File this one in a box labelled “Huh, makes sense”, because Nintendo has confirmed that its selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses rose by 2.4% year-on-year during its latest financial report.
“Okay, so?”, you might ask, and it’s a fair question. While certainly not a particularly noteworthy announcement on its own, Nintendo has confirmed that one of the main reasons for this is due to a rise in research and development costs. As we know, the successor to the Switch will be revealed at some point before the end of FY2025, so it’s not unreasonable to assume that the company is now all-in on development for the new console.
With Valorant, Riot set out to integrate a bit of hero shooter into the Counter Strike template and made it a little more accessible than CS in the process. Now Mountaintop Studios, a new studio whose ranks include ex-Bungie and Respawn devs, have chucked themselves into the tactical FPS gauntlet with Spectre Divide. Made with input from former CS pro and streamer Shroud, it looks a bit like a mix of CS and Valorant, but has a big gimmick that sets it apart from the two: you can swap between two bodies. I… am cautiously optimistic? I think?
Cardy, Matt, and Dale have all been playing hilarious new “slapformer” Thank Goodness You’re Here, and think it may just be the funniest game ever made. They discuss what makes it so good, as well as pick out some of their other favourite comedy games. After that, there’s time to discuss new Matt Damon film The Instigators, as well as their picks for the best heist movies. Plus, a bit of time left to sneak in a few mentions for Jake Gyllenhaal’s Apple TV series Presumed Innocent, and new indie games Nobody Wants to Die and Arranger.
Send us your thoughts about all the new games, TV shows, and films you’re enjoying or looking forward to: ign_ukfeedback@ign.com.
Obsidian’s first-person action-RPG Avowed is one of our 75 most anticipated games of 2024, but according to a report, it’s been booted back into early 2025 to avoid “very busy period” on Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription service. Thanks, Microsoft. Do you know how long it took to cobble together that 2024 list? I still get hand cramps.
The report in question is from The Verge’s Tom Warren – as sturdy a source as they come. Writing on his Notepad blog (paywall), Warren claimed that Avowed is in “good shape”, and that the delay is “more a matter of wanting to give the game breathing room during a very busy period for Xbox Game Pass”.
Obsidian accidentally let slip a 12th November release date for Avowed in June in a developer blog. On Game Pass, that would have put it up against Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 (19th November) and the much-delayed post-apocalyptic shooter Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl (20th November). I’m not convinced that qualifies as a “very busy period”. Outside Game Pass, it would have to reckon with Assassin’s Creed Shadows (15th November) and, perhaps most worryingly for Obsidian, BioWare’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard (not dated yet, but due to land in EA’s third quarter 2024, after 1st October).
Nintendo has published its financial results for the first quarter of the 2024/25 fiscal year, revealing that Switch hardware sales now stand at 143.42 million units sold (as of 30th June 2024).
This is up from 141.32 million as reported in May, with Nintendo selling 2.1 million consoles across the Switch family of systems between 1st April and 30th June, which represents a 46.3% decline year-on-year.
The first batch of “hands on” have now gone live, including our own here on Nintendo Life which also happens to include an interview with three members of the development team. Here’s our closing argument for this preview:
CEO says there were “no requests for changes to the game”.
Although physical pre-orders for Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP have already gone live, we’re still actually waiting for the digital pre-purchases to be made available.
Dragami Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda has taken to social media now to mention how pre-orders for digital version will be “opening soon” on multiple platforms including the Switch. He has also mentioned how there were “no requests for changes to the game content” during this process, which was “very important” to the team.
Bungie misrepresented its finances and had significantly overextended itself when Sony acquired the studio for $3.6 billion in 2022, former workers claimed in a new Game File report published in the wake of Wednesday’s layoffs.
It was apparently bad enough that at least one source described as a “well-connected former worker” went so far as to claim that Bungie faced dire consequences if the acquisition hadn’t happened, saying that the “alternate history is insolvency.”
Their comments paint the picture of a studio that was struggling despite the success of Destiny and Destiny 2 due to supporting too many projects and other problems. Following the Sony acquisition, Game File’s sources claim Bungie repeatedly missed its financial targets, leading to roughly 100 employees being laid off in November 2023.
A second round of layoffs followed on Wednesday, impacting another 220 people, or 17 percent of the studio’s workforce, with another 155 being integrated elsewhere in Sony Interactive Entertainment. Bungie is also spinning out one of its incubation projects to form a new studio under the PlayStation banner.
Within Bungie, the layoffs had been anticipated for some time. In December 2023, IGN reported that the feeling within the studio was that it faced more reductions if The Final Shape didn’t do well. But according to Game File’s source, even The Final Shape being a major blockbuster success couldn’t have stopped the layoffs. Indeed, with Destiny 2 on the wane some seven years after its original release, The Final Shape reportedly failed to outsell the previous expansion, Lightfall, despite being a critical success.
Former Bungie workers and other members of the games industry have been vocal in the wake of the layoffs, with many of them blaming the studio’s leadership led by CEO Pete Parsons. Their sentiments were echoed by those in Game File’s report, claiming that Bungie “sold things they were just not able to deliver.” Parsons, for his part, blamed the cuts on the rising costs of development and “enduring economic conditions,” confirming that the studio had been “running in the red” following delays to The Final Shape and Marathon.
Bungie is far from alone in being hit with layoffs, with other publishers including EA, Xbox, Riot, and others also introducing cutbacks in what has been a difficult year for the games industry. For now, it will continue to focus its efforts entirely on Destiny and the upcoming Marathon, which does not have a release date and is currently set for some time in 2025.
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.
Woot! (which is owned by Amazon) is offering the best deal on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Right now you can get a 3 month code for only $36.49. Microsoft recently raised the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to $19.99 per month, so now you’re saving 40% off a 3 month membership. Note that you can purchase multiple codes and apply them to your account, up to a maximum of 36 months. This deal expires on August 10 or sooner if the quota is met.
Note: There is a coupon code “VIDEOGAMES” that takes $3 off one order. If you purchase multiple gift cards, this code will only work on a single gift card.
3 Months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $36.49
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gives you access to a library of hundreds of Xbox games, including day one releases. You can play them for the entirety of your membership without any restrictions. You do lose access to them once your membership is over, but if you ever decide to renew, all your past achievements and progress will be saved. You’ll also have access to Xbox Game Pass for PC. Although there aren’t nearly as many games as there are on Xbox, there are still plenty of AAA titles to keep you sated. Other perks include exclusive membership discounts, the ability to play your games across multiple devices with cloud gaming, free access to EA Play membership, as well as bonus in-game content and rewards. It is an exceptionally good – almost essential – membership for Xbox gamers. New release games are not cheap, and being able to play them without buying them will save you a lot of money and easily recoup the cost of the membership.
A tribute to 80s and 90s pop culture and the metroidvania genre.
Passion project from a small team of literally senior developers.
Uncover the dangers and mysteries of the Red Planet.
For me, and I believe also for all gamers who find video games an opportunity to experience great adventures, discoveries and challenges, Mars has always been an ongoing source of fascination and mystery. Throughout history, many works of science fiction have placed the planet as the setting for epic adventures in books, films and, of course, video games.
And it’s precisely all of these references, spanning 40 years, since the core of our development team is comprised of 80s kids (I’m almost 50 myself!), that have set the tone, theme and genre for the game Mars 2120, out today.
In Mars 2120 you’ll face an adventure that tries to bring back the nostalgia of the action and science fiction films of the 80s and 90s, as well as a loving homage to the genre known as metroidvania, a mix of RPG elements, platforming and non-linear exploration. And nothing could be more appropriate than encouraging exploration in a game whose main theme is space exploration and the scientific curiosity that drives us as innate explorers towards incredible discoveries about our universe.
Every time you play a game, there is a rich story from the very first sketches to its final form. Mars 2120 was no different. With a very small team and dividing our time between our other projects and games, it took us almost five years to finish the game that we’d love you to experience, explore and feel like, again or for the first time, depending on your age, watching the movies that fascinated us when we were young, or playing the games of the genre that left you in front of the screen for hours trying to find that special item or power up to overcome a challenge that seemed insurmountable at first.
All that time may seem like a lot to you, but for us it also represented a giant step forward. For the first time, we faced a project four times bigger than any other before, as you do in a game that puts you in front of great challenges, while learning and experiencing a new development technology with which we were not completely unfamiliar.
Step into the shoes of Sergeant Anna “Thirteen” Charlotte and traverse scenarios reminiscent of the planet seen in “Total Recall”, feel the fear of facing gigantic enemies like Ellen Ripley did with the queen of the xenomorphs in “Alien”, throw punches like Arnold Schwarzenegger did in his classic action films (Yes! Mars 2120 has hand-to-hand combat!) and feel the abandonment and uncertainty of being lost in space like the character of Willis Davidge (Dennis Quaid) felt in the 1985 movie “Enemy Mine”.
I think you get the message here. We have taken everything that amused us when we were young and brought it back especially for you, in the form of a game. Because we want you to have fun with everything that sparked our desire to make entertainment our job – games! So I’m not exaggerating when I say Mars 2120 is a dream we have been building since we were kids.
The games industry is for everyone, you just have to jump in and make the game you want to play. And that’s exactly what we did and what you can do too! Now it’s time to put on your spacesuit, get your fists ready and go on a great adventure knowing that Mars 2120 is not just a game, it’s also a dream, a piece of our lives that we really want to share with you.
Are you ready to defeat terrifying enemies and discover all the secrets of the first human colony on Mars?
I dare you! And then come back and tell us how it went. Good luck and have a good adventure!
MARS 2120 is an action-adventure game that draws inspiration from iconic Metroidvania titles, with gameplay elements from fighting games. With the use of special abilities tied to elements like ice, fire, and electricity help Sgt. Anna “Thirteen” Charlotte navigate the colony and battle her way through the secrets of Mars.
