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Tim Sweeney Admits Epic Games Had ‘Financial Problem’ 10 Weeks Prior to Studio Layoffs

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has admitted the company was grappling with a “financial problem” 10 weeks before announcing sweeping layoffs, in an unexpected admission during Unreal Fest earlier this week.

In a post on the social media platform X (spotted by Polygon), user @ImmatureGamerX uploaded a video recorded during one of the sessions available on the first day of the annual conference focused on Unreal Engine. However, this session is not included in the live streams available to the public.

Sweeney elaborated more on Epic’s financial woes that led to the company laying off 830 employees late last month. Sweeney explained that management became aware of how dire their financial difficulties were just 10 weeks before the announcement.

“This wasn’t a right sizing. I think we were in the right size, and I loved our original plans,” Sweeney explained. “This was a survival move that was necessary. And what we did accomplish, the one thing is we stabilized our finances so we won’t run out of money as we build the metaverse.”

While Sweeney did not speak freely about the change in Epic’s financial struggles, he admitted that the company relied heavily on Fortnite’s revenue in recent years. It’s not a complete surprise, as Fortnite has been one of Epic’s most profitable properties. In 2021, it was reported that the popular free-to-play battle royale had made $9 billion in two years and had 400 million registered users at the time.

Even with the revenue Fortnite brought in for Epic, the company has been spending more than it’s been making, something Sweeney disclosed in the letter sent out to staff last week. One costly venture is Epic’s ongoing legal feud with Apple, which dates back to 2020 when Epic sued Apple (and Google) after both companies removed Fortnite from digital storefronts. Meanwhile, Epic was fined $520 million for unwanted in-game purchases made between January 2017 and September 2022 in Fortnite.

Epic has also been generous with revenue splitting, from offering 40% of Fortnite revenue to content creators using the Unreal Editor for Fortnite. Two months ago, the company announced the Epic First Run, a program for third-party developers to keep 100% of the profits from its newly-released exchange to make its new titles timed-exclusives on the Epic Games Store. And Epic already takes a smaller cut for games released on its digital storefront, charging only 12% in contrast to the “industry standard” of 30% as seen on its competitor Steam.

To help ensure it is expanding its revenue streams, Sweeney revealed that Epic plans to increase the price of Unreal Engine. But unlike the situation with Unity, Epic does not plan to make it more expensive for game developers. Rather, Epic will move to a “seat-based” software pricing model where customers pay for “seats” or how many people can access the software.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix 9 Out Now — Here’s What it Does

The Baldur’s Gate 3 hotfixes are coming thick and fast. After Hotfix 8, which shaved His Majesty after a cat backlash from fans, came out earlier this week, Larian has now released Hotfix 9, which brings the sprawling Dungeons & Dragons-themed role-playing game up to version number 4.1.1.3767641.

Hotfix 9 squishes multiple bugs, issues and crashes, Larian said, as well as lets players change the appearance of their hirelings via the Magic Mirror.

“The same restrictions apply as when you edit your Tav, but we hope this enables you to create the party of your dreams,” Larian explained in a post on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Steam page. “Or, someone else’s nightmares. We can’t wait to see it.”

Hirelings are characters you can hire to join your party. They are summoned by Withers to lend aid when you seek their services. According to Withers, these individuals are spirits of fallen adventurers who were former cult members of the Absolute. For more information, check out IGN’s How to Unlock and Recruit Hirelings guide.

Sticking with the Magic Mirror, players can now use it to change their character’s name. “We’ll be using this to add Cool in front of every one of our characters, but you do you,” Larian joked.

Here are the Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix 9 patch notes in full:

  • You can now use the Magic Mirror on hirelings.
  • You can now change your name through the Magic Mirror.
  • Fixed a rare crash that could occur when unloading or quickloading a game.
  • Fixed an issue causing GPU crashes on PS5 Vulkan.
  • Fixed the Guardian Statue repeatedly falling into a chasm, causing the server to stall.
  • Fixed a splitscreen issue on PS5 that could cause a black screen when listening in on a dialogue.
  • Fixed unpreparing spells not removing their buffs if the spell was upcasted.
  • Fixed buffs being removed by unpreparing spells if the buff came from a different source (e.g. a scroll).
  • Fixed some character positions and animations breaking if you skip lines in certain dialogues.
  • Fixed the previews not working correctly in the Accessibility options.
  • Fixed an issue causing Minthara’s romance to unreliably trigger.
  • Fixed Minthara’s dialogue after you SPOILERS not triggering properly when you talk to her.
  • Fixed the Adamantine Splint Armour sometimes making your legs transparent.
  • Fixed a geometry stretching bug introduced in Hotfix 8 on Vulkan.
  • Fixed characters showing up in their underwear in some intimate scenes even if you have nudity enabled.
  • Fixed Feign Death causing an infinite leave–join combat loop in certain circumstances.
  • Fixed prices in dialogues not displaying correctly in savegames that were made while the price was on screen.
  • Optimised the line-of-sight system for entities with no sight range, like items.

In IGN’s review of Baldur’s Gate 3, which returned a 10/10, we said: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”

For more, check out IGN’s comprehensive Baldur’s Gate 3 walkthrough.

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.

Stardew Valley Creator Reveals ‘Hats on Cats (and Dogs)’ Feature Seemingly Coming in 1.6 Update

Stardew Valley creator Eric ‘Concerned Ape’ Barone has teased an adorable new feature that may be coming to the farming RPG as part of the highly anticipated 1.6 update, which will seemingly allow players to put hats on their beloved in-game pets.

“Hats on cats (and dogs)”, read the post on X from Barone, who shared four images of pixel pets wearing headware ranging from bows to forager hats, and the iconic fashion hat. The idea that Stardew Valley’s pets will soon be given the behatted dignity they deserve without having to resort to mods left many in the community overjoyed, while others took the opportunity to pine for other features to be added to the game.

Some fans were curious as to whether the new feature is to be included in the 1.6 update, or whether it will make its debut in Barone’s next title, the Haunted Chocolatier. Judging by the fact that some of the hats, floors, and wallpapers seen in the images match perfectly with existing Stardew Valley assets, it’s likely to be the former.

Barone recently revealed a slew of features confirmed to be coming with Stardew Valley’s 1.6 update, including eight-player multiplayer support on PC, 100 lines of new dialogue, new late game quest endings, and a range of other new adjustments, items and features. However, the Concerned Ape has yet to reveal the release date for the new content.

The interminable wait has seemingly become too much for Terraria producer Cinx, who jokingly turned to bargaining in the comments by offering Barone: “If you dm me the release date for 1.6 I will tell you the release date for 1.4.5.”

Cinx was referrering to Terraria’s long awaited 1.4.5 update, which is set to bring a range of updates, items, and improvements to the wildly popular long-running title, along with a crossover event with the roguelite metroidvania Dead Cells.

Be sure to check out IGN’s comprehensive guides and Wiki to help you get the most out of your farm, and experience every secret that Stardew Valley has to offer.

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer

Microsoft Reportedly Plans to Buy Activision Blizzard Next Week

Microsoft’s long-running pursuit of Activision Blizzard reportedly ends next week with the imminent completion of its $69 billion buyout of the company behind Call of Duty.

The Verge reports Microsoft will seal the deal on Friday, October 13, pending final approval from the UK. If true, it’ll go through just five days before the October 18 deadline agreed by Microsoft and Activision.

Last month, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally approved Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard after a new deal was submitted that included the divestiture of its cloud gaming business to Assassin’s Creed maker Ubisoft. Final approval from the CMA is expected next week, opening the door to Microsoft completing the merger immediately after.

Microsoft has already defeated the U.S.’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in court, obtained approval from key regulator the European Commission, and secured an agreement with console rival Sony for the provision of Activision games on PlayStation for a decade.

It’s worth noting the FTC has an appeal lodged with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the U.S., but a decision on that isn’t due until early December. The FTC also has an administrative case of its own waiting in the wings, but that won’t kick off until 21 days after the Ninth Circuit makes a call on the appeal. The FTC appears to intend to undo the merger after the fact, although experts say such a move would be unprecedented.

Thoughts have already turned to Microsoft’s integration of the Activision Blizzard business, and the future of games such as Call of Duty. In an August interview with IGN, Xbox boss Phil Spencer indicated work would need to be done to get Activision Blizzard’s games on Game Pass once the deal closes.

“I want to make sure people know that there’s work to actually move games to Game Pass,” Spencer said. “So, for the people who think the deal is going to close and then everything’s available, that’s not true. And it hasn’t been true in other acquisitions that we’ve done. There’s work for us to go do, just mechanical work for us to go do. So, it’ll take us time, definitely time to get the games in the portfolio.”

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.

Redfall 60fps Patch Still MIA Amid Dwindling Player Count

With a dwindling player count, a promised 60fps patch still not out, and months of silence from its developer, Redfall may be on its last legs.

Arkane’s Redfall suffered a disastrous release in May, one that went so badly Xbox boss Phil Spencer personally apologised for it. IGN’s review returned a 4/10. “Redfall is a bafflingly bad time across the board,” we said. “Plagued with bland missions, boneheaded enemies, and repeated technical problems, Redfall simply wasn’t ready for daylight in this state.”

Microsoft was also heavily criticised for showing its PC and Xbox exclusive running at 60fps ahead of launch and, less than a month before the game came out, announcing the co-op vampire shooter would arrive locked at 30fps on Xbox Series X and S, with a 60fps performance mode to be patched in later.

Now, nearly half a year after it came out and over three months since its last update, Redfall still awaits this 60fps performance mode, and player numbers have plummeted to the point where there are only a handful of people on Steam playing at any given moment. At the time of this article’s publication, just six people were playing Redfall on Steam, according to SteamDB.

Redfall doesn’t make the top 50 most-played games on Xbox, either. According to Microsoft’s own chart, more people are playing Bethesda’s own Skyrim, Mortal Kombat 11 (that’s the one from 2019), and 2017’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 than Redfall. That’s an awful position to be in for a co-op focused game that released day-and-date on Game Pass.

Bethesda publishing boss Pete Hines said last month the company is not done with Redfall yet, insisting Arkane will “keep working on it”, like how Bethesda “stuck with” The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 after rocky launches.

“We are the same company that has had launches that didn’t go the way we wanted, and we don’t quit or abandon stuff just because it didn’t start right,” Hines said. “The Elder Scrolls Online’s PC launch was not flawless but we stuck with it. Now it’s like this insanely popular multiplatform. It’s the same with Fallout 76. Redfall is no different for us.”

In the same interview, Hines said Redfall’s 60fps patch is still in the works, and the game will be around for a long time because Game Pass lives “forever”.

“Okay, we didn’t get the start we wanted, but it’s still a fun game,” he said, “and we’re going to keep working on it. We’re going to do 60fps. We’re going to get it to be a good game because we know, as a first-party studio, Game Pass lives forever. There will be people 10 years from now who are going to join Game Pass, and Redfall will be there.”

That suggests Bethesda does not intend to pull the plug on the always-online Redfall, but for those still active within the game’s community, the game is approaching a make-or-break moment. Given Redfall’s vampiric theme, Halloween feels like an appropriate time to release a significant update and perhaps the last chance to inject new blood into the game.

“I’ve never seen a studio be this silent,” redditor rootless2 said. “You would think it would have gone on sale over the summer.”

“It might be time to make this game work offline and not let it disappear like other always-online games sadly,” MysterD77 added.

“Since there’s no matchmaking in-game, I never could fill a team,” z01z said. “No way to safely find players to play with,” feelin_fine_ complained. “Make it free to play,” Aggressive-Volume-16 said.

In the meantime, there are serious questions being asked about the ongoing sale of Redfall DLC. The Upgrade to the Bite Back Edition DLC, which costs £29.99 on the Microsoft Store, grants the Redfall Hero Pass, which in turn provides access to “two future heroes with unique powers and gameplay”. Bethesda is yet to provide a roadmap for their release.

IGN has asked Bethesda for comment.

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.

IGN UK Podcast 717: Spice Up Your Life

Cardy, Matt, and Dale are ready to step back in time with Assassin’s Creed Mirage. After discussing Ubisoft’s latest stealth action-adventure their attention then turns to Gen V – The Boys spin-off TV show which is a bloody good time. Want something a bit more cerebral? Maybe we could interest you in Cocoon, a new Game Pass puzzler. There’s also time left for a quick chat about a couple of films – horror/home invasion No One Will Save You and Wes Anderson’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.

Have any thoughts about The Endless Search theme? Got any good demo disc stories? Get in touch at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com

IGN UK Podcast 717: Spice Up Your Life

Telltale Games Has Allegedly Laid Off ‘Most of’ Its Workers

Narrative adventure developer Telltale Games, the studio currently working on The Wolf Among Us 2 and which just released The Expanse: A Telltale Series, has undergone layoffs which one former employee says impacted “most of” the studio.

The news first circulated via a post on X (formerly Twitter) by former Telltale cinematic artist Jonah Huang, who said that these layoffs took place in early September:

Telltale has confirmed that it has undergone layoffs in a statement sent to IGN, but did not confirm the number or extent. Its statement is as follows:

Due to current market conditions, we regrettably had to let some of our Telltale team go recently. We did not take this action lightly, and our commitment to storytelling and finding new ways to do so remains the same. We are grateful to everyone for their dedication along this journey, and we are working to support everyone impacted. All projects currently in development are still in production, and we have no further updates at this time.

Notably, Huang was part of the first iteration of Telltale Games as well, which similarly underwent significant layoffs before closing entirely in 2019. The shutdown was attributed to investors backing out, but a year later, LCG Entertainment revived the business name and several of its assets, hiring a number of its former workers as well. At The Game Awards in 2019, it announced it was creating a sequel to Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us for a planned release in 2023. Then earlier this year, we sat down with Telltale CEO Jamie Ottlie, who explained the game was being delayed due to struggles porting it from Unreal Engine 4 to 5 and a desire to avoid crunch. It does not currently have a new release date.

As Huang notes, these layoffs seem to have happened just weeks after Telltale acquired UK-based studio Flavourworks.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Officially Reveals New Map and Tons of More Info

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was fully revealed today, and it’s set to debut a new city-themed Warzone 2 map with drivable trains, zip lines, and quite a few points of interest.

During today’s COD Next showcase, Activision revealed Urzikstan, an “urban battleground” map coming to Battle Royale and Plunder at launch. As GamesRadar pointed out, Urzikstan was first featured as a country (and a key part of the campaign) in the 2019 game Modern Warfare, and now it’s finally getting its own map.

Filled with apartments and industrial areas, Urzikstan seems fairly dense in comparison to other Warzone maps. Still, it features quite a few new ways to get across the map, including the franchise’s first train with player-controllable direction and speed (which can also be stopped by opposing teams). It also has several horizontal zip lines and brings the eerily dark Urzikstan Gulag with 3 lanes for combat.

These new methods of transportation seem fit for a map packed with points of interest — as revealed in today’s showcase, this list includes the apartment-filled Zaravan City, the luxurious Shahin Manor, and the dilapidated Old Town.

In addition to the new map, Activision also revealed a few new and revamped mechanics, including ADS while sliding, slide cancelling, and the revival of the classic red dots on the minimap, and announced the return of the Vondel and Ashika Island maps for Resurgence.

Urzikstan will join a roster filled with classic maps and new modes when Modern Warfare III is released on November 10. It goes into a slightly less feature-packed open beta this weekend, and players on all platforms will have access. If that’s not early enough, some gameplay footage has leaked ahead of the game’s beta, although Activision has tried to take it down.

Amelia Zollner is a freelance writer at IGN who loves all things indie and Nintendo. Outside of IGN, they’ve contributed to sites like Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. Find them on Twitter: @ameliazollner.

Launching a Successful Live-Service Game is a Battle Royale in Itself

It’s incredibly tough to launch a new live-service game. In 2023 we’ve already seen a bunch shut down for good, including Rumbleverse, CrossFireX and Knockout City. But at least they all got their shot in the limelight – Hyenas, the hero shooter from Creative Assembly, was canceled by publisher Sega last week, after years in development. It never even made it to open beta, let alone a full launch.

As someone who plays a lot of competitive shooters, Hyenas didn’t really grab my attention that much. I know friends who played the closed beta and had good things to say about it, but I didn’t really like the idea of fighting in zero G. I played Splitgate a fair bit when that came out, and that too had unique ways to get around by creating portals that allowed you to sneak around the back of the enemy. But I found it incredibly tricky to take advantage of, especially in the middle of a firefight when there wasn’t time to plan a clever move. Rather than it being a unique feature that attracted a different audience, it became a barrier to entry for new players. And that’s exactly how I felt when they showed off Hyena’s zero G gameplay for the first time.

It’s an incredibly difficult balance to get right – a new live-service game has to offer something unique to get the audience interested, but if it’s too far removed from what they’re used to it could have the opposite effect. Fortnite is pretty much the only shooter I know that’s really succeeded in delivering an unusual game mechanic and survived – not just survived, thrived – in the live-service space. Of course, Fortnite’s building mechanic has been made fun of a lot but you cannot deny that it adds another dimension to the shooter experience and Fortnite has gone on to be one of the most-played shooters around.

Crucially though, you don’t have to build in Fortnite to have fun – it’s secondary, as are the challenges and ongoing storylines, and it’s the game’s sharp gunplay that keeps players returning. Furthermore, there’s no better feeling than getting a battle royale victory, so much so it’s the reason why you jump back into the lobby to do it all again. That sense of reward and satisfaction is something I still get a kick out of, even after hundreds of hours playing Apex Legends. It makes you feel a tier above the rest for surviving in a battleground of 60 others, and winning a match feels like a real achievement.

For a shooter to survive in the current climate everything needs to be exactly right. Characters and abilities need to be perfectly balanced, not just at launch but continuously throughout its lifecycle, and the gunplay needs to be consistently awesome. If anything is not quite right, the audience won’t stick around.

I definitely think there’s room for something new – but it has to be truly special for it to pull me away from the games I already cherish so dearly

Hyper Scape, Ubisoft’s battle royale that launched in 2020, struggled in part because its time to kill (TTK) didn’t match the pace of the gameplay. Its TTK was way too slow and its weapons uninspired, so the matches dragged on. Unsurprisingly its servers shut down less than two years after launch. Call of Duty: Vanguard had the opposite problem, where its TTK was extremely high, so if you were not the first person to get a shot in, you’d be immediately killed. It’s examples like these that show how the fine mechanical details of a shooter are vital to its potential lifespan.

I’m sad Hyenas didn’t make it to release because at least then it would’ve been up to the public as to whether it lived or died, rather than a bunch of execs sat in a boardroom. But the truth is it costs hundreds of thousands to keep a live service game running, in addition to the cost of actually making it in the first place, and the stakes have never been higher. As someone who spends a lot of time playing Apex Legends and a bunch of other shooters, I definitely think there’s room for something new – but it has to be truly special for it to pull me away from the games I already cherish so dearly. While we’ll never truly know if Hyenas had what it takes to survive in such a brutal genre, I’m pleased there are developers out there who are still willing to try something different.

CD Projekt Doesn’t Regret Making Cyberpunk 2077 First-Person, but Has Yet to Decide on Cyberpunk 2

CD Projekt Red doesn’t regret making Cyberpunk 2077 a first-person only game, compared to the third-person Witcher franchise, but the developer is yet to make up its mind around Cyberpunk 2, codenamed Orion.

Speaking during the CD Projekt Red Investor Day presentation, Cyberpunk 2077 quest director Paweł Sasko, who will be working on Orion, was asked if CD Projekt Red would consider adding a third-person to first-person toggle in the new game, and if the developer regrets not including one in the current Cyberpunk.

“There are no regrets on our part,” he said. “What we wanted was for Cyberpunk to have its own identity and to be noticeable as this different thing. These days it’s YouTube, Twitch, and screenshots that sell games, and this is the way one can use to show that identity and individuality to players.”

Sasko continued: “I wanted to say that the first-person perspective is the main characteristics for Cyberpunk and its perception by the players too. It’s also noticeably different from The Witcher, and this helped us craft the product identity as such.”

The quest director didn’t give too much away surrounding Orion, but did suggest CD Projekt Red is yet to make its mind up on this front. After explaining why the team only included a first-person mode in Cyberpunk 2077, Sasko added: “But for Orion we’re yet to see.”

The sequel is still years away, of course, as CD Projekt Red is currently focusing on the next Witcher game, Polaris, which will be released in 2025 at the earliest. Orion will be developed at the company’s new North American studios, which are still in the process of being built.

Development on Orion has officially begun, however. CD Projekt Red’s chief creative officer Adam Badowski also said during the presentation that it has entered a “conceptual design level”.

The Investor Day presentation was a relatively busy one for CD Projekt Red, though perhaps not as busy as 2022’s when they announced five new games. Nevertheless, the developer did reveal a live-action Cyberpunk project, confirmed Cyberpunk 2077 had surpassed 25 million units sold, and that CEO Adam Kiciński was stepping down.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.