Category: Video Games

Remedy Has Recouped ‘Most’ of the Development and Marketing Expenses for Alan Wake 2

Alan Wake 2 continues to be a success for Remedy, with the company reporting today it has recouped “most” of the development and marketing cost of Alan Wake 2 as of the end of September.

In its quarterly earnings today, Remedy reported that while the game is not yet generating royalties, it’s close to fully recouping costs thanks to continued strong sales. The studio has released two expansions for Alan Wake 2 this year that have likely helped – Night Springs and, more recently, The Lake House.

Alan Wake 2 shifting to generating royalties seems inevitable, and will likely be a big deal for Remedy. It’s the company’s fastest-selling game so far, selling 1.3 million copies as of March 20 this year. Currently, the company’s only major sources of ongoing revenue are sales of Control and older Alan Wake games.

Fortunately, it’s getting infusions of cash from partner companies for the purpose of developing more games. For instance, Annapurna Pictures recently entered into a partnership with the studio that will fund 50% of the development of Control 2, while Annapurna creates film and TV spin-offs of Control and Alan Wake. Remedy reports that Control 2 development is on track to start full production in 2025, with a number of critical features already implemented.

As for Remedy’s other games in progress, Codename Condor, Remedy’s multiplayer Control spin-off, was announced recently as FBC: Firebreak. Remedy reports that Firebreak is still in full production, and focused on iterating on the core loop and implementing UI for player clarity based on playtesting feedback. Meanwhile, Max Payne 1&2 Remake is making “steady progress” in full production.

For the quarter, Remedy reported revenue up 128.6% year-over-year to €17.9 million ($19.4 million), largely due to the one-time payment from Annapurna Pictures to develop Control, as well as other development fees taken from other sources.

Alan Wake 2 itself seems excellent, netting a 9/10 from our reviewer who called it “a superb survival horror sequel that makes the cult-classic original seem like little more than a rough first draft by comparison.” Its most recent DLC, The Lake House, is also excellent, and appears to be teasing Control 2.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Video: “It Was Just Like Coming Home” – We Talk Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake Ahead Of Its Launch

Who has the Baramost to say?

We are just two weeks away from Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake‘s 14th November release date and we here at Nintendo Life are excited. We’re so excited, in fact, that those of us who have been lucky enough to play the game recently got together to share what they make of the latest remake so far.

Jim (that’s me, hello!) and Alana joined our wonderful video producer, Felix, to talk all things Dragon Quest. The discussion covers a range of topics, from frustrating wild encounters to some of the catchiest music in recent memory, and you know there’s going to be a good amount of gushing about the revamped visuals, too.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Respawn have killed Apex Legends’ Steam Deck support in the name of anti-cheat

The Steam Deck is something of a talisman for gaming on Linux, its popularity and penguin-powered SteamOS having almost singlehandedly dragged it past MacOS as the second-most-used operating system among Steam users. Sadly, this also means the Valve handheld is the primary casualty when developers decide to stop bothering with Linux support, as Respawn Entertainment have decided to do for Apex Legends.

Read more

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket Teases New Promo Cards And Events

“Please stay tuned for more info!”.

Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket launched on smartphone devices earlier this week, and now that it’s available, The Pokémon Company is already teasing some promo cards and events.

We don’t have specific details just yet, but it seems this first event could feature a promo Lapras EX card and a ‘Wonder Pick’ Meowth card. Here are the official words and graphic for this announcement:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Exclusive: Showa American Story Gets Dramatic New Trailer, Release Window

It’s been close to three years since the January 2022 reveal of Showa American Story, whose B-movie style trailer depicting 1980s America as a colony of Japan became a viral hit.

Updates have been few and far between since then, but IGN can now exclusively reveal a new trailer along with a 2025 release window on PlayStation 5 and PC (Steam). The game genre is described as an “end of the century romantic RPG fantasy ensemble period drama”.

The dramatic trailer introduces new boss character named Shogun, a tough-looking villain who holds a shield like Captain America, a fluttering cape, and floats like Superman against the sunset. Elsewhere in the video, we see Shogun riding on the back of a pitch-black giraffe.

Creative Director XY.Luo told IGN, “Shogun is a boss character who stands 6 meters tall. He uses the giraffe’s long neck to strike, and he can also fly, throwing his shield to attack the player.”

Luo explained that the battle against such an oversized enemy who rides on the back of an even taller beast will create an epic scale reminiscent of Monster Hunter.

Showa American Story is a road movie-style action RPG in which you cross America in a camper van and motorcycle, and the trailer shows a wealth of locations to visit. We see San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge decorated with Japanese lanterns, Las Vegas awash with neon signs in kanji, the Hollywood sign replaced with “Neo Yokohama”, and the newly christened Neo Tokyo-4 (Austin, Texas) awash with cherry blossoms. A man commits seppuku before Mount Rushmore. America is irresistibly dyed in the colors of Japan’s Showa era.

Protagonist Chouko Chigusa fights her way across America, fighting zombies and strange humanoid creatures with a variety of brutal combat options. In addition to her primary weapons of swords and guns, we see Chouko fight with a giant drill. Luo told us that Chouko’s arsenal will grow throughout her adventure, with a wide variety available. The trailer also shows a wealth of customization elements and minigames inside the camper van.

The story is still shrouded in mystery, but there’s no doubt it has a strong cast of characters. In August, IGN exclusively revealed boss character Gokou, the Texan governor turned cowboy-samurai who sold his state to Japan. And with the new trailer showing Chouko Chigusa stomping on enemies with her high heels and putting zombie heads with a golf club, our interest is piqued for further updates as Showa American Story’s 2025 release approaches.

Daniel Robson is Chief Editor of IGN Japan, and Esra Krabbe is a member of the editorial team.

‘Nintendo Music’ Update Adds Super Mario Bros. Wonder Songs

Wonderful!

Following the surprise launch of Nintendo Music on smartphone devices yesterday, Nintendo has now updated the application with Super Mario Bros. Wonder game music.

This includes music from the game’s title screen, the opening Grassland theme and of course the ‘Piranha Plants of Parade’ song. Some of these tracks can even be extended in length! All up there are 86 new songs you can listen to right now. And as long as you have an ‘active’ Switch Online sub and the app downloaded, you’re good to go!

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Launch Beats Jedi Survivor to Make It EA’s Biggest Ever Single-Player Game on Steam

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s launch has already made it EA’s biggest ever single-player game on Steam, topping the charts and beating out the concurrents for 2023’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

At the time of publication, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s peak was about 70,414 concurrents, putting it just outside the top 10 most played games on the platform with mostly positive reviews. It sits one spot ahead of Baldur’s Gate 3, which continues to enjoy ongoing success thanks to the introduction of mods and other new features. EA previous high watermark was Jedi Survivor, which managed an all-time peak of 67,855.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson predicted success for Dragon Age during Tuesday’s earnings call, saying that BioWare had “returned to its strengths,” and that it would be benefit from limited competition thanks to Ubisoft’s decision to delay Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

We wrote in our own review, “Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates a storied series that stumbled through its middle years, and leaves no doubt that it deserves its place in the RPG pantheon. The next Mass Effect is going to have a very tough act to follow, which is not something I ever imagined I’d be saying before I got swept away on this adventure.”

Overall it’s a solid start for BioWare’s new RPG given that it launched on a day when most of its fans are either at work or in school. It’ll be worth keeping an eye on its performance heading into its first full weekend as players properly dig into the first new Dragon Age release since 2014.

For more, check out our guide to Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s major choices and consequences as well as our romance guide.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Xbox Insider Program Community Update – October 2024 ‘Spooky’ Edition

Hey Insiders! Happy Halloween to those who celebrate. The team is currently heads down working (and not at all playing Black Ops 6 between meetings) on getting the next releases and game previews ready.  

It’s been a while since we posted one of these. We wanted to touch base to give you an update about the program and celebrate some of the things that team Xbox and the Insider Program have delivered. As always: a great big thank you to those who have participated in the Xbox Insider program over the years. We’ve got a big list of things to go over.  

‘Freaky’ Feature Friday  

There is an elephant in the room that I wanted to address first: the ‘Feature Friday’ plans for the subreddit that were announced some time ago. We haven’t forgotten our commitment to increased transparency and sharing more in-depth information about our process and ‘Feature Friday’ is part of that.  

First, we read everything that is posted. We are here to champion your feedback and help make the Xbox community the best it can be. If we can’t do that in a way that the community feels heard, something needs to change. Right now, the team has renewed discussions about a few specific options internally. I don’t have more to share today, but I thought it was important to let you know that this is still on the forefront of our minds.

In spookier news, here are some of the terrifying highlights from our Operations team: 

Game “Error when launching store” Previews – Tim W.  

Everyone loves playtests as you get to preview new games or updates. We’ve had some great ones in the last few months including 33 Immortals, Starbound, Rhythm Towers, Off the Grid, FragPunk, and The First Berserker Khazan. We appreciate everyone participating and giving your feedback! We are continuing to partner with different developers to give you more playtests so keep an eye out for new previews and announcements in the Xbox Insider Hub app. The Rhythm Towers preview is still available to join, so if you haven’t already, give it a try. 

If you launch the Xbox Insider Hub and don’t see the game you were expecting, it might be because we’ve reached the limit on users for that preview. Sometimes the developer only wants to target certain regions or requires you to sign up on their website. There are many reasons why you might not see a preview. While we try to include details about preview eligibility in our posts, if you think there’s an issue we always recommend using the Report a Problem feature. 

Console “Gonna install right in the middle of your ranked match” OS – Joshua C  

The past few months have been marked by more than 100 updates across the Xbox Update Preview rings! Together, we’ve seen fundamental updates to the friends and followers experience, and quality of life improvements like being able to choose specific components before starting a game install. There have also been great accessibility features released like toggle hold and being able to map buttons to thumbstick directions, and improvements to custom images for backgrounds and gamerpics. From the smallest changes to the biggest features, Xbox Insiders are always the first to experience the latest and greatest we have to offer. 

Of course, we have also uncovered our fair share of issues these past months, and the feedback you’ve filed with Report a problem has been as invaluable as always. Your continued diligence in providing feedback has played a role in many of the issues resolved recently, including fixes to narrator and magnifier, unexpected game card navigation, as well as major improvements to capturing game clips and taking screenshots. Thank you for helping to make Xbox better for everyone! 

PC “Wait, there’s a PC Insider Preview?” Flighting – Jon H  

Over the past few months, Xbox Insiders on PC had the opportunity to preview several new features: Compact Mode for Game Bar, the new Friends and Followers Experience and just this week a new Home experience in the Xbox App. If you’re interested in previewing new features for PC and supported handhelds, make sure you register for the PC Gaming Preview in the Xbox Insider Hub.  

Interested in Registering? Find out how here 

The Haunting Lifecycle of Insider Feedback: 

I’d like to think I’m a good singer, and wanted to release this section as a video akin to a certain song some of you might have seen in school about how bills are passed on Capitol Hill (you know the one I’m talking about). Fortunately for everyone, that was vetoed.  

But I do want to give the community some insight into how bugs work and why we need specific feedback.   
 
So, you’re playing your favorite game, and it crashes back to the dashboard all of a sudden. You bring up the Report a problem prompt by holding down the Xbox button on your controller and selecting ‘Report a problem.’ After following the prompts and hitting submit, what happens to your feedback?  

Here is the simplified version: your feedback lands in pool of all submitted Insider feedback. The Insider team reviews all the feedback. All of it. Each day, the team sends actionable feedback into another pool where the engineering teams investigate and fix or reroute if necessary.   

That’s why it’s critically important to include specific details. What was the issue and when did you hit it. If you can tell us what you were doing, great! “It crashed” is helpful in that we know your game crashed. “It crashed on the splash screen” is even more helpful because we know when it crashed. “It crashed on the splash screen after I quit one game and then tried launching this one,” includes what you were doing. When in doubt, I recommend erring on the side of including more details. The easier it is for engineers to reproduce the problem, the more likely it is they can fix it. If you don’t want to use your controller, we have a couple other options (including a USB mouse and keyboard or using another device entirely). Read more here: Provide feedback to Team Xbox | Xbox Support 

Thanks again for being an Xbox Insider, we appreciate you.  

The post Xbox Insider Program Community Update – October 2024 ‘Spooky’ Edition appeared first on Xbox Wire.