Planet Coaster 2, the sequel to the popular theme park management game, now has a confirmed release date of 6th November 2024.
Developer Frontier first announced the game back in July, which adds water parks to its list of thrills, as well as various enhanced tools and quality of life changes.
The release date is across all platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The game is now available to pre-order.

Planet Coaster 2 | Pre Order Trailer

Read More

Nintendo has revealed fresh details of its forthcoming RPG Mario & Luigi: Brothership, including its setting: Concordia.
The game was announced at Nintendo’s Direct in June, marking the series’ debut on Switch and latest game since Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam on the 3DS in 2015. It could potentially be the final Mario game on the console before the release of Switch 2.
Yesterday, Nintendo Japan shared a blog post with new details and, since then, a new trailer for the game has been released ahead of its launch on 7th November – see it below.

Mario & Luigi: Brothership — Greetings from Concordia! — Nintendo Switch

Read More

Sales for Ironwood Studios' Pacific Drive have exceeded 600,000 copies. The developer revealed the news alongside its release of the game's first post-launch content.Ironwood's debut title first launched back in late February for PlayStaton 5 and PC to strong reviews. CEO and creative director Alex Dracott said the studio was "blown away" by Pacific Drive's new milestone, and thanked players for the response."It is a testament to the hard work of everyone at Ironwood Studios," he wrote. "None of this would be possible without [player] support, and we’re thankful for the chance to continue supporting Pacific Drive and improving their experience."Ahead of the game's release, Game Developer chatted with Dracott on its survival roguelike design. We also got behind the wheel with technical artst Karl Kohlman about the VFX software Houdini and using its pipeline for procedural generation.Months later in May, we spoke with director Seth Rosen about Ironwood's efforts to give a soul to the station wagon players use to get around Olympic Exclusion Zone.…

Read More

Ubisoft posted its financials for the first quarter of the 2024-2025 fiscal year, and the French developer is pleased with its performance in several areas.Net bookings for the quarter (which ended on June 30, 2024) hit €290 million (or $316.5 million). Not only is it up 8.3 percent from the same quarter for 2023-2024, it's also 5.5 percent ahead of the initial target of about €275 million.xDefiant, the studio's new shooter which released back in May, was singled out for its "encouraging" start. The game amassed over 10 million players in the first two weeks, and has generally outperformed expectations and "strong" average revenue per day."We delivered a solid start to the year with net bookings above target, reaffirming that we are on the right track," said Yves Guillemot. The Ubisoft CEO went on to affirm its 2024-2025 plans involve launching new games and "positioning them as long-lasting value drivers."

Ubisoft is confident in its 2024 releases

The two big upcoming releases for 20…

Read More

The Federal Trace Commission (FTC) had branded Xbox Game Pass a "degraded product" after Microsoft announced a price hike.Microsoft is increasing the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Game Pass for PC subscriptions. It's also introducing a new 'Standard' tier that ditches day-one access for first-party titles.As spotted by The Verge reporter Tom Warren, the FTC claims that new Standard plan is a "degraded product" that essentially forces consumers to pay more for less.The U.S. regulator noted these changes come less than a year after Microsoft completed its $68.7 billion merger with Activision Blizzard—a deal the FTC heavily opposed—and claims the two are inherently linked."Microsoft is raising the price for its 'Game Pass Ultimate' product from $16.99/month to $19.99/month–a 17 percent year-over-year increase. Additionally, Microsoft is discontinuing its $10.99/month 'Console Game Pass' product. Users of that product must pay 81 percent more to switch to 'Game Pass Ultimate,'" wrote the FTC in a court filing.

Read More

UK game development conference Develop will head to Liverpool in November for Develop: North.The one-day event will take place on November 14, 2024, at The Spine in Liverpool. Registration will open in September, when more details will be announced.Develop has become a mainstay on the UK game industry calendar and takes place in Brighton in July. The show attracted a record number of attendees this year, with 5225 people heading to the seaside earlier this month—an increase of 5 percent on last year.Organizer Tandem Events said there was also a "sizable increase" in the number of exhibitors across an expanded expo floor."Over the three days Develop:Brighton 2024 played host to over 100 sessions, from roundtable discussions to headline keynotes, as well as the biggest ever industry expo and the Develop:Star Awards—celebrating industry excellence over the past twelve months," it added in a press release.This year's keynotes were delivered by Sony's Shuhei Yoshida and Greg Rice, Interior/Night's Caroline Marchal, and Super Evil Megacorp's Kristian Segerstrale."The continued growth and success of Develop:Brighton shows the desire among t…

Read More

The TV adaptation of Xbox's Halo franchise has been canceled after a two-season run.Per Variety, Paramount+ opted not to pick up the show for a third season. The cancellation comes following season two's finale airing in late March."We are extremely proud of this ambitious series and would like to thank our partners at Xbox, 343 Industries and Amblin Television," wrote Paramount. "We wish everyone the best going forward."Despite this, a source told the outlet that Xbox, Amblin, and 343 would try shopping the show around to other networks. No specific names were given, but streamers like Netflix and Prime Video have been known to pick old previously cancelled shows.

A history of Halo's transmedia journey

Microsoft was trying to get Halo out of games and into live-action since Bungie was originally helming the series. Different directors were attached to make a hypothetical movie before those ambitions were scaled down to television.To date, Halo is Xbox's only franchise to be adapted for TV and fi…

Read More

July 19 is the official release of EA Sports College Football 25, but it was already a success with its launch days earlier.EA bragged that thanks to its Early Access launch with the deluxe edition, the game amassed 2.2 million players. Through the EA Play trial, it added another 600,000 players to its ranks.Making this more impressive is the numbers are strictly for current-gen consoles. The game released only on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, with no PC port (at time of writing) or last-gen versions."The response we’ve seen from across the collegiate landscape, athletes, creators, celebrities and the core community has been nothing short of spectacular," said EA Sports GM Daryl Holt. "We couldn’t be more excited to welcome millions more into the game with today’s launch."

EA Sports has another winner on hand

Sports games tend to do very well for EA in terms of players and revenue. The deluxe edition for College 25 ran for $90, and that gamble has clearly paid off for the publisher.College 25 is the first new in…

Read More

The FTC recently claimed Microsoft had turned Xbox Game Pass into a 'degraded product' by increasing the price of certain subscriptions and removing day-one access to first party titles from a new 'Standard' tier.  Microsoft begs to differ.The Xbox maker has issued a reply to the FTC and claims the regulator has pulled together a "misleading, extra-record account of the facts."The company fired back in a letter spotted by The Verge reporter Tom Warren and indicated the FTC is attempting to "reinvent" its case against the tech giant after failing to stop its merger with Activision Blizzard.It claims the FTC failed to take key facts into account when appraising the new Xbox Game Pass tiers and price plans, such as the inclusion of Call of Duty for Ultimate members and multiplayer access for Standard subscribers."Microsoft is offering a new service tier, Game Pass Standard, which offers access to hundreds of back-catalog games and multiplayer functionality for $14.99/month. It is wrong to call this a 'degraded' version of the discontinued Game Pass for Console offering. That discontinued product did not offer multiplayer function…

Read More

Last week, mobile developer Rumble Games (or R Studios) closed its doors, laying off 36 people. According to senior web architect David Bethune, the hammer came down from parent company Forte."This is [Forte's] second recent studio axing after Phoenix Labs got this treatment a few weeks ago," wrote Bethune. He added that the now ex-staff will only receive a single month of severance.Founded in 2011, Rumble was known for a number of free-to-play mobile games like Towers & Titans. At this moment, it's unclear if the title will be kept operational, and what studio will continue development if that's the case.Bethune also shared some thoughts on his former employer, and Rumble's previous owner Aristocrat. To him, both studios were "ruthless about pursuing mythical future profits while they can the teams that actually make things."His words echo previous statements made amidst the industry's layoff spree in recent years. Back in March, Dwarf Fortress designer Tarn Adams said layoffs were conducted by "greedy, greedy" executives driven by incentives to cut staff when possible."I'm tired of it!" Bethune continued. …

Read More