Welcome to Video Video games Weekly on Engadget. Count on a brand new story each Monday or Tuesday, damaged into two components. The primary is an area for brief essays and ramblings about online game traits and associated matters from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who’s coated the trade for greater than 13 years. The second incorporates the online game tales from the previous week that you must learn about, together with some headlines from exterior of Engadget.
Please take pleasure in — and I will see you subsequent week.
If I find yourself studying yet another story about how implausible Loss of life Stranding 2 is as long as you skip the cutscenes, I’m gonna hurl. At what level throughout 10 hours of cinematic interstitials will we collectively put the controller down and say, truly, this isn’t an amazing sport? Not as a result of the sport components aren’t any good — they’re fairly fabulous, in actual fact — however as a result of a good portion of the expertise isn’t truly interactive in any respect. When does it grow to be extra correct to explain a Hideo Kojima challenge as a CGI film with moments of interactivity, quite than as a online game first?
I’m not truly making an attempt to resolve the “online game of Theseus” riddle proper now, however it’s a dialog that’s been on my thoughts, given latest headlines. Loss of life Stranding 2 critiques are in, Neil Druckmann is out at HBO and returning to Naughty Canine full-time, and Emmy nominations arrived with 18 nods for online game variations. In the meantime, layoffs are rocking the gaming trade but once more, with hundreds fired at Xbox this month, alongside a number of studio closures and sport cancellations. One of the vital stunning titles to get the ax was Venture Blackbird, a promising-sounding MMO from Elder Scrolls studio ZeniMax On-line. Blackbird was reportedly canceled in favor of allocating sources to the event of Fallout 5, a sequence with mainstream clout following the success of Amazon’s Fallout TV present in 2024.
The convergence of video video games and Hollywood shouldn’t be a brand new speaking level — even for me — however it’s solely grown extra related with time. Sony specifically is leaning exhausting right into a cross-media technique with notable investments in tv, anime and movie variations of its online game franchises, and it simply printed Kojima Productions’ Loss of life Stranding 2, which serves as a lightning rod for this whole dialog.
Kojima is straightforward to choose on as a result of he’s been so vocal about his want to make motion pictures, and fittingly, his video games have solely grown extra cinematic over time. Loss of life Stranding and its sequel are stacked with mainstream Hollywood actors (and Kojima’s favourite administrators) throughout hours of drawn-out, non-interactive cutscenes. His subsequent two tasks, OD and Physint, are each described as having A-list casts and “blurring the boundaries between movie and video games.”
I’m a giant fan of experimental horror video games, and I deeply recognize Kojima’s eye for constructing pressure and sneaky motion sequences, however I’m hesitant to get enthusiastic about OD and Physint. The deeper Kojima dives into the world of Hollywood, the extra he loses me. I don’t obtain, set up and boot up a online game to observe a film as an alternative, and I don’t discover it spectacular when an interactive product is outlined by cinematic phrases. The constraints of filmmaking are vastly totally different than these of online game improvement, and it sucks to observe a proficient creator attempt to pressure video video games to adapt to the boundaries of flicks or TV, quite than exploring the mechanics that make interactive artwork so uniquely highly effective. I really feel like Kojima sees cinema because the purpose, not video video games particularly, and this attitude breaks my little pixelated coronary heart.
It’s significantly painful in an period of raging instability for the online game trade. It’s troublesome to see a lot cash and inventive expertise being thrown at tasks that find yourself feeling extra like motion pictures than video games, at a time when it’s more and more troublesome for recent and authentic AAA tasks to make it to market. Video video games haven’t been maxed out as an artwork type — there’s much more to find by way of mechanics, visuals, haptics and immersive interplay methods, and there are extra tales that may solely be instructed with these particular instruments. Viewing sport improvement by the lens of filmmaking diminishes the whole lot that makes this medium so highly effective. The one Hollywood trait the video games trade ought to imitate is its highly effective and purposeful unions.
I take pleasure in issues that exist within the grey area between definitions; in actual fact, I typically choose them. What I don’t take pleasure in is misguided emulation that’s offered to an viewers as innovation. Ultimately, I assume what I’m actually saying is… I’m nonetheless not over PT.
The information
King builders have been the architects of their very own demise
One of the vital eyebrow-raising particulars of Microsoft’s sweeping layoffs earlier this month was the truth that King, the studio behind Sweet Crush, was included within the firings. King is traditionally a money-printing machine with excessive per-employee returns, which tends to insulate it from layoffs, however this time round at the least 200 individuals have been let go from the studio. Because it seems, plenty of fired builders spent the previous few years coaching AI methods to do their jobs, which simply provides a layer of shittiness to an already crappy state of affairs.
Finest Purchase may have extra Swap 2 items on Thursday
Has the FOMO gotten to you but? After denying that you just wished a Swap 2 for just a few noble and self-righteous weeks, have you ever cracked and admitted that you just truly, actually need one? Nice — then get your self to Finest Purchase on Thursday, July 17, when the corporate will restock its provide of Swap 2 consoles in all shops. This coincides with the discharge of Donkey Kong Banaza, too.
A small replace on Ken Levine’s Judas (sung like Girl Gaga)
I’ve had my eye on Judas, the BioShocky FPS from Ken Levine’s Ghost Story Video games, because it was revealed in 2022, and I lowkey love how little we nonetheless learn about it at this time. That mentioned, I’m fortunately devouring each little bit of details about Judas, and the newest nugget comes from Levine himself in an interview with basic sport writer Nightdive Studios. With Judas, Ghost Story is targeted on “telling the story and transporting the participant someplace,” quite than constructing live-service or microtransaction options, Levine mentioned. As he put it, “You purchase the sport and also you get the entire thing. There isn’t any on-line element. There isn’t any stay service.”
There’s additionally no launch date for Judas but.
Summer season Video games Accomplished Fast can’t cease elevating hundreds of thousands for charity
The loopy children at Summer season Video games Accomplished Fast have carried out it as soon as once more and raised literal hundreds of thousands of {dollars} for Docs With out Borders in a single weekend, just by enjoying video video games in foolish methods with out stopping. SGDQ 2025 wrapped up on Sunday with a complete donation pool of $2,436,614. The group’s subsequent occasion is one other version of Flame Fatales, a speedrunning showcase that includes girls and femmes that runs from September 7 to 14. We’ll see you there.
Ousted Subnautica 2 studio bosses are suing Krafton
The nicely of Subnautica 2 drama runs deep. Earlier in July the heads of Subnatica 2 studio Unknown Worlds Leisure — Charlie Cleveland, Ted Gill and Max McGuire — have been ousted by the group’s mum or dad firm, Krafton, and the sport’s early entry launch was delayed to 2026. What’s extra, Bloomberg reported that the studio had been in line for a $250 million bonus if it had met sure monetary objectives by the top of the 12 months, however these largely hinged on an early entry launch. Cleveland mentioned on social media that Subnautica 2 was prepared for early entry, and Krafton responded to the entire shebang by accusing the fired builders of abandoning their obligations as studio heads. Cleveland and others at the moment are apparently submitting a lawsuit towards Krafton. GamesIndustry.biz has a complete timeline of the Subnautica 2 controversy proper right here.
