Amazon ditch publishing duties on ex-Forza Horizon devs’ story-driven open-world racer

Amazon have released UK studio Maverick Games from a deal to publish the story-led open-world driving game the latter have been working on for a number of years. The split leaves Maverick, founded in 2022 by ex-Playground Games devs including Forza Horizon 5 creative director Mike Brown, looking for a new partner. Though, they say they’re already in “active dialogue” with such folks.

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A “Cowboy Coalition” battle NCR corporate imperialism in this freshly released Fallout: New Vegas quest mod

Yee haw. If you’ve ever thought Fallout: New Vegas is a little low on folks in stetson hats whose spurs jingle, jangle, jingle, then this new quest mod will almost certainly be in your saloon. That’s provided you’re up for an unapologetically political story about NCR-backed Brahmin barons facing resistance from groups of local ranchers keen to avoid having their steads swallowed up by big business.

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Styx Blades of Greed publishers Nacon file for insolvency, will “assess all possible solutions” to “protect employees and “preserve jobs”

Nacon – publishers of Styx: Blades of Greed, RoboCop: Rogue City, and Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown – have announced that they’ve filed for insolvency. The French company say they’ve asked for “judicial reorganisation proceedings” to kick off, with the goal of finding ways to keep the business going, “protect employees, and preserve jobs” while renegotiating with creditors.

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Discord concede they mucked up their age verification system rollout, delays it, will still make some of you do it

Earlier this month, Discord said that they’d be rolling out a global age verification system to which everyone and their mother responded by saying “thank you,” except they didn’t say thank. A little bit later on, they also shared word of an experiment being run in relation to this new system and policy that involved an identity detection firm backed by a fund directed by Palantir chairman Peter Thiel called Persona, which apparently potentially stored any ID documentation you submitted to them for up to seven days. Now, after more and more pushback, Discord have put out a statement that still probably doesn’t say what you wish it would.

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Looking for Fael is The Witness for people who need more Tetris in their life, and you can try it for yourself now

I think on the offset, Looking for Fael isn’t a difficult game to pitch, but perhaps one that takes a second to get to grips with. You play as, well, not Fael, but his roommate, who, as you may have guessed, is looking for Fael after receiving a strange voicemail message where he says he is somehow lost in your apartment. What follows is then a reality bending puzzle game where the world itself is a puzzle, but also you have to play a spin (pun intended) on the objectively best game ever made, Tetris.

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The devs behind The Simpsons: Hit & Run and Prototype are back as a sort-of new, just as radical studio

The time is upon us! The time to once again become radical, as from the ashes of developers Radical Entertainment and Hothead Games a sort of but not really new studio has been born: New Radical Games. It does seem like Hothead drew the short straw here name wise. But given that Radical were known for the likes of The Simpsons: Hit & Run and the Prototype games, and Hothead made, uh, The Baconing, the choice feels apt.

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Insomniac finally lock in a Wolverine release date on PS5, so start placing your bets on a PC port launch window

Remember how literally only two weeks ago, PlayStation held one of their “Look at the State of the Place, You’ve Made Such a Mess!” presentations? There were plenty of announcements that landed with suitable aplomb, like a new Castlevania, a proper look at Silent Hill: Townfall, and a reveal of remakes of the OG three God of War Games. So it strikes me as perhaps a bit odd, and funny, that today Insomniac Games have, with quite little fanfare, confirmed the release date of their Wolverine joint.

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Seven towns that will never turn out to be Silent Hill all along

As if we didn’t have enough to deal with between despotic regimes, habitat collapse, and dodgy new technologies, Konami are on a mission to turn everywhere into Silent Hill. The recent Silent Hill f took place in a fictional Japanese town from the 1960s. The forthcoming Silent Hill: Townfall unfolds in Scotland. Konami have recently made ominous noises about taking the series to Central or South America.

The implication is that Silent Hill is a transferable metaphor, glomming onto unsuspecting nowherevilles worldwide. Well you can keep your filthy free association, Konami. A line has to be drawn. A line will be drawn here. Please find below a list of places that would never, ever turn out to be Silent Hill.

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Stop Killing Games campaign offer update on latest EU meeting in livestream from parliament, while emphasising bipartisan MEP support

The folks behind the Stop Killing Games campaign aiming to push lawmakers into taking action to stop publishers shutting down the servers of online games in a fashion that leaves them unplayable have hosted a livestream from the EU Parliament building itself following their latest meeting with the European Commission. The group say that meeting went “fine”, and used the stream to emphasise the bipartisan support their cause has amassed among MEPs so far.

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Cicadamata” is the most exciting FPS I’ve played in years – come try the demo

Let me slash the tendons of that strutting headline with some immediate caveats. Most obviously, you will not like Cicamadata” if you have an overpowering hatred of feisty punctuation in game titles. You will not like it if you’re averse to abstract and ostentatiously computerised, ‘product design’ art direction that is somehow both bright and foggy, crisp and distorted.

You won’t like it if you really dislike artisanal glitches and general HUD palaver – cockroach text scuttling across the view; boxy white velocity lines; an oversized Doomguy-style character model to indicate health; damage and state changes that cause the screen to blink and reset, as though you’d jolted a cable.

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