Honkai: Star Rail predecessor Honkai Impact 3rd will drop its massive Part 2 update later this week, shifting the hack-and-slash action RPG’s story to the new planet of Mars, introducing a new main character and revamping its aerial combat.
Two years ago, we learned of one of the greatest video game heroes of all time: a man wearing nothing but a jar atop his head.
His name? Let Me Solo Her. His job? Exactly what his name says he does: standing outside the doorway to Elden Ring’s most difficult boss, Malenia, and offering to take down the punishing, scarlet rot-infested warrior on behalf of players who were struggling to do it themselves.
Now, almost two years later, Let Me Solo Her (LMSH) is still fighting Malenia on behalf of the people. But his Malenia-murdering days may soon be at an end, thanks to the recent announcement of Elden Ring’s first major story DLC: Shadow of the Erdtree.
We first spoke to LMSH way back in April of 2022, and caught up with him again over email following the DLC announcement and yes, he’s still fighting Malenia all this time later. It’s not all he does, but he tells us he has about 1200 hours in Elden Ring at this point, and has “probably defeated her about 6000-7000 times by now.” Last April, he even beat the game using a mod that turned every single enemy into Malenia.
But when Shadow of the Erdtree drops in June, LMSH concedes it might finally be time to move on from Malenia. For one, he wants to play the new DLC. He calls the new trailer “spectacular” and says it “did not go the way I thought it would be.” His excitement is understandable — he’s a big fan of other FromSoftware games and their DLC.
“Soulslike games have a history of their DLCs being the best part of the game, and I trust that Mr. [Hidetaka] Miyazaki [Elden Ring game director] will give us another masterpiece to enjoy,” he says.
In particular, LMSH is intrigued by the unfamiliar enemies throughout the trailer, particularly the mysterious red-headed character near the end. Miyazaki confirmed for us that this character is called Messmer, and that he is a “key figure” of the DLC who “stands on equal footing to these other demigods and children of Marika.” LMSH picked up on the alleged prowess of Messmer, too, telling us that “the new boss is especially exciting as he might be a lost sibling to Malenia and equal in terms of difficulty.”
I ask him what he thinks of this absolute atrocity:
To which LMSH replies, “I feel like he will be an enemy that can steal helmets lol.”
He’s also excited by some of the new items shown, such as the armor sets, because he “loves knight aesthetics,” and he’s really into the “throwing pot/jar that explodes” — appropriate given LMSH’s usual choice of headwear.
When Shadow of the Erdtree drops, it’s absolutely no question that LMSH will be playing it all the way through. Though he’s made a number of different characters, he expects he’ll play on his main account “Let me solo her” because “I like to collect everything in one account.”
But if Messmer or another boss proves to be a second Malenia in terms of difficulty, will he offer to solo them, too? He’s not sure yet. “Everyone knows that FromSoft likes to make the DLC bosses the strongest (for example, Gael),” he says. “I welcome the challenge and hope newer fans of the genre will also enjoy the difficulty as well. I’m not too sure if I will solo the newest boss yet. I will have to see what the boss will be like.”
Whatever awaits him in the DLC, it does sound like Let Me Solo Her is finally about ready to move on from the activity that made him a community legend. He calls his adventures fighting Malenia a “great joy,” but admits that after thousands of attempts, “I’ve had my fill of fighting Malenias lol.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Helldivers 2 developers Arrowhead have said they will be able to get back to working on future “improvements” for the superb bug-stomping, bot-blasting shooter after finally resolving the weeks-long server struggles caused by the game’s immense popularity.
Elden Ring players are flummoxed over FromSoftware boss Hidetaka Miyazaki’s tease that one final secret still exists within the two-year-old game.
Speaking to IGN last week, Miyazaki commented on the myriad twists and turns Elden Ring takes throughout its pieced-together story that demands players interpret items, landscapes, bosses, and beyond. This style of storytelling naturally leaves a lot to player investigation and interpretation, but despite more than two years of myriad fans analysing, Miyazaki said there’s still more to find.
He and his team at FromSoftware “are always surprised and delighted by how much the players do discover, and how much these communities work to uncover these secrets”, he said, before dropping the bombshell. “For me personally, there is a small element that I feel has not yet been discovered. So, whether that’s up to user interpretation or up to just further investigation and playing, that’s something I’m looking forward to.”
The famed director, who also led the likes of Dark Souls and Bloodborne, therefore didn’t give much away as to what this secret is, but those embedded in the world of Elden Ring don’t expect it to be a grand or revolutionary discovery.
“Obviously it’s more exciting to think there’s some grand treasure hunt we can embark on to find Elden Ring’s last secret, but I don’t imagine there’s any way we, or even FromSoftware, will ever conclusively know how much is left to find,” said YouTuber Zullie the Witch on X/Twitter.
Her contemporary Sekiro Dubi agreed, adding it’s something that may even require multiple languages to learn. “Like Zullie says in other tweets, I doubt Miyazaki is like, ‘They didn’t see I left a such and such in this or that armour’. Add the ingredient that he probably knows Elden Ring mostly in Japanese and some stuff might be lost in translation.”
Sleuths on Reddit discussed the possibilities too, with some suggesting a deep analysis of item positioning in the open world being necessary. “There is a lot of trickery in the environment that is not being remarked upon,” said Miirshroom. “Items are placed and the landscape crafted very deliberately.
“Probably untapped analysis potential. These are things that are invisible to data mining because there is no flag in the programming indicating that something notable has been found. It’s just use of careful observation.” Miirshroom offers a few examples but notes there are literally hundreds in Elden Ring.
The time of day could change things too, as noted by setfunctionzero. “There’s the whole encounter system at specific times of night,” they said. “Gurranq’s night roaring is one off the top of my head, but I recall one that only occurs at a specific time in the dead of night, so you have to spin the clock, travel to the place, and wait 22.5 minutes in real time, and at 3am in the Elden Ring universe.”
These fans will likely be eager to discover the secret before June 21, 2024, when Elden Ring’s expansion Shadow of the Erdtree arrives, a DLC larger than any released by FromSoftware previously. Hundreds, if not thousands, of new threads will be added to the game to connect and follow, burying, or perhaps bringing to light, this last secret even further.
In our 10/10 review of the base game, IGN said: “Elden Ring is a massive iteration on what FromSoftware began with the Souls series, bringing its relentlessly challenging combat to an incredible open world that gives us the freedom to choose our own path.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
What the Car? is a zany racing game in which you are a car with legs that must race around various courses to get the best time possible. Except sometimes you’re not just a car with legs, you’re also a car with a jetpack. Or with wings. Or swimming. Or singing. It’s from the folks behind the similarly absurd What the Golf?, and it’s coming to Steam this year.
Back soon!
Inti Creates has today announced that its recently released musical rhythm game GUNVOLT RECORDS: Cychronicle has been temporarily removed from the North American Switch eShop.
Revealed in a tweet from the studio, Inti Creates stated that the removal was down to a “change in ratings”. The team is endeavouring to get the issue sorted and the game reinstated on the eShop as soon as possible.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Introducing game hubs
Earlier this month, we started rolling out game hubs to Xbox Insiders on PC and a subset of Xbox App on PC players worldwide. Game hubs were built on your feedback around depth, progression, and more ways to connect with your games. With game hubs, you’ll be able to track your progress over time, discover the latest content and add-ons, connect or compete with your friends, get the latest news from developers, and more. This version of game hubs is just the beginning. We have another wave of updates coming soon, including ways to view your local game captures and browse other games from the same publisher. We can’t wait to hear your feedback on what’s there now and what you’d like to see in future updates.
You can access game hubs from the Xbox App on PC — just click on the game in your library or the left sidebar. Now, let’s run through some of the exciting content you will find here:
The essentials. At the top of the page, you’ll see the essentials like game info alongside options to play, install, or update the game. You’ll also see a quick link back to the details page, where you can purchase the game to own, see reviews, or add it to your wish list. Lastly, you’ll find information like when you last played, your total playtime, an achievement summary, and friend overviews. This area will also be used for important notifications like letting you know when a game is leaving Game Pass so that you can use your discount before it’s gone.
Featured content. We want to make sure you don’t miss what’s new, so you’ll see the latest available add-ons at the top of the game hub when they release with pricing info and a link to purchase.
Friends who play. No more shuffling through the app. Compare progress, view profiles, see who’s in-game, and even send your friends a party invite all from the same place.
Achievements. Easily track your overall achievement and Gamerscore progress, any hero stats you might have accumulated, and your next closest unlocks with the help of the achievements section. To see the full list of achievements you’ve earned and the ones you’re missing, you can always click ‘show all.’
All add-ons. Whether it’s the newest car pack in Forza Motorsport or more Ancient Coins to stuff your coffers for Sea of Thieves Season 11, we have you covered. You can browse available and owned add-ons directly from the game hub.
HowLongToBeat. We heard how much you enjoyed this feature on the details pages for participating games, so we made sure to bring it over to game hubs, too. Whether you’re looking to finish up the main story or going for a completionist run, HowLongToBeat will help you compare your playtime against community sourced completion data.
From the developer. Here, you’ll get the latest updates, announcements, tips, and tricks from the game’s developers. Find the latest news related to your favorite games directly from the teams behind them.
Until March 9, a Quest will available in the Xbox Insider Hub (open or install clicking here) for players enrolled in the PC Gaming preview. As a reminder, you can always give us suggestions for the app or leave feedback by clicking on your Profile card inside the Xbox App and then selecting Feedback from the dropdown menu. We can’t wait to hear from you as we work to bring more improvements to game hubs and the Xbox App on PC.
If you’re an Xbox Insider looking for support, please join our community on the Xbox Insider subreddit. Official Xbox staff, moderators, and fellow Xbox Insiders are there to help. We always recommend adding to threads with the same issue before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can! Don’t forget to use “Report a problem” before posting—the information shared in both places helps us understand your issue better.
Thank you to every Xbox Insider in the subreddit today. We love that it has become such a friendly and community-driven hub of conversation and support.
For more information on the Xbox Insider Program follow us on Twitter at @XboxInsider and this blog for release notes, announcements, and more. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information regarding the PC Gaming preview.
The post Game hubs are available now for Xbox Insiders on PC appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Last year, it was revealed that the masters of remasters at Nightdive Studios have taken on the task of bringing the beloved 90s classic Star Wars: Dark Forces to modern audiences. The remaster is set to release February 28 on PS5 and PS4, nearly 30 years after the release of the original game from LucasArts in 1995.
Similar to Nightdive’s previous endeavors with titles like Quake II and Turok 3: Shadow of Oblivion Remastered, Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster honors the strong foundation of the original while updating it for modern consoles through the studio’s proprietary KEX engine, allowing the game to run at up to 4K resolution at 120FPS on PlayStation 5.
With this, fans of the original as well as a whole new generation of gamers, will be able to experience Star Wars: Dark Forces and appreciate what made it such an essential title within LucasArts’ (now Lucasfilm Games) impressive catalog. Further honoring the work that went into its initial development, it’s been revealed that Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster will feature a special Vault jam-packed with never-before-seen content from the making of the 1995 original!
With improved spritework and remastered cutscenes, those looking to dig deeper into a truly unique story within the Star Wars galaxy will be able to enjoy a visually pleasing narrative experience as they join protagonist Kyle Katarn, a defector turned mercenary for hire working for the Rebel Alliance, in foiling the Galactic Empire and its secret Dark Troopers Project.
As much as we’d love to continue gushing over why this has been such an exciting project for Nightdive and must-play title for fans and newcomers alike, let’s dive deeper into the fascinating history and behind-the-scenes work of breathing new life into Star Wars: Dark Forces with Nightdive’s Project Lead and Producer, Max Waine.
PlayStation Blog: What was the most exciting challenge you faced while working on Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster?
Max Waine: For me, it was bringing something new and worthwhile to existing fans of the game. Our way of tackling that was by bringing in The Vault. It was imperative that I find and present interesting snapshots of the development of the game. From there, it was a lot of coding to make it all work, conversion of various assets to be able to load in the remaster, and a great deal of text to write for the titles and descriptions; balancing being informative of what I did know from the development files without drifting into speculation proved exceptionally difficult.
When diving into the Remaster, what details about the original LucasArts spritework stood out to you from a historical development perspective?
From a development perspective, Dark Forces seemed to have a relatively typical way of approaching sprites for the time and genre. A combination of touched-up scanned models, hand-drawn sprites, and rendered 3D models (from 3D Studio) are ordinary fare. The software they used for spritework, DeluxePaint Animation, was also seemingly pretty standard. One interesting detail is that many of the human sprites seemed to be mostly hand-drawn but would use incredibly basic models to provide things like poses and such.
What about the game’s cutscenes? Can you share insight into the work Nightdive has done to remaster these?
I integrated the new cutscenes into the game itself, with the help of Daniel Albano to allow for supporting different languages within the cutscenes. Outside of setting up the video player, I created a text-based format that could change the music in-sync with the video the same way the original did.
I’ll be paraphrasing Brendan McKinney here, who was our 3D maestro on the cutscenes. Beside Brendan, development was done with paintings of the new characters by Ben Chandler, ship models by Daniel Andersson, and guidance from Lucasfilm Games’ David Yee.
Due to the original cutscenes blending of different types of assets, the process of updating the cutscenes proved difficult. Initially the approach was to try to recreate the same cutscenes at a higher resolution, but this resulted in greater scrutiny being drawn to the differences in the disparate types of assets that could be provided in a cutscene.
The approach that was ultimately taken was to embrace the mixed medium spirit of the originals while still narrowing the divide so that, even at higher resolution, everything fit comfortably together.
This is where Ben Chandler came in, doing painted versions of characters like Crix Madine and Jabba, who were based on or fully taken from stills of the films respectively for their depiction in the original. Brendan recreated the environments in 3D, painting over them afterward to bring the composition nearer to Ben’s character work. The space sequences were approached with the intent to keep things simple, matching the feel of the original work.
Is there a weapon design unique to Dark Forces that you specifically like? What makes it interesting from a development POV?
It’s gotta be Kyle’s trusty sidearm, the Bryar pistol. The weapon just really looks the part. A lot of the weapons were rendered out from 3D models, and for some it can chafe against the technical limitations of the time, but the Bryar pistol just looks absolutely perfect as-is.
Adding to this, what can you share about the Phase 02 Dark Trooper character model from a developer standpoint?
The Phase 02 Dark Trooper as a character seemed to go through a fair bit of iteration from initial conception to what ended up present in the final game. Renders of the character model definitely appear to be what is used in both the original cutscenes and as a basis for the spritework. I can’t be exactly certain how they animated pre-rendered cutscenes with the Dark Troopers though, as we don’t have a significant amount of the 3D-related assets.
What’s the most impressive feat accomplished with this game based on the time it was created?
Dark Forces is greater than the sum of its parts, and while I will point out key impressive aspects of the game, I want to emphasize just how strong it is as a cohesive whole. There are two things that jump out at me the most for the time period: support for 3D environments that allow for room-over-room, which was something that the Doom engine was not capable of; seamless integration of fully 3D objects within the environment (like Kyle’s ship, X-Wings, Mouse Droids, etc.).
Lastly, what do you think Dark Forces did to move the budding FPS genre forward during its time?
At a time where FPSs were largely abstract in locales, Dark Forces pushed the tech forward enough to be able to successfully realize familiar and more realistic environments. In addition to that it was able to tell a cohesive story, complete with fully voice-acted cutscenes. The sum total of this is a game that really pushed forward just how immersive FPSs could be.
We want to thank Nightdive’s Max Waine for the blast from the past experience we’ve had learning about the work being put into Star War: Dark Forces Remaster, including how it features The Vault, which packs in a wealth of behind-the-scenes visual content from the development of the 1995 original!
Additional features fans can look forward to with Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster are visual improvements, including advanced 3D rendering with realistic lighting and atmospheric effects, and up to 4K at 120FPS on PlayStation 5. Not to mention action-packed, first-person ground combat with 10 weapons and 20 enemy types!
Can’t wait to play the Remaster? Keep an eye out for Star Wars: Dark Forces Remaster later this month when it releases on PS5 and PS4 on February 28.
Earlier this month, the games industry gathered in Las Vegas, Nevada to celebrate the 27th annual D.I.C.E. Awards, honoring the best of video games in 2023. It was a great time, and a lot of really excellent games won well-deserved prizes.
But it’s also been a rough year for the games industry. We’ve written about the current upheaval elsewhere, and it didn’t go unremarked upon onstage, either. Even in a time of well-earned joy, a number of developers onstage were there having lost fellow team members who should be celebrating with them. Even those lucky enough to have avoided layoffs were accepting their awards in front of an audience of peers rocked by job loss, funding uncertainty, and apprehension.
Backstage, we had the opportunity to chat with almost every person who accepted an award that night. And while we asked them a number of celebratory questions and cheered with them on their victories and incredible games, we also asked them, candidly, what they felt the biggest challenge facing the games industry was in the year ahead. Overwhelmingly, the mass layoffs were the most common answer, but it also wasn’t the only thing we heard. Some developers brought up other struggles that they have been reckoning with at their own studios, or even smaller causes that ultimately have lead back to the larger industry struggles we’re seeing play out week after week.
So, from the developers of the best games of 2023, here are the biggest challenges the games industry faces in the year ahead:
Scott Hanau
Senior score producer for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, winner of Outstanding Achievement in Original Music Composition
“I would say all the layoffs probably, a lot of restructuring, reorganization, trying to keep all the teams together as best we can and go forward and make great games. It’s pretty daunting sometimes.”
Rod Fergusson
General manager of all things Diablo including Diablo 4, winner of Online Game of the Year
“I think we hear a lot about the notion around how you continue [growing the industry]. We can have great games and we still have to have industry growth, and so finding ways that we can expand our reach. It’s one of the things that people don’t realize, that the majority of people are playing on mobile and we don’t talk enough about that. And the idea of, how do you bring your IPs and your games to that mobile audience and reach people who maybe don’t have those platforms to be able to play? There’s three billion gamers out there, how do we reach them all? Getting to those three billion gamers I think is the biggest challenge.”
Ramone Russell
Product development communications and brand strategist for MLB The Show 23, winner of Sports Game of the Year
“I think the challenges always remain the same, it’s just a different day. I think every video game development team just wants to make great games, but it is a business. At the end of the day this is a business, so one of the challenges that we continue to face is attrition and being able to get the yeses for the things that we need to do to be able to make those games great. But it could also be worse. It could be a lot worse. It could also maybe be a little bit better. We’re just happy that we get to come to work and play in the sandbox and do what we love to do and dream about doing all the time, which is make video games.”
David Walgrave
Head of production at Larian Studios for Baldur’s Gate 3, winner of Outstanding Achievement in Story, Role-Playing Game of the Year, Outstanding Achievement in Game Design, and Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction
“Following up on ourselves. As a company, there’s a lot of challenges that we are facing, because we’ve grown vastly over a few years. I think we, from the team that worked on Original Sin 2, we quadrupled, I think. So first of all, we need to make sure that all these people can still work on the next games. We should not overhire because then we will end up having to fire people. That is not what we want. So it’s again about finding that balance of how can we still keep on making the same type of game as this one without actually growing or overgrowing or bloating.
“Then for Larian, I don’t think it is a challenge, because this has always been our priority, is to think about the player first and the fun first, instead of how much money is this going to make. To us, it’s going to sound cliché, we want to make games that we want to play ourselves. We want to treat the player the way that we would like to be treated by publishers and game developers. So to us, a video game is like a thing that you buy once and it’s not like a shell with all sorts of buttons that buy you more sh*t. That’s not what games are. So I don’t know if that is a challenge for our company, but it’s a challenge for the industry, to treat people like they should be treated.”
Mike Fitzgerald
Director of Core Technology at Insomniac Games for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, winner of Outstanding Technical Achievement
“I think just finding ways to work together, support each other. Studios who have wins, try and share those with other studios in the industry and raise each other up to be better together. That’s the Spider-Man tagline. Better together.”
Bryan Intihar
Senior creative director on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, winner of Outstanding Technical Achievement
“I think we all understand it’s a little bit of a volatile time for the industry, and we’re all hoping that we can be there for each other. I think the most important thing is, how can we support each other in this, what can be a tough time for some people.”
Tim Garbos
Creative director at Triband on What the Car?, winner of Mobile Game of the Year
“That a lot of other people are also making games. There’s just so many video games out there.
I play video games. I played all the demos in this Steam Next Festival. I got through seven [of them] and then I didn’t have any more weekend. That’s amazing. It’s also a challenge but it’s amazing.”
Hella Schmidt
Studio director and general manager at Guerilla Games on Horizon: Call of the Mountain, winner of Immersive Reality Technical Achievement
“When I was up there, I was thinking, am I going to make a statement or not? I think we’re in challenging times where you really want to keep up our creative freedom, whilst being challenged with delivering games on budget and on time. And I think that gives an extra challenge to an industry that’s already hard. It’s hard to make great games. So, I do [hope] that when financial decisions are being made, that they realize that the power of making creative games is you need to keep the spirit alive, so that would be my answer.”
Matt Kramer
Studio creative director at Sanzaru Games on Asgard’s Wrath 2, winner of Immersive Reality Game of the Year
“I think it’s people. Our studio is about people. It’s about the game designers, the audio engineers, the producers, everybody that makes these games. There are so many players in it and it’s really sad to see what’s going on right now with all the layoffs and stuff. So hopefully we can turn that around and set it on the right trajectory because games are what sells hardware. And we need more games. We need more high caliber games, like Asgard’s Wrath 2. So for everybody that’s a designer, producer, engineer, anywhere, thank you so much for all your hard work on every game that was shown tonight. You guys are awesome.”
Andy Beaudoin
Game director for Forza Motorsport, winner of Racing Game of the Year
“As games have gotten more complex, they’ve gotten bigger, we’re adding more and more value to players. If you think about what you spend today for a game versus what you did…I’m kind of old, sorry to tell you, but back in the day, it was 50 bucks, 60 bucks for a game, and you maybe played it for eight hours. Now we’re providing games that have hundreds of hours. And to do that, the size of the team has grown, the amount of talent we’ve brought to the team has grown, the complexity of the worlds, the complexity of all that. And we’re still offering incredible value for the money.
“I think the challenge would be to continue to add value, to make bigger worlds, more immersive worlds that players can spend more and more time in and still provide it at a cost that’s affordable for people. There’s a challenge there. We see lots of studios laying off teams. It’s horrible to see that happen. We’ve got to figure out a way to make our games in a way that’s sustainable so we don’t have to let go of teams, but we can still provide hundreds of hours of wonderful entertainment for our players.”
Sam Lake
Creative director at Remedy Entertainment on Alan Wake 2, winner of Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction
“It’s been quite a year, like last year, here we are celebrating and obviously so many wonderful games, but obviously a lot of hardship and bad news for so many talented people working in games. So yeah, really, really from the bottom of my heart, hoping that as many people as possible find new homes and can keep making great games.”
Karen Read
Director of audio management on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, winner of Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design
“Oh, there’s a lot of challenges facing us, right? And I mean, we’ve all seen how the industry has had a lot of layoffs and a lot of financial cutbacks, so it’s challenging. It’s challenging keeping people together and creative and motivated when everybody feels like there’s this dark storm coming. But it’s in that creative space that we are really able to do things, right? When we focus on the games and we focus on the things that we love, I think when we come together as a community, that’s really how we handle it.”
Jerry Berlongieri
Senior audio director on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, winner of Outstanding Achievement in Audio Design
“Games are always a challenge. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and it’s always a challenge. There’s new technology, there’s new genres to figure out, and that’s part of what’s thrilling, I think, is we reset, we figure out how to do it differently, how to do it with new technology. And it’s, as a field, sort of embracing the change and figuring out how we can be creative with it, how do we work with it? That’s always kind of been… Games are challenging in that way and I think that’s also what’s thrilling about it. So that’s game dev, right?”
Michael Douse
Director of publishing, Larian Studios for Baldur’s Gate 3, winner of Game of the Year
“Stop f**king firing my friends. Jesus Christ…I mean, everyone is talking about how the rules are changing. We’re in flux. Nobody really knows anymore what to make, how to get it funded, if it’s going to work, if they’re going to meet their projections, what those projections should be… Without that predictability, you can’t plan. And this is an industry that typically requires a certain amount of planning. And I know everyone has plans, but that’s very different to planning for what the future is. We don’t know what the future is. So the biggest challenge is figuring out what the fuck everyone is going to do. And that’s going to take a combined effort. And really it’ll be hindsight 2020. If it’s good, it’ll work. If it isn’t, it won’t.”
“But I think for me, the most important thing is to figure out how to make it all sustainable. Because our mistakes will create victims. And trying to reduce that as much as possible, I think, will ultimately be what makes this industry continue to be successful. We need people to be able to be employed to make the games that people like. And that’s going to be tough. It’s tough now. It always was tough and it’s going to get tougher. So that’s the biggest challenge. How do we keep everyone f**king employed? Which I think is a challenge for everyone right now, but that’s our industry.”
As a bonus question, we also asked everyone we spoke to backstage: if you could give an award to any other game for any reason, what award would they give to what game? This is what they came up with:
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Rainbow Six Siege‘s creative director Alexander Karpazis doesn’t believe the elderly shooter needs a change of game engine or for that matter, a sequel. He feels that Siege can “last forever”, adding that “I’m not going to name names, but you see games go through sequels and just completely drop the ball.”
