of my guesses was right, after all!
7:15 pm – I go to the main stage and see a massive crowd has gathered for the Pokémon Unite grand finals. I used to play Pokémon Unite religiously but fell off months ago so I’m seeing newer Pokémon like Lapras and Umbreon in action for the first time. The entire weekend, North American team Luminosity dominated the tournament, and they made quick work of their opponents in the finals, claiming the first Pokémon World Championship title of the weekend and taking home $100,000 in prize money for the whole team. Maybe I should pick up the game again.
7:58 pm – I run into Australian player Henry Brand, winner of the 2019 Pokémon TCG World Championship. I ask him if he feels a lot of pressure playing at subsequent Worlds tournaments because now everyone expects him to win. He laughs and says yes, absolutely.
8:30 pm – I head back to the main stage and see the Unite crowd has dispersed, leaving about one third of the seats empty. A little over half of the remaining crowd is now seated in front of the screens broadcasting the VGC Masters Top 8. VGC isn’t my specialty so I just sit back, relax, and watch Chien-Pao and Ursulana battle it out.
9:00 pm – I turn to watch the TCG Masters playoffs. The card game may have the highest number of players of any Worlds competition, but it also has the least flashy gameplay. There’s a lot (and I mean a lot) of shuffling, deck searching, and contemplating to sit through before something exciting happens. It’s like watching a chess match, where the players slowly set up their boards by benching Pokémon and evolving them up, then make a series of exchanges until one person takes all six Prize cards.
The match on stage features the fan-favorite Tord Reklev, who is largely considered to be one of the best, if not the best Pokémon TCG competitors to ever play the game. He has numerous big titles to his name and has made some admirable Worlds runs, finishing in the Top 4 last year, but he’s never taken first place at Worlds. He’s playing a Gardevoir ex mirror match, which is very grindy and involves a dizzying number of micro-decisions. Tord narrowly wins the match and looks completely exhausted. The players have been at it all day and are going well into the night but they can’t stop until only two remain. Tord looks relieved more than anything, but he’s about to immediately jump into a match against one of few players who have a list of accomplishments comparable to his
10:01 pm – The featured Top 4 match is Tord Reklev piloting Gardevoir versus Michael Pramawat on Lost Giratina. It’s Pramawat’s third time making Top 8 at Worlds and he looks determined to go the distance this time. The commentators build up how this is a battle of the ages, a contest of champions, and a clash of Pokémon TCG titans… then both draw terrible opening hands and Tord manages to land an early KO that ends the first game in a matter of minutes. Whelp.
10:46 pm – As the players set up for the next game in the series, I turn to the players next to me and see one of them is last year’s World Champion, Ondrej Skubal. The madman who won with Flying Pikachu! I ask who he thinks is going to win and he says Tord will win this match, and if he does, then he’ll go on to win the whole thing. I ask him if he feels a lot of pressure to win again. He laughs and says no, it’s too random to win twice in a row.
10:55 pm – The match wraps up with Tord taking the win and earning a spot in the finals.
11:10 pm – I realize my time in Japan is almost over, so I go to 7/11 and buy a random assortment of foods to try before I go to bed.
That’s all for now. Be sure to check back tomorrow for Day 7 of my trip to Japan, finals day, where we find out who will be crowned Pokémon World Champion.
In the meantime, check out our other coverage on Pokémon Worlds:
In the frozen hellscape of Frostpunk, you eked out your existence in hours and days, clinging to your heat- and life-giving generator at the centre of your fledgling city like there was literally no tomorrow. In 11 bit Studio’s forthcoming sequel, Frostpunk 2, the apocalypse is yesterday’s news. Now you’re dealing with “what happens when you survive the un-survivable,” as the game’s co-director and design director Jakub Stokalski neatly puts it when I sit down for a hands off presentation at this year’s Gamescom. And to do this, Frostpunk 2 is going big, measuring its time not in days, but weeks, months and even years.
“If we want to show the evolution of societies and different utopias/dystopias, we need breathing room,” says Stokalski. “And this breathing room really is in the scale, both in the physical sense but also in the sense of time. It’s difficult to show meaningful social change in the space of a month, so the time ticks now in weeks and months, and in a long playthrough you’ll get up into years, so you can see the consequences of your choices.”
DOOM Eternal meets… Bayonetta..?
Publisher Humble Games has revealed an upcoming ‘mini-campaign’ DLC expansion for the excellent FPS Prodeus.
All we know at the moment is that the DLC is ‘coming soon’, so we don’t have a release date in place just yet, but we’ll certainly keep an eye out. In the meantime, the above debut trailer showcases what players can expect from the expansion’s gameplay.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
A brand-new location will soon be unveiled in Fallout 76’s upcoming Atlantic City update. Prepare to travel to a never-before-seen part of Fallout’s post-nuclear world on December 5 as players step onto the boardwalks of New Jersey.
Fallout 76’s Expeditions allow players to explore outside the borders of Appalachia, first introduced with the remnants of Pre-War Pittsburgh last year. “We started with The Pitt, which is a classic, fan-favorite location,” says Joshua Moretto,lead quest designer. “When we looked to our next location, we wanted someplace that would feel as different from The Pitt as The Pitt did from Appalachia.”
Place your bets as you visit the somewhat-dingy Casino in a new Expedition mission.
A coastal gambling town is quite a change of scenery from the smog-covered spires of The Pitt, with Expeditions to Atlantic City giving Fallout fans a peek at a new part of the post-nuclear world. “As a native New Jerseyan, I’d been hoping for a long time that we’d get a chance to introduce my home state to the world of Fallout,” says Moretto. “Atlantic City was the perfect opportunity for this.”
Atlantic City’s bustling nightlife and other advancements and amenities (including electricity and running water) may come as a shock to many fresh-faced Vault Dwellers hailing from the wilds of West Virginia. The town was relatively lucky–heavy emphasis on relatively back during The Great War, making it an unlikely haven of post-nuclear reconstruction. “No place was untouched by the war, but Atlantic City weathered better than most,” says Moretto. “It was a tourist destination with no real military or strategic value, so it wasn’t a direct target when the bombs fell.”
Meet the Municipal Government (Munis) who keep the lights on in Atlantic City.
However, such prosperity comes at a price. The balance of power in Atlantic City is precariously checked by three major factions, often scheming to get the leg up on each other. “The Municipal Government keeps the lights, water and food running in Atlantic City,” explains Moretto. “Then we have the organized crime rackets of The Family, and we also have a chaotic guild of entertainers known as The Showmen. Each of them controls something vital to the continued functioning of Atlantic City.”
The “somewhat shady” Family who runs the Casino.
Despite cooperation being essential to Atlantic City, relations are strained between the separate factions. The city relies on the Municipal Government’s infrastructure, but also the income from The Family’s supply of vices and The Showmen’s attractions–the latter ranging anywhere from pedestrian magic tricks to more thrilling (read: deadlier) fare.
The Showmen entertainers run the deadliest game show in town.
“Each of our three Expeditions invites you to work closely with one of the three factions and help them achieve their primary goals,” says Ellys Tan, senior quest designer, explaining that players will also get to experience Atlantic City across two content releases. “The first release features two Expeditions and the second release includes one more Expedition, as well as a variety of quests you can do in Atlantic City.”
Your first introduction to Atlantic City is the once-glittering Boardwalk.
Internal squabbles aside, a greater threat exists. Bordered on one side by the ocean itself, Atlantic City is now becoming cut off as the dense forests of the New Jersey Pine Barrens grow out of control across the region.
“In the aftermath of the Great War, the barrens have retaken territory and started to encroach upon the city’s borders,” Moretto explains. “Coming from deep within the heart of the Pine Barrens are strange (and previously unknown) mutated creatures…”
Whoa, that’s enough news for now! Whether you’re anxious to visit a new part of the Fallout universe, make your allegiances with Atlantic City’s lively factions or simply roll the dice and see what happens, be sure to check out the Atlantic City update–arriving free for Fallout 76 players December 5. Jump into Fallout 76 and secure your lot in post-nuclear Appalachia today on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
Paradox have announced that they’re publishing Channel 3 Entertainment’s Foundry, a first-person factory management sim set in an… “infinite” world. Factories with no maximum size limit? Oh dear. I had a hard enough time shucking off my addiction to Dyson Sphere Program, in which you can build a factory that encloses the sun. I dread to think how much time I could waste away playing this.
After a disastrous launch that saw Payday 3 unplayable for many, developer Starbreeze has declared the matchmaking issues over, opening the door to a big update for October.
Starbreeze said the scheduled maintenance carried out last week fixed the matchmaking issues that occurred during Payday 3’s first week after launch. Matchmaking is now stable, Starbreeze said, and has had “good performance”.
The developer bigged up the popularity of Payday 3 since it came out, saying over the past five days it had a peak concurrent players (CCU) of 124,254, and during September saw 3,167,938 unique players (MAU).
Starbreeze said it will now “intensify” commercial activities around Payday 3 after an initial pause. This starts early October with the game’s first update, which will focus on improving the game experience. Further updates will target quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and new functionality.
Here’s the roadmap for the rest of 2023:
|
Date |
Content |
|
October |
200+ QoL-improvements for all platforms |
|
Oct/Nov |
QoL-improvements, new content and new functionality |
|
November |
QoL-improvements, new content and new functionality |
|
Winter 2023 |
The DLC “Syntax Error” on sale (included in Silver and Gold Edition) |
“First and foremost, I would like to thank our players for the patience they have shown us,” Starbreeze boss Tobias Sjögren said. “Our community is the engine that drives both our games and our company forward. I don’t really need to repeat that this was not the start we wanted, but at the same time, our business model is a marathon and not a sprint and we will tirelessly continue to build Payday 3 bigger and better to deliver the greatest possible value for our players.”
Despite these matchmaking improvements, Payday 3’s Steam page still carries a “mostly negative” user review rating, with 37% of the nearly 30,000 user reviews positive. It’s worth noting that more people are currently paying Payday 2 on Steam than are playing Payday 3.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Rockstar are about to properly announce Grand Theft Auto VI, going by some hectic speculation surrounding a TwiX image for GTA Online‘s upcoming in-game Red Happy Moon Tee festival. A child in the ways of the internet might glance at said image and merely conclude that if you play GTA Online at any point this week, you can scoop up a seasonal cosmetic. But look again with unclouded eyes, young one. What does your heart say to you?
