December is a big month for the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog, with the addition of Rockstar’s GTA 5 hot on the heels of the explosive debut trailer for GTA 6. As Sony points out in a post on the PlayStation Blog, GTA 5’s arrival into the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog nicely lines up with the game’s newly launched update, GTA Online: The Chop Shop, which introduces a new Salvage Yard business, Drift Races, and more.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Lawrence Sullivan — aka the Florida Joker — has escalated his complaint about the GTA 6 trailer by threatening a lawsuit against developer Rockstar Games unless he is paid.
GTA 6 takes place in the state of Leonida, Rockstar’s version of Florida, and following the release of the record-breaking debut trailer fans noticed several real-life references. Among them was what appeared to be a reference to Sullivan, a tattoo model who garnered plenty of online attention after his mugshot went viral in 2017. He earned the nickname Florida Joker due to his green hair and face tattoos.
The GTA 6 version, seen in a quick shot of news footage, is a bit different — purple hair instead of green, some different face tattoos — but the similarities are certainly hard to ignore, which Sullivan didn’t. He acknowledged the GTA 6 video in a TikTok posted last week, and has now posted a follow-up demanding millions of dollars in compensation.
99 Details in the GTA 6 Trailer – Slideshow
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In his latest TikTok, Sullivan appears with purple-dyed hair to ape the GTA 6 character more closely. “GTA, I’m giving you the biggest free marketing you got in the entire history of running this GTA game,” he said. “For that, I want an extra million dollars. Y’all taking forever to respond back to me. GTA we gotta talk.”
Then, an increasingly animated Sullivan says: “You think I’m playin? You got three days… three days before my lawyers go crazy on this case. I got hard evidence.” IGN has asked Rockstar to comment on Sullivan’s claims. In a previous TikTok, Sullivan demanded up to $2 million from Rockstar Games over the character’s appearance in the trailer. “Florida Joker ain’t having that,” he said, “y’all took my likeness, y’all took my life.”
Despite Sullivan’s claims on TikTok, it seems unlikely he will get much out of Rockstar Games. Perhaps most famously, Lindsay Lohan filed a lawsuit in 2013 against Take-Two for what she claimed was unauthorized use of her likeness for a minor character in GTA 5. The suit, however, was eventually dismissed. For his part, Sullivan claims his case is significantly different than Lohan’s.
One high-profile sceptic is Roger Clark, the voice actor behind Red Dead Redemption 2 protagonist, Arthur Morgan. “They’re [Rockstar Games] not going to talk to you,” he said in a now-deleted TikTok (spotted by PC Gamer).
“They’ve had people like you trying to sue them for decades. They are lawyered up, man. They know exactly what they can and cannot get away with. If I were you, I would use the notoriety they just threw your way to your advantage. Capitalize on it somehow. You ain’t getting a job at Home Depot with that face.”
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Surprising absolutely no one, Fortnite and Lego snap satisfyingly together like a couple of plastic construction bricks. Combining the building creativity of Lego sets with Fortnite’s expansive and often gorgeous island playgrounds is a smart match that creates an approachable yet fairly deep survival game. But while it streamlines a few of the more cumbersome aspects of the genre, Lego Fortnite also has the distinct feel of an early access game, trading as much on its future potential as its currently polished systems. There’s a solid foundation here that developer Epic Games will surely build on over time, but Lego Fortnite can feel somewhat empty at launch – what’s here is fun, there’s just not very much of it.
If you’re familiar with survival games like Minecraft or Valheim, you’ll immediately find yourself at home in Fortnite’s riff on the genre, as it uses tried-and-true blueprints rather than starting from scratch. Dropped on a procedurally generated island that’s still loosely contained within Fortnite’s larger time-loopy fiction, you need to gather food and other resources to keep yourself alive. As you get more materials, you can craft tools and weapons, which let you fight off deadly creatures and gather even better materials, and then make better tools and weapons so you can search for still deadlier creatures and still rarer materials. It’s an extremely well-worn track at this point, and Lego Fortnite makes no attempt to lay down its own rails.
Lego Fortnite Gameplay Screenshots
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Instead, it focuses on reducing friction by providing you with a whole bunch of helpful NPCs to lighten the load. While a lot of survival games include cooperative multiplayer, Lego Fortnite makes cooperation its central theme. You can join up with as many as seven other players, but even if you’re alone, you’ll have NPCs around to take a lot of the pressure off. It’s an adjustment that lets Lego Fortnite maintain the trappings of survival while relaxing the burden overall, and at times can lessen the grind that often defines this sort of game – although there’s still plenty of grind to go around.
From the start in any new game, other characters are hanging around both to offer you tutorial information and to help out. Rather than building random shelter structures to keep yourself alive, you can construct a town square that turns your location into a village that attracts NPC Fortnite characters. Visitors will flow in and out of your village freely and defend it from any enemies that happen by, and you can entice some of them to become permanent residents by advancing through 10 village levels. That gives you something of a workforce almost from the very beginning, and you can assign NPCs to forage for materials or work your different crafting benches, providing you with free resources every so often. It’s like always having other players around to help you, freeing you up somewhat to focus on things that are more enticing than standing at a workbench, waiting for food to cook.
The Fortnite side of the equation adds some interesting new wrinkles.
That help makes it a little easier to enjoy on the best part of Lego Fortnite, which is striking out into the world to find new resources to improve your stuff. The Fortnite side of the equation adds some interesting wrinkles here, like a version of the battle royale mode’s storm with lightning strikes that will drive you into cover, llamas and supply drops that dispense random loot, and rifts that spawn a little dance party on a cloud into the world, which you can join with your Fortnite emotes. There’s not a ton beyond that stuff and some recognizable skins to identify this as a Fortnite spin-off, but the additions still bring some extra flavor to the world and open the door for future possibilities.
Combat is the same clunky style as Minecraft or Valheim, where you mostly stand and whack at enemies with a sword between blocking their assaults with a shield, with a dodge roll that gives you a little extra agility when you need it. Lego Fortnite uses NPCs to lower the stakes a bit here, too, as you can recruit any friendly character to explore with you, instantly doubling your odds in a fight. If they die, NPCs respawn a few seconds later barely any worse for wear (although without any of the equipment you gave them). It’s an option that maintains the feel of adventuring while lowering the barrier of entry and the risk.
If you do die, as is typical in the genre, whatever you were carrying is dropped at that spot and you’ll have to set out to retrieve it. Even if you’re alone, though, it’s usually pretty trivial to venture out to any spot where you previously fell, thanks to the fact that Lego Fortnite maps feel big without being enormous. Special equipment pieces that improve your health and resilience or enhance your mobility, like an extremely useful glider, stick with your character even after you die, which also means you’re not completely helpless upon respawning. It all contributes to a chill vibe that permeates throughout Lego Fortnite; There are challenges in the world, but they’re never so much that you’re dreading a corpse run or annoyed when a fight goes poorly.
However, the more time I spent exploring the world, the more I realized there isn’t really much out there yet. There are no real goals other than grinding your way up the tech tree and improving your village, and as is often the case, you’ll need to upgrade your stuff fully in one biome before you have the tools that will let you survive in the next. The three main biomes – Grasslands, Dry Valley (desert), and Frostlands (snowy mountains) – have their own features and styles, but there’s little to find within them except the next kind of tree to cut or rock to mine, even when you delve into their often deep and somewhat spooky caves.
The Lego building is a major way Lego Fortnite sets itself apart in the genre.
That meant I got out almost entirely what I put in when it came to fun. Lego Fortnite lacks the high stakes and frightening adventures of something like Valheim, where new biomes become drastically more deadly and sailing the seas brings surprising new sights and dangers. There’s also no story or hidden mystery, like in Grounded or Sons of the Forest, to provide the drive to keep pushing out to see what you might find. There’s a cool world here, but right now, it’s fairly empty.
The Lego side of things informs all the building aspects, and it’s the other major area where Lego Fortnite sets itself apart. As in other survival games, constantly foraging for new materials unlocks different building pieces that let you construct things like houses, protective walls, and watchtowers. You can build freely by putting pieces together as you like, but there are also pre-built Lego structures you can create from blueprints you unlock automatically as you progress. These let you just plug in the right materials to create elaborate, neat-looking structures, allowing anyone to make aesthetically pleasing and functional villages regardless of their skill level as a builder. The blueprints are another way Lego Fortnite eases some of the traditionally grating elements of survival games, offering you ways to make great-looking dwellings with less time investment, if you so choose. There’s also a Creative Mode that lets you forego the survival aspects in favor of unfettered construction, and the combination of blueprints and free building opens up new possibilities, allowing you to use cool pre-builds as a starting point for your own ideas.
It’s great to have both the option to let creativity flow and the ability to make excellent settlements without much trouble, but Lego Fortnite is also somewhat thin in the building department. In addition to the pieces you need for structures, you can also cobble together special foundations, wheels, and balloons to make vehicles, which are pretty instantly hilarious. The system offers the same goofy building freedom that made The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom so much fun to mess around in – or it might in the future, when there’s more to it. You can fashion land vehicles and hot air balloons with rocket thrusters, but there are only a few pieces dedicated to the endeavor, and no real means of controlling or steering what you create. While players are already finding a few creative workarounds for that problem, the system is disappointing as it stands. It’s a way Lego Fortnite could further separate itself from other survival games, but leaves you waiting for Epic to flesh it out.
Rockstar Games has released a trailer for today’s Grand Theft Auto: Online update that highlights The Chop Shop and Liberty City’s Yusuf Amir.
It’s a 30-second video that aims to bring GTA 5 fans back into the driver’s seat with fast cars, eccentric characters, and new missions to enjoy. It’s a closer look at a more substantial addition that Rockstar promised late last month.
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It’s a Liberty City-meets-Los Santos crossover that takes players back to the golden days of GTA 4, but as detailed in a blog post from Rockstar, it also adds new content to enjoy. However, you’ll mostly be spending your time stealing cars and selling them off for profit.
Players will utilize Salvage Yards as hubs for vehicle-stealing operations.
“There are five Salvage Yard properties to choose from, whether you’re operating remotely from Paleto Bay or getting valuable, central real estate in Strawberry,” Rockstar says. “The Salvage Yard also features optional upgrades including Trade Rates, which extend your chop shop connections to a special discount when requesting destroyed vehicles from Mors Mutual or repairing vehicles in any custom shop. Upgrade the yard with a Tow Truck, allowing you to tow designated delinquent vehicles back to the Salvage Yard for another source of auto parts.”
GTA Online Chop Shop robberies require planning. That means players will search for intel and complete Preps and Freemode Tasks before capping it all off with a “high-speed Finale.” In other words, it’s not quite as simple as just hopping in a car and driving off into the sunset. These missions, which involve some of Los Santos’ shiniest automobiles, require players to think on their feet and prepare for the worst.
The Chop Shop also adds new vehicles, Daily Challenges, Pause Menu Awards, and Career Progress challenges.
GTA Online isn’t done yet.
GTA Online Isn’t Done Yet
GTA+ console members, meanwhile, also get a suite of new rewards, including the illustrious Vinewood Club Garage, which allows players to store up to 100 Personal Vehicles. It’s a bonus that comes with a new car in the form of the Declasse Impaler LX, as well as other perks.
Today’s update is one of GTA Online’s biggest in some time, so you shouldn’t be surprised to hear it comes with more than fast cars and places to store (and steal) them. As previously promised, multiplayer enthusiasts can now enjoy Los Santos’ roaming wildlife, which has made the trek over from single-player. Creatures can now be found roaming around on console as players enjoy the new Battle Rifle, Drift Races and Handling Kits, a nice selection of purchaseable law-enforcement vehicles, and more, with Rockstar promising to improve other aspects of the experience, such as voice chat moderation, in the future.
Rockstar can’t help itself but continue to ride the high its set with the release of its GTA 6 trailer last week. While GTA Online is still going strong, the video proved that Rockstar is more than ready to head into the future with new visuals new characters, and new locations.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
Ubisoft has just released Update 1.0.6 for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which introduces many improvements and new additions to the game, including a New Game Plus mode.
Noted in the patch notes, installing Update 1.0.6 will allow players who have already completed Assassin’s Creed Mirage to start a New Game Plus save. Aside from the added benefits of New Game Plus, such as keeping all the skills and gear you accrued in your first playthrough, those who start the mode in Mirage can skip the prologue and head straight to Baghdad.
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More interestingly, Ubisoft revealed that players starting a New Game Plus playthrough will unlock Bayek’s Medjay outfit. Assassin’s Creed fans will recall Bayek being the protagonist of 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins.
Another noteworthy change rolled out thanks to the new patch includes improvements to parkour. Ubisoft notes that Update 1.0.6 has increased “the range of back and side ejects during parkour.”
In our review of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, we said: “Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s back-to-basics approach is a successful first step in returning to the stealthy style that launched this series.”
You can check out the full patch notes below.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage Update 1.0.6 Patch Notes
Patch Sizes
Xbox Series X|S: 4.76GB
Xbox One: 3.33GB
PS5: 2.03GB
PS4: 3.05GB
PC: 5.03GB
New Game Plus
You can start a New Game Plus playthrough from the title screen or pause menu.
You can skip the prologue and start directly in Baghdad
Start a New Game Plus run and unlock Bayek’s Medjay outfit from Assassin’s Creed Origins.
The outfit comes with three unique dyes that will be unlocked throughout your new run, allowing you to revisit this iconic costume with unique styles!
Parkour Improvements to Side and Back-Ejects
The range of back and side ejects during parkour has been increased, allowing Basim to reach heights faster and cross bigger distances.
Bug Fixing
General
Fixed issues when pickpocket loot could not be retrieved properly after eliminating a target.
Improvements made to Chain Assassination.
Basim’s last known location will now display correctly after changing the enemy proximity option’s value.
Fixed several situations where level design was blocking parkour movement
Fixed issue where player could fall whilst performing a pole vault.
Fixed Follow Road to Quest Objective feature which was not working on World Contracts.
Graphics, UI, and Animations
Numerous graphics, environment or VFX improvements.
Fixed an issue where musicians were playing continuously after being paid with a faction favor.
Fixed the “Poster Boy” achievement.
Fixed the volumetric fog flickering during the loading screen.
Fixed an issue where mercenaries would leave their position to follow a guard to investigate a body nearby.
Fixed collision issues.
Fixed NPC navigation and interaction issues.
Fixed clothes corruption on NPCs.
Improvements were made to the contract card UI after the player modified the Hold Alternative setting.
Numerous fixes and improvements to character animations.
Codex orbs will now stay visible after being collected.
Territory discovery pop up now appears with no delay.
Fixed a black screen issue after skipping the game credits.
Improvements made to the Investigation board. Icon now fits the description whilst using colorblind mode.
Benches that are not usable will no longer be highlighted.
Fixed undesired swimming animation when colliding with walls.
Fixed an issue with Window Mode when clicking on the frame’s top bar caused the game window to be misplaced.
Audio
Music now continues playing whilst reading the codex details.
Various audio fixes and improvements.
“A New Beginning”: Fixed the volume of a Novice’s voice.
Compatibility
Improved OWO Haptic Suit support.
Stability
Multiple stability improvements.
Multiple camera fixes.
Misc
Guards will now react when seeing Basim ripping the wanted posters.
Narrative consistency improvements between Fuladh’s speech and Rebekah’s letter.
Enemies will no longer investigate burning bodies that are affected by the Fire Demon outfit perk.
Update to game credits.
Updated the tool upgrade screenshot in the Codex.
Hide/Show panel functionality now works in all cases.
The Samsaama Dagger will now only heal the player every 5 hits with the sword.
Guard captain can no longer blow the horn whilst berserked.
Guards closer to the alarm will ring the bell first.
“The Marked Coins”: Fixed the merchant outfit.
Fixed issues when guards would not move from their position after detecting Basim.
Roshan will no longer block the entrance to Assassin Bureaus preventing the player from entering/exiting.
All landmine perk effects should now properly apply, no matter the order they are unlocked.
Improvement made to the Upper Harbor puzzle.
The Zanj Uprising Dagger perk will now correctly refill stamina for successful dodges.
Fixed refreshing issues in the store page.
Whilst wearing the Fire Demon outfit, players can now complete assassination objectives.
WARNING: Spoilers for Assassin’s Creed Mirage follow. Read on at your own risk!
Misc Continued
Prologue: Nehal will now appear in the cinematic the day after the Winter Palace event.
“The Master Thief of Anbar”: Fixed the transition between gameplay and time passing (day to night) cinematic.
“The Master Thief of Anbar”: Players can now interact with the coin pouch on the merchant table.
“The Master Thief of Anbar”: Guards no longer ignore Basim while he is escaping the Winter Palace.Tha’abeen (elite Order members) tag and healthbar are now properly displayed.
“A Dance with Thieves”: Merchant in the background will stay visible during the cinematic dialogue with Murjana.
“A Dance with Thieves”: Murjana is no longer stuck after killing the Thieves.
“A New Beginning”: As Basim is joining the training ground, Roshan and her apprentice are now invincible whilst training together.
“A New Beginning”: Fixed an issue where a chest would randomly spawn after the cinematic with Rebekah.
“A New Beginning”: Fixed Nur’s behavior after Basim kills an enemy.
“A New Beginning”: Nur now correctly assassinates his first target no matter how the player assassinates their own first target.
“Al-Jahiz’s Lost Books”: Added a clue that informs the player to collect a final book after bringing the Lost Books to Al-Jahiz. The clue is not shown if the book has already been given to him.
“Baghdad Bound”: Fixed the transition between cinematic and gameplay.
“Baghdad Bound”: Purchased content now appears in the inventory after completing the cinematic to avoid the pop-up being hidden by the cinematic.
“Bird Trap”: Player can now confirm the kill of General Jasoor.
“Blade in the Crowd, Tool in the Shed”: Guards now spawn correctly.
“Den of the Beast”: Player can now properly loot key from Warden’s body if they kill him.
“First Order”: Added an icon over Al-Ghul’s head when the player kills him from afar and leaves.
“First Order”: Al Ghul’s office door will now unlock properly.
“First Order”: Fixed an issue where a civilian would appear next to Roshan after loading a save.
“First Order”: Fixed an issue where Ali triggers the fight state (yellow icon) for him and the player after seeing a dead body on the ground.
“First Order”: Fixed the assassination prompt on Al-Ghul.
“First Order”: The Caravan leader now moves correctly.
“Follow the Fiery Trail”: The guard holding the key that opens the Scriptorium door now appears correctly.
“Gilded Butterflies”: Guards in front of Ning’s chamber will de-spawn after completing the quest.
“Gilded Butterflies”: NPCs now stay spawned if the player skips the auction cinematic.
“Gilded Butterfly”: Once pushed out of the doorway, the shelf can be pushed back to its original position.
“In Pursuit of Truth”: Lighting issues fixed when using Enkidu towards Alamut Lake.
“Jailbreak”: Ali now follows Basim correctly to the guard’s quarters.
“The Head of the Snake”: Quest will now unlock properly for players.
“The Hunter”: NPC can no longer drown around the Teahouse.
“The Marked Coins”: Fixed the “The Hidden One” NPC who was sliding towards the last building at the end of the race.
“The Serpent’s Nest”: Fixed an issue where the prompt asking the player to call Enkidu to locate quest objectives would appear while being indoors.
“The Servant and the Imposter”: Basim no longer repeats a sentence about the magic potion before and after delivering it to Makira.
“The Slave Merchant”: Guards cannot see Basim assassinating targets through the curtains.
“The Trade Delegate”: The guard carrying the key will now be visible.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
Sony Santa Monica Studio continues adding replay value to God of War Ragnarök, particularly with the recently revealed Valhalla DLC that adds roguelite flavor to the 2022 third-person action-adventure game.
As part of Patch 05.01, the new update rolls out the free new Valhalla DLC. As Santa Monica Studio mentions in the patch notes, players will need to head to the PlayStation Store and download the God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla DLC, as it will not be automatically downloaded into the patch. Of course, you still need to download Patch 05.01 to play the DLC.
Santa Monica Studio also says in the patch notes that the player will encounter an endless loading screen if you install the Valhalla DLC before installing God of War: Ragnarök. To avoid this, install the base game first before trying to download and access the Valhalla content.
Patch 05.01 includes a few minor updates to the base game, which you can check out below.
God of War: Ragnarök Patch 05.01 Notes
Bug Fixes
Equipment
Fixed an issue that caused the banner of the Draupnir Spear to no longer look upgraded when used in transmog.
Fixed an issue that caused the Flawless Berserker waist armor to not have a glowing effect.
Localization
[Arabic Only] Fixed an alignment issue that caused an icon to overlap with the controller diagram.
“God of War Ragnarok is an almighty achievement and creates a new high that makes many of its peers look mortal by comparison,” my colleague Simon Cardy wrote in his 10/10 review of God of War Ragnarök.
Bethesda Game Studios is working on some quality-of-life improvements for Starfield, including city maps, new ways to traverse in space, and more.
In a new post on the Starfield subreddit, Bethesda published a statement to the community revealing that it was “hard at work” to address various issues that have been brought to the development team’s attention.
Specifically, Bethesda acknowledged that early next year, there will be a big update that will include a lot of “in-progress quest fixes.” The developer is also planning to add several new quality-of-life improvements to Starfield that the community has heavily requested, including official mod support, city maps, and new ways to travel.
Starfield Players Recreating Famous Faces at Launch
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“These will be rolling out with a regular cadence of fixes and updates we expect to have roughly every six weeks. If something can be done in a smaller hotfix in between (like the asteroid), and we feel it’s safe, we’ll get one out as well,” Bethesda wrote in the post. “Safe is the key here. We do take a lot of time to test even the smallest change in a game this large and dynamic.”
We already knew official mod support was coming. Bethesda’s Todd Howard revealed in an interview with Famitsu in September that it would roll out official mod support in Starfield sometime next year. Official city maps and support for new ways to travel are welcome changes, as these quality-of-life features have already been unofficiallyadded by players through PC mods.
In our 7/10 review of Starfield, IGN said: “Starfield has a lot of forces working against it, but eventually the allure of its expansive roleplaying quests and respectable combat make its gravitational pull difficult to resist.”
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
As 2023 is coming to an end, if you want to reflect on your gaming stats for the year, both PlayStation and Xbox have released its end of year wrap-up tools, providing an annual overview of how many games you played, total time spent on each console, and which games you racked up the most hours in.
As detailed by PlayStation.Blog, PS4 or PS5 players can check out their Wrap-Up by clicking here, and they will be able to do so through January 12, 2024. Furthermore, the Wrap-Up will continue to update until 2023 comes to a close, so you can continue boosting your stats until then if you’d like!
PlayStation has been doing these Warp-Ups for some time, and this year they are putting your biggest stats in on digital cards that you can share with the world in a stylish way.
Players will additionally be able to earn a unique avatar and a PlayStation Stars digital collectible featuring a Spider-Bot from Marvel’s Spider-Man as part of this whole experience.
In comparison, Microsoft details in a new Xbox Wire post that players on Xbox console owners can look up their gaming stats through Year In Review. From celebrating your most significant achievements to unraveling your most played game and even using any of the statistics for bragging rights purposes.
Much like PlayStation, Xbox has been doing Year In Review for a few years now as a way for the community to look back at their gaming activity over the year and see any milestones one accomplished during that time.
Microsoft’s high-profile legal battle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the fate of its $69 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard unearthed a number of explosive revelations, among them the fact Microsoft renegotiated ZeniMax’s deal with Disney to make Bethesda’s upcoming Indiana Jones game exclusive to Xbox and PC, thus ditching the PlayStation 5 version.
During the trial, Bethesda’s Pete Hines revealed that Disney had an agreement with Bethesda owner ZeniMax for a multiplatform AAA Indiana Jones game, but after Microsoft bought the company, the agreement with Disney was amended to transition the Indiana Jones game to an Xbox and PC exclusive. At the time, Hines said the game was set to hit Game Pass on day one.
Several emails and conversations shown during the trial added colour to the decision to make Indiana Jones a platform exclusive. “While it is not in our messaging, I think it is important to highlight that Lucasfilm brought up the issue of platforms because we have a signed agreement with them to develop the game for multiple consoles,” read an email between Hines, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer, Xbox Studios head Matt Booty, and several other executives.
“The upside here is a game coming from Bethesda that everyone will be excited about. This is the most important thing. The downside for Xbox… is that a large percentage of output from Bethesda won’t directly benefit the Xbox community in any way,” Spencer wrote in January 2021.
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Hines said he was told by Spencer in a subsequent call that Bethesda should continue to look at title exclusivity on a case-by-case basis. Asked why Indiana Jones was ultimately amended, Hines attributed it to “reducing risk and trying to get a degree of clarity.”
“You’re dealing with a licensor who is giving a ton of feedback on what you’re making, is going to add a ton of time to your scheduling, these agreements, you don’t get to take as long as you want, you have a window of time in which you’re going to release a game, you immediately have a clock that’s ticking on you,” Hines said.
In short, while Bethesda had a degree of control over what happened with Starfield, it has much less control over Indiana Jones, which is owned by Lucasfilm. “Truthfully, we also kind of liked the idea of embracing, bringing it to Game Pass and how many players we could get there,” Hine said.
The FTC cited Microsoft Gaming Chief Financial Officer Tim Stuart’s testimony, stating that Microsoft had forecasted “more than 10 million” sales on PlayStation “for both Starfield and Indiana Jones,” before it decided to make both games exclusive to Xbox.
We felt like it’s still going to reach a broad set of folks, and we felt, financially and strategically for the game, that made sense at the time.
Now, Speaking to Axios, Disney’s head of gaming, Sean Shoptaw, explained why the company was happy to renegotiate on Indiana Jones. With “Xbox still being one of the bigger marketplaces for games, we didn’t feel like we were going to be overly exclusionary”, Shoptaw insisted. “We felt like it’s still going to reach a broad set of folks, and we felt, financially and strategically for the game, that made sense at the time.”
Essentially, Microsoft made it worth Disney’s while to ensure Indiana Jones on Xbox as a console exclusive, thus adding further value to Game Pass and encouraging sales of the Xbox console.
Microsoft and the issue of console exclusivity has come up multiple times in recent years. Microsoft announced its plans to acquire Bethesda owner ZeniMax back in 2020, and outside of honoring the timed-exclusivity deals PlayStation previously inked with Bethesda for timed console exclusivity for Arkane’s Deathloop and Tango Gameworks’ Ghostwire: Tokyo, projects coming from developers under the ZeniMax umbrella were announced as a console exclusive for Xbox consoles, including the previously mentioned Starfield and Indiana Jones.
Indeed, Arkane Studios was working on a PS5 version of Redfall before Microsoft acquired ZeniMax. Arkane Studios’ Harvey Smith noted in the interview that the developer was then instructed to focus on “Game Pass, Xbox, and PC.”
The exclusivity of Activision’s Call of Duty was at the heart of the FTC’s case against Microsoft, a case it ultimately lost. While Bethesda games, including the upcoming Elder Scrolls 6, are PC and Xbox exclusive, Microsoft signed a 10-year deal with Sony to ensure Call of Duty remains on PlayStation.
Microsoft exclusivity hit the headlines again last week following the reveal of Arkane’s Blade game during The Game Awards 2023. Microsoft is yet to announce launch platforms, leaving a potential PS5 version up in the air. But with Disney seemingly happy for Indiana Jones to leave PlayStation behind, perhaps it has agreed a similar deal for Blade.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
Hasbro has announced a huge wave of layoffs that affects over 1,000 staff just before the holidays.
The toymaker, which owns Dungeons & Dragons via its Wizards of the Coast subsidiary, as well as Transformers, Monopoly, Play-Doh, and My Little Pony, is cutting nearly 20% of its workforce, or around 1,100 staff, due to weak sales for toys and games, The Wall Street Journal reported. This is on top of 800 layoffs earlier this year. Hasbro had about 6,500 employees as of the end of last year.
According to the AP, Hasbro wants to save up to $300 million annually by 2025. Chief Executive Officer Chris Cocks said Hasbro will “focus on fewer, bigger brands; gaming; digital; and our rapidly growing direct to consumer and licensing businesses.”
Wizards of the Coast licensed the Dungeons & Dragons setting to developer Larian for the blockbuster video game Baldur’s Gate 3, which has sold millions of copies and won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2023. But it seems toy sales are faltering even as the digital and licensing business show growth.
In an email sent to employees on Monday, Cocks said: “We entered 2023 expecting a year of change including significant updates to our leadership team, structure, and scope of operations. We anticipated the first three quarters to be challenging, particularly in Toys, where the market is coming off historic, pandemic-driven highs. While we have made some important progress across our organization, the headwinds we saw through the first nine months of the year have continued into Holiday and are likely to persist into 2024.
“To position Hasbro for growth, we must first make sure our foundation is solid and profitable. To do that, we need to modernize our organization and get even leaner. While we see workforce reductions as a last resort, given the state of our business, it’s a lever we must pull to keep Hasbro healthy.
“I know this news is especially difficult during the holiday season. We value each of our team members – they aren’t just employees, they’re friends and colleagues. We decided to communicate now so people have time to plan and process the changes. For those employees affected we are offering comprehensive packages including job placement support to assist in their transition.”
The layoffs are expected to be completed in the next 18 to 24 months.
Image credit: Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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