Valve hero shooter Deadlock is a certified hit on Steam, somehow crossing 100,000 concurrent players while still being invite only.
Data from player tracking website SteamDB shows Deadlock crossed the 100,000 milestone on August 29, 2024, with exactly 106,447 players online at the same time. Its popularity has been steadily increasing throughout August and will surely continue to do so, especially as the weekend approaches.
But what makes Deadlock’s success particularly interesting and definitely strange is that it’s not officially out yet. Valve seemingly looked to keep the game a secret for weeks despite, again, SteamDB showing that thousands of players were already online.
It was released in this beta or playtesting equivalent state and still remains that way, with players only able to join if invited directly by Valve or referred by someone already playing. Those who did get in were asked to “not share anything about the game with anyone.”
Valve has actually acknowledged Deadlock’s existence now, however, by taking down that request and unveiling its official Steam page. “Deadlock is a multiplayer game in early development,” it says, still vaguely.
Deadlock is actually a six versus six, third person hero shooter with a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) twist, taking inspiration from genre classics such as Leage of Legends, Dota 2, and Heroes of the Storm.
Valve hasn’t shared when players can join freely or when a full release may come, but as its numbers grow, the “invite only” status becomes less and less meaningful.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
The website highlights a boatload of the 110+ minigames that we can expect to find in Jamboree, the majority of which appear to be new, but there were a couple hidden in the roster that looked strangely familiar. ‘Platform Peril’ from Mario Party 1? ‘Granite Getaway’ and ‘Snow Brawl’ from Mario Party 6? Mario Party 4‘s ‘Three Throw’?! All the following snaps are from the new website, so it looks like we have a couple of returning guests to look forward to.
It is with quiet anticipation (and some nervousness) that I await to be stepped upon by a freaky mech in The Forever Winter. If you missed its announcement in May, The Forever Winter is a co-op extraction shooter set in a grim future where you struggle to survive amid an unending hyperindustrial war. Since that reveal developers Fun Dog Studios have mostly been sending out small “burst transmissions” – essentially footage from the hellfront – like this patriotic beheading and some panicked gunfights. But today they’ve made a longer video revealing an early access release date. And – oh! – it’s quite soon.
Chinese video game company NetEase has reportedly laid off most staff at Visions of Mana developer Ouka Studios with plans to shut it down altogether.
Anonymous sources familiar with the situation told Bloomberg that the studio, which only opened in 2020, will be kept afloat by the few remaining members until its final games have been released. Visions of Mana only launched yesterday, August 29, 2024, and earned high critical praise. (IGN’s Visions of Mana review returned an 8/10.)
The closure of Ouka Studios is reportedly due to major Chinese companies like NetEase and its rival Tencent shifting away from a Japan-centric approach.
Bloomberg reported that Tencent is also reconsidering how much it invests in Japanese video game developers and has already backed out of several funding commitments. It had secured the rights to develop and publish the mobile version of anime-inspired game Blue Protocol, for example, but on August 28 Bandai Namco announced Blue Protocol would be shut down altogether and its worldwide release, set to be handled by Amazon Games, was cancelled.
One source said the success of Black Myth Wukong, which sold a staggering 10 million copies in three days and comes from a relatively small Chinese developer, has also inspired NetEase and Tencent to look for investments domestically. These Chinese companies have otherwise found their visions misaligned with the Japanese developers they looked to invest in, according to the report.
NetEase told Bloomberg it had “nothing to announce” regarding the closure of Ouka Studios. Tencent said it is “always making necessary adjustments to reflect market conditions.”
The past two years have seen countless video game industry layoffs as big companies including Microsoft, Sony, and the embattled Embracer Group have not just cut jobs but shut down entire studios.
Here’s one we missed from this week’s release round-up, possibly because Konami appear to have given it precisely zero promotion: the Castlevania Dominus Collection, a four-game bundle spanning PC ports of three well-regarded DS Castlevanias, plus a redesigned version of Castlevania Haunted Castle, the first Castlevania game to grace an arcade machine. It’ll set you back $25, £20 or €25, and my drive-by analysis of the trailer below is that they’ve done a decent job with the ports.
Darkest Dungeon 2‘s Kingdoms mode – a free turn-based boardgame reimagining of the hellish roguelike roadtrip RPG – will release in three modules, Red Hook have announced. The first of this fearful trio, Hunger Of The Beast Clan, is down to launch in Q4 2024, which translates to sometime during the period 1st October to 31st December.
It’ll accompany a new paid Darkest Dungeon 2 DLC, Inhuman Bondage, which introduces a new region, a new hero with “…unique” mechanics and a fresh faction of seemingly excrement-themed fiends to slaughter.
It’s not every day a video game company embraces memes with open arms, but that’s exactly what’s going on at Sega when it comes to the Sonic the Hedgehog series – in fact, it’s arguably helped revitalize the brand over the years.
Ahead of the release of Sonic X Shadow Generations and the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 movie later this year, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka recently touched on all the Shadow and Sonic-related memes during a chat with Polygon. First of all – yes, the team sees fans posting “lots of interesting stuff”.
This major update is now officially live for Splatoon 3. Boot up your Switch to start downloading! It comes packed with changes to connectivity, multiplayer, other updates and bug fixes, as well as more amiibo compatibility.
PUBG: Battlegrounds celebrated its seventh anniversary this year, and it’s still going strong. The free-to-play battle royale shooter has welcomed millions of players from around the world during those seven years, and the development team has been focused on releasing new content and updates to keep that massive community engaged.
“The key thing that I’ve learned over the past seven years is how important fans are,” said Taehyun Kim, Production Director of PUBG: Battlegrounds. “Our game has been serviced globally and it has been played in many countries and by many people around the world. So we keep looking for ways to satisfy diverse countries and diverse fans.”
Kim has been a member of the PUBG team since its initial phase of development in 2016. He worked his way up to Production Director, where he is now responsible for guiding all aspects of the game’s progress. We got a chance to sit down and chat with him in Cologne, Germany, where he and his team were on hand for gamescom.
Throughout our discussion, Kim stressed how vital he thinks it is for developers to stay in contact with their player base. He’s even been going out of his comfort zone to engage with fans publicly in new ways.
“I had a livestream with Korean users, and it was really, really challenging,” Kim said. “I’m a developer, not a professional emcee, so I was afraid. ‘Oh, what if I make a mistake in front of this many people in real time?’ But I think, of course it is difficult, but I need to keep challenging myself and I have to continue this effort.”
That effort is one of the reasons he came to Cologne. He attended PUBG: Hot Drop Cologne, an in-person event that allowed fans to meet the game’s devs, partners, and other special guests. It was one of the first times Kim has had direct contact with Western players, which is something he wants to continue to improve at.
“I’m Korean, and I’m more comfortable speaking in Korean, so I have been communicating with Korean users using livestreaming,” he said. “But that was kind of my preparation to more effectively communicate with Western and English-speaking users. Currently we are looking forward and we are looking at different ways to more effectively communicate with our users around the world. So starting with this gamescom, we are going to keep continuing this effort to communicate with our fans.”
Of course, building a community relies on more than devs connecting with players. It’s also about allowing players to form connections with each other. August was Clan Month, which added weekly clan challenges and a new rewards system. It also allowed players to join the fan clans of eight popular esports teams. It all builds to a special tournament at the end of the month, when clan members get the chance to team up with professional players.
“For the clan system, what we want to offer to our players is to create an environment where they can create a new community and they can enjoy the game together, they can complete the missions together, and get the rewards together,” Kim said. “So doing this, they can enjoy the game with more fun with their squadmates and their clan members.”
Kim and his team also know that for a community to stay active, they need updates and new content. He stressed that he and the dev team have a clear design philosophy and are very careful about what actually gets incorporated into the game.
“Through our communication events in Korea, I’ve learned that what is more important is not to do something big, but to do something consistently,” he said. “Our theme is survival, so we do not want to undermine this core gameplay.”
With a player base as huge and diverse as PUBG’s, player feedback comes from every corner of the world. Different players want different things, some of which directly contradict each other. So Kim and his team have to always keep that design philosophy in mind.
“For us, community feedback is very important, but we are getting a lot of feedback from many countries and from many types of users,” he said. “Sometimes, feedback is very different, even for just one feature. So we think what is important is we need to incorporate the feedback which is more relevant to our game and also we need to set a benchmark that the incorporation process should not undermine our core gameplay.”
As always, PUBG: Battlegrounds has plenty for players to look forward to. A zombie mode is on the way, an upgrade to Unreal Engine 5 is in the works long-term, and Kim said there are plans for plenty of other things that he can’t reveal yet. If you want to get in on the action, you can download PUBG: Battlegrounds for free on PC, PS4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and a mobile version is available on iOS and Android.
During their livestream today, Blizzard announced a rather unexpected feature will be returning to Diablo 4 with Vessel of Hatred: Runewords.
Found exclusively in Diablo 2 up until this point, Runewords are an upgrade system that lets you imprint your equipment with special properties by combining specific runes to form words with potent effects. Though Diablo 4’s take on this mechanic has been overhauled, the fundamentals remain the same, and will offer an entirely new way for players to power up their heroes of Sanctuary.
In an interview with IGN, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred game director Brent Gibson explained, “The biggest change is that the requirement is sockets. The D2 system is great, but it’s also not super approachable for the larger audience. We wanted to have a really great system that made it easy for you to socket, basically an ‘IF’ statement, then a ‘THEN’ result. So as long as you have two sockets in your gear, you can place two different types of stones. You have the ritual stone, which is the condition, like ‘on potion,’ and then you have the invocation stone which is the power that’s cast, like ‘earthquake.’ So every time I use a potion, cast earthquake.”
Owing to Diablo 4’s socket limitations, Runewords will rely exclusively on this IF/THEN system and will do away with the much more complicated version found in Diablo 2 where Runewords could involve up to six runes on a single piece of equipment. However, the flipside is that there will be fewer limitations on what kinds of gear can have Runewords imprinted on them and there will now be different rarities of runes to chase, including legendary runes that will have a major impact on gameplay. One example of this is a invocation rune that can add the sorcerer’s teleport ability to any character whenever it’s triggered.
“The game has got a new level of crazy that I’m super excited about.”
“Teleport, for example: Here we have the Spiritborn. You spec Jaguar and Eagle — you’re already all over the place, plus you add teleport on top of basics? Like, holy s**t! Untouchable!” said Gibson with a smile. “The game has got a new level of crazy that I’m super excited about.”
But powerful runes won’t come flowing automatically, and Blizzard made clear that players will need to farm certain activities, including the upcoming Kurast Undercity in Vessel of Hatred, if they want to make the most of Runewords. Once obtained, the runes a player has already acquired will be found in other activities thereafter.
