Author: Game Infliction

The developer of Arc Raiders isn’t worried about coming out between Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, insisting: “we believe the game can launch there.”

Arc Raiders ended its recent ‘Server Slam’ playtest with big player numbers on Steam, suggesting a strong launch ahead of its October 30 release date. It hit a peak concurrent player count of 189,668, making it one of the most-played games on Valve’s platform the weekend it ran and the biggest extraction shooter ever on Steam. That said, with the full release slated for tomorrow, which happens to be between the launch dates of two of the world’s biggest FPS franchises, Embark Studios CEO Patrick Soderlund admitted some people may wonder “what the hell are they doing?”

“I know. The insanity,” Soderlund told The Game Business. “People may look at that [Arc Raiders’ release date] and say, ‘What the hell are they doing?’ We have spent a lot of time looking at this from multiple angles and you know, for right or wrong, we believe that the game can launch there. This is the start of a long journey. It needs to start somewhere.”

As for whether or not the game’s huge playtest was enough to retain players for a full release? “I think it comes down to not being complacent enough to believe that we can build something without making a meaningful impact or innovation,” Soderlund said. “We have to bring something so that people pay attention. And if we’ve done a good enough job, maybe they’ll stick around. But in order for them to break away from what they’re already playing, there needs to be an attraction.

“A couple of years ago, I was concerned about Arc Raiders and whether it would find its market. So, when we launched the technical test, which was earlier in the spring, we were just blown away by how many people played it. We obviously tried our best to market it, but it became one of those things that just spread virally. We were humbled by that. It’s testament to the work that the team has done building something that is complicated, yet accessible. Something that is easy to play, yet has a lot of gameplay depth.”

Arc Raiders’ design director has said it was fortuitous timing to have its extraction shooter launch a playtest around the same time as Bungie’s Marathon, calling it “a great A/B test for us.” In an interview last week, Virgil Watkins said: “It was very coincidental that they had their test around the time we did. To my knowledge, I don’t think any of us knew that was going to happen. It was a very great A/B test for us, because obviously, they made decisions that we didn’t, and vice versa. So we could kind of compare and contrast how some of those things shook out.”

Embark Studios’ previous game, free-to-download competitive shooter The Finals, is still going, although its concurrent player numbers on Steam are a far cry from those during its explosive launch back in December 2023.

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.

Amazon is walking away from making new content from its MMO, New World, amid huge layoffs affecting 14,000 roles at the company. Now, there is concern over the status of its The Lord of the Rings MMO.

Yesterday, October 28, Amazon confirmed cuts affecting an eye-watering 14,000 roles. It’s one of the biggest round of layoffs the tech giant has ever seen, and comes at a time when other companies in the tech sector, such as Microsoft and Meta, have made similarly huge cuts.

It also comes at a time when Amazon is performing well. So why are they happening? AI, basically. In a note to employees, Beth Galetti, Senior Vice President of People Experience and Technology at Amazon, said:

Some may ask why we’re reducing roles when the company is performing well. Across our businesses, we’re delivering great customer experiences every day, innovating at a rapid rate, and producing strong business results. What we need to remember is that the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet, and it’s enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before (in existing market segments and altogether new ones). We’re convinced that we need to be organized more leanly, with fewer layers and more ownership, to move as quickly as possible for our customers and business.

What does this all mean for Amazon’s gaming business? According to a report by Bloomberg, nothing good. There are “significant” cuts coming to Amazon’s video game operation, which will reduce development work and layoff staff mainly in its Irvine and San Diego offices.

The New World changes are a part of that, and while the game will remain online during 2026, this is basically the beginning of the end for once hugely popular MMO. Let’s remember, New World was a rare hit for Amazon in the video game space, and followed multiple flops that resulted in game and studio closures. The MMO set in an alternate 1600s America saw huge player numbers on Steam, with a whopping 913,634 peak concurrents on Valve’s platform back in 2021. Player numbers have significantly declined since that peak, however.

Bloomberg said Amazon is cutting back especially on MMOs, but will continue to develop Amazon Games Montreal’s strategy March of Giants, its new Tomb Raider game in the works at Crystal Dynamics, and “casual and AI-focused games” for its cloud gaming service Luna. UK studio Maverick Games will continue to work on its racing game, too. Amazon Games also continues to publish externally developed games such as Lost Ark and Throne & Liberty in western markets.

Amazon is also working on an in-house The Lord of the Rings MMO, although we haven’t heard much about it since it was announced in 2023. In August last year, Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann told IGN the company had 10 games in development and was negotiating “a couple more.” These include Tomb Raider and The Lord of the Rings MMO, as well as the new driving game from the former developers behind Forza Horizon.

On The Lord of the Rings MMO, however, Hartmann insisted it was still early days. “We’re still trying to find the hook, find that idea of what it is because we don’t just want to go and do the same thing over,” Hartmann said at the time.

“While it’s tempting sometimes with an existing IP, that’s not the point of doing it. You’ve got to find a fresh twist, and we’re still, I think, in that period where we really want to find out what could be the hook, what could be the thing which is different to all the other games out there. So it’s a little bit early.”

IGN has asked Amazon for an update on The Lord of the Rings MMO.

There are also plenty of questions around Tomb Raider, which has been caught up in the mire around the Embracer Group. Hartmann mostly waved off those concerns, saying that developer Crystal Dynamics is “fairly sheltered from everything going on with Embracer.”

“People obviously look at what the parent company is doing, but it never impacted on resources, never led to any changes on management for them, so they’re fine. I mean, doing a new Tomb Raider, the bar is so high. The longer you go, the expectation goes higher, so it’s a huge, huge task, but things are progressing. I mean, there’s some really great ideas here,” Hartmann said.

“Obviously, we’re not going to share any with you even if we would love to, but things are going well, things are moving forward. And from what I could tell, Crystal was pretty sheltered, because also when you look before…they went through a couple of ownership changes anyway before, it’s not brand new for them.”

Crystal Dynamics recently laid off a number of workers following Microsoft’s cancelation of the Perfect Dark reboot. At the time, the studio insisted Tomb Raider was still in development and unaffected by the decision.

Crystal Dynamics was originally brought in to revitalize Perfect Dark after struggles getting the project moving with former co-developer, Certain Affinity. Crystal was later acquired by the Embracer Group in 2022, at which time the studio was revealed to have 273 employees across its Austin, Bellevue, and San Mateo offices. Crystal laid off 10 people in 2023, and laid off 17 more people earlier this year. It’s unclear how many remain now.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding developer Hideo Kojima says he was “surprised” to read that the creators of The Matrix wanted him to develop a game based on the franchise, insisting: “no one ever told me such a conversation had taken place.”

Yesterday, IGN reported that The Wachowskis, the writers and directors behind the Matrix movies, once asked Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima to design a Matrix video game, but publisher Konami reportedly turned it down. “The Wachowskis were big fans of Kojima,” Konami Digital Entertainment VP of licensing, Christopher Bergstresser, said. “So Kazumi Kitaue, Kojima, Aki Saito (who still works with Kojima), and I were at the Konami HQ, and we got a call from the Wachowskis, who wanted to come in and meet with Kojima. So they did!