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.
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.
The extraction first-person shooter Hunt: Showdown has been going strong for five years and has gotten dozens of patches and updates, but none as big as the one that launched recently. It’s such a significant upgrade that the game itself got a new name — Hunt: Showdown 1896.
If you’re not familiar with Hunt: Showdown, it’s a multiplayer shooter on PC and console that mixes the supernatural with dark realism. It’s a PvPvE extraction shooter that puts you in the shoes of a bounty hunter. In order to claim your bounties, you need to venture across large maps, kill supernatural creatures, and fend off your fellow hunters to survive long enough to reach the extraction point.
The game’s recent update might have changed the name, but it’s not a sequel or standalone expansion. So if you purchased the original game, you already have access to Hunt: Showdown 1896 for no additional cost. All you have to do is download the update, and you’ll get upgrades to virtually every part of the gameplay experience. Let’s get into specifically what those improvements are.
A New Engine
It all starts with the game’s move to CryEngine 5.11. That makes all the rest of the upgrades possible, raising the level of what the dev team at Crytek can accomplish across the board. In addition to improving things like performance and visual fidelity, the new engine will also allow Crytek to make future updates and react to community feedback faster. The central gameplay loop won’t significantly change, but the upgrades will give players on all platforms a more immersive experience.
Improved Console Performance
Speaking of platforms, the update moves Hunt: Showdown 1896 into the current generation of consoles. It now runs natively on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and while that means it’s no longer playable on PS4 or Xbox One, it also isn’t held back by the technological limitations of those consoles. It now runs at 60 fps and in HDR on all consoles, with faster loading times and more responsive input, providing smoother gameplay.
Better Lighting and Visuals
On all platforms, the upgraded engine has allowed devs to improve visual fidelity, including textures, lighting, and animations. With richer blacks and higher quality lighting, interior locations look more realistic and added visibility means more details to spot. Character models have also been improved, while flowing water looks more crisp and realistic. These details may seem small on their own, but they add up to create a more immersive experience.
Audio Upgrade
The game’s audio mix in general has been fine tuned to provide more clarity and sound definition. The update also adds support for new spatial audio options, such as Dolby Atmos. If you like to play with headphones, you’ll also have access to 3D audio. PC and Xbox players will benefit from Microsoft Sonic for headphones, while PS5 players will get Tempest 3D audio compatibility.
New Content
While the previous improvements refined what was already there, a new era wouldn’t be complete without brand-new content that really mixes things up. Hunt: Showdown 1896 has that in spades. Up until now, the game has exclusively taken place in the swamps of Louisiana. But the new update features a one-year time skip and a shift in setting to the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
The new map, Mammon’s Gulch, focuses on verticality, with mountains stretching aboveground and mines burrowing below. It provides unique sight lines and attack angles, adding another strategic layer to gameplay. And if you’re a longtime player and fan of older maps, don’t worry, they’ll be returning in the coming months after getting revamps of their own.
Mammon Gulch isn’t the only addition. There’s also a new wild target called the Hellborn, as well as an event called Scorched Earth that sees new terrors spill out of fiery oil wells and underground mines.
The latest update is full of improvements and new content, but it’s just the start of a new era. Crytek will continue to update and fine tune the experience, as they have been for the past five years. Whether you’re a veteran or a newcomer, there’s never been a better time to dive in. Hunt: Showdown 1896 is available for download now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Happy hunting!
It’s a good day for fans of the Alan Wake and Control universes. Remedy Entertainment announced today it’s partnering with Annapurna Interactive to work on film, TV, and “other audiovisual formats” based on these franchises…as well as help fund the upcoming Control 2.
In a press release, Remedy and Annapurna revealed that Annapurna would serve as a co-production and co-financing partner on Control 2. Remedy will remain focused on developing that and other games, while Annapurna takes the lead on multimedia adaptations.
“This deal with Remedy isn’t just about adapting great games—-it’s about breaking new ground in how companies can collaborate,” said Hector Sanchez, former head of Unreal Engine games business at Epic and recently-named president of interactive and new media at Annapurna.
“By backing Remedy’s move toward self-publishing, we’re putting our faith in their vision. We know from experience that Remedy is a first-class games development partner, and we’re excited to share their work with an even wider audience by bringing the Control and Alan Wake universes to film, television and beyond.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 currently holds the world record for the video game with the longest script, but Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 will seemingly take that award for itself when it launches in 2025.
Dan Vávra, co founder and creative director at Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 developer Warhorse Studios, said on X/Twitter that the game script currently totals 2.2 million words. Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios said on Steam its game totalled “roughly 2,000,000 words” at launch, meaning Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 could be the new champ.
“Yesterday, we were counting with our lead designer Prokop Jirsa how much we actually wrote for KCD2,” Vávra said. “So guess how big the script is? 2,200,000 words! Or 11,000 typical screenwriting pages. That’s a 100 scripts for a typical two-hour movie, or about 25 average novels.”
Some further context sees Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 come in at almost four times the length of famously long novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, which sits at 587,287 words long, and all the A Song of Ice and Fire books combined, which total 1,736,054 words from A Game of Thrones to A Dance With Dragons.
In IGN’s 8/10 review of the original, we said: “Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an RPG that does the medieval era right with a refreshingly small-scale story and strong realistic combat.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Amid the cacophony caused by Call of Duty Next, one new Black Ops 6 feature flew under the radar — but it could end up as the most impactful of all.
Black Ops 6, out October 25, 2024, has a new Body Shield feature in multiplayer that lets you grab an enemy and hold them in front of you to soak up bullets, while firing off a few rounds of your own.
We’ve seen a body shield feature in plenty of shooters over the years, but what developer Treyarch has done here is enabled voice chat between the attacker and the victim.
We heard you and can confirm that the Body Shield feature in Multiplayer will enable voice chat between the attacker and victim.
“Be nice…” the studio tweeted, perhaps in hope more than expectation.
As you’d expect from the notoriously toxic Call of Duty community, reaction is a mix of disbelief and excitement. Disbelief in that some can’t believe Treyarch actually added voice chat to the feature knowing full well the toxicity it will probably enable, excitement in that some are delighted Treyarch actually added voice chat to the feature knowing full well the toxicity it will probably enable.
You will be able to use Proximity Chat against players you turn into a human shield in #BlackOps6
Imagine getting turned to a human shield and they start whispering in your ear. pic.twitter.com/p4LjGHWNEf
And already there are fears that what’s said during Body Shield might end up getting you banned, if Activision’s AI-powered voice chat moderation picks up something it deems in breach of its rules. “What could go wrong?” wondered redditor Evisra over on the Black Ops 6 subreddit. A lot, most fans seem to predict.
Call of Duty sort of has this feature already in Warzone. In that game, The battle royale spin-off enables voice chat for deaths, so players can hear their opponent scream into the mic when they’re killed. This Body Shield feature for Black Ops 6, however, feels altogether more intimate.
Anyone who’s played Call of Duty multiplayer recently will know that there tends not to be much voice chat going on. Most play with their mic off, or are in a party chat with their friends. With this feature, Black Ops 6 might change that.
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.
Have you been hoping to add The Legend of Zelda animated TV show to your physical media collection? If so, we have good news! You can now preorder the complete The Legend of Zelda TV series, with all 13 episodes, on DVD at Amazon, Target, and Walmart for $13.59. This series is set to release on October 22, so you won’t have to wait too long to add it to your library, either. Head to the link below to secure your copy.
The Legend of Zelda – The Complete Series on DVD Is Up for Preorder
If you’ve been hoping to invest in a new TV to watch these shows and films on, there are plenty of TV deals to check out as Labor Day sales kick off, too. At the moment, Amazon’s Labor Day sale is live with a few Fire TVs marked down that are worth checking out. You can also have a look at our roundup of the best TV deals right now to see what else stands out. Sonos and Bose’s Labor Day sales are also live right now with some excellent sound bar deals, if you want to enhance the sound system with your new TV.
Hannah Hoolihan is a freelance writer who works with the Guides and Commerce teams here at IGN.
It sounds like the console and mobile ports of Stardew Valley’s game-changing 1.6 update are proving troublesome — so much so that developer Eric Barone, aka ConcernedApe, hasn’t worked on his follow-up game “in a long time.”
The free 1.6 update, which sparked a fresh 10/10 Stardew Valley review from IGN, launched on PC in March, which means console and mobile players of the phenomenally successful farming and life sim have waited nearly half a year so far. ConcernedApe initially expected the ports would be released a month later.
In a tweet, a clearly frustrated ConcernedApe apologized to disgruntled fans, and promised not to return to work on his next game, Haunted Chocolatier, until Stardew 1.6 is finalized.
“Console and mobile ports are still in progress,” ConcernedApe said. “I acknowledge that they are taking a long time. There are reasons for this, but the bottom line is that they are not out yet, we are still working on them, and they have been our primary focus since 1.6 came out for PC.
“It would be a huge relief to me if they were ready today, but they aren’t, so all we can do is continue working on them until they are ready. I have not touched Haunted Chocolatier in a long time because I am committed to finalizing Stardew 1.6 first.
“To those who are frustrated or even angry about the timeline, I understand and accept full responsibility. To those who are patient and understanding, thank you, you make life better and reduce stress, and I appreciate it. Back to work.”
I was originally hoping it would be maybe, one month apart max. At any rate, I feel bad about it.
In a follow-up tweet, ConcernedApe responded to one fan who asked why 1.6 launched on PC first, rather than alongside console and mobile later, to say PC enables quick fixes and patches for bugs, whereas it takes much longer on console.
“So it’s ideal to have all major issues resolved before submitting to consoles,” ConcernedApe continued. “Otherwise players might have game-breaking, or even save-corrupting bugs in the game for a week.
“The truth is, I didn’t expect console to take this long, but there have been technical issues with the porting process. I was originally hoping it would be maybe, one month apart max. At any rate, I feel bad about it.”
There is no updated release window for Stardew Valley 1.6 on consoles and mobile, but hopefully it won’t be too much longer. Haunted Chocolatier, revealed in 2021, doesn’t have a release window either.
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.
The Black Myth: Wukong updates are starting to kick into gear following its record-breaking launch. Today we have patch 1.0.8.14860, out across PC and PlayStation 5.
The patch, which weighs in at around 1.6GB, makes a number of fixes and adjustments, as well as a solitary balance change to one boss in particular.
Warning! Black Myth: Wukong spoilers follow.
According to the patch notes, below, update 1.0.8.14860 slightly reduces the stats of Yaoguai King “Captain Wise-Voice.”
Captain Wise-Voice is a required Yaoguai King boss fight, and one of four “Captains” that you can encounter in Chapter 3. If you’re having trouble, check out IGN’s Captain Wise-Voice boss fight guide for helpful tips on how to emerge victorious from this tricky battle.
On Steam, Black Myth: Wukong broke a number of concurrent player count records. It’s the most-played single-player game of all-time on Valve’s platform, ahead of CD Projekt’s Cyberpunk 2077, and the second most-played game of any kind on Steam, now behind only battle royale PUBG. (Sony does not make PlayStation player numbers publicly available.) Indeed, Black Myth: Wukong helped boost Steam to a new concurrents record.
Black Myth: Wukong update 1.0.8.14860 patch notes:
Major Updates:
Fixed an issue where enabling FSR could cause crashes for some players during startup or the prologue.
Fixed a crash issue in certain areas of the Webbed Hollow when NVIDIA Full Ray Tracing is enabled.
Fixed an issue where hair would stretch abnormally.
Optimized the hair effects for Yaoguai King “Lingxuzi”.
Fixed an issue where certain enemies could get stuck motion in specific situations.
Slightly reduced the stats of Yaoguai King “Captain Wise-Voice”.
Fixed an issue where the attack from Lesser Yaoguai “Lantern Warden” in Pagoda Realm could push players into walls.
Fixed an issue where the Destined One could get stuck in performing “Whirling Thrusts in Thurst Stance” and become unresponsive.
Fixed an issue where the Destined One could not switch stances properly in the sixth chapter.
Fixed an issue where the Destined One could encounter stats errors in specific situations.
Fixed an issue where the icon for the quest related to Yaoguai Chief “Daoist Mi” would still appear on Travel menu after the quest became unable to complete.
Fixed an issue where the progress display for collecting Portraits in Journals was incorrect.
Fixed some text errors in Chinese.
Added translations for Portraits in several languages and optimized existing translations.
Added translations for song titles and lyrics in Music library in several languages and corrected display errors in English lyrics.
Optimized translations for Talents, Equipment, and Inventory in several languages and fixed some text errors.
Improved the layout of subtitles in several languages.
Optimized the translation of loading screen tips in several languages.
Additionally, we have identified an issue where setting the system language to Turkish on PS5 causes the game to crash on launch. Similarly, on the PC version, setting Windows system language to Turkish may lead to occasional crashes during certain boss fights.
If you encounter this issue, the current temporary workaround is to change the console language to English or another language via the PS5 main menu: Settings > System > Language > Console Language. For the PC version, please change the Windows display language to English or another language via the operating system settings: Settings > Time & Language > Language & Region > Windows display language.
We are actively working to resolve this issue and will fix it in an upcoming patch. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
IGN’s Black Myth: Wukong review returned an 8/10. We said: “Despite some frustrating technical issues, Black Myth: Wukong is a great action game with fantastic combat, exciting bosses, tantalizing secrets, and a beautiful world.”
Last week week, IGN verified an email sent from the Black Myth: Wukong marketing team that told content creators who were granted a Steam key that they must not include “feminist propaganda” or use what are called “trigger words” such as COVID-19 in their coverage.
Game Science has yet to respond to IGN’s previous report compiling numerous sexist comments made by the studio’s founders and other developers spanning the last decade.
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.
