Spring and summer fans, be advised: we are exiting what is probably your least favourite month of the year, so there is hope on the horizon!
If you’re a winter lover, however, you’re probably a little melancholy about the advancing of the seasons and the approaching diminished chill of February, as well as the days getting longer.
Thankfully, we’ve got plenty of gaming news to look at in order to distract you from your sadness (or add to your happiness that spring will soon be here, of course!).
Let’s take a look at what’s been happening in the world of gaming this week.
Marvel Snap gets taken offline as part of TikTok ban
If you’ve been keeping up with non-gaming news, you were probably aware of the brief TikTok ban last weekend, which was essentially reversed almost as soon as it started.
Well, it turns out that card battler Marvel Snap, which is published by a subsidiary of TikTok owner ByteDance, was also caught up in that ban.
The game is back up and running again now, but developer Second Dinner says it wasn’t aware the outage was going to happen and that it came as a surprise.
Team Cherry provides an (admittedly small) update on Hollow Knight: Silksong
Hollow Knight: Silksong developer Team Cherry gave fans a renewed reason to hope this week, as marketing and publishing exec Matthew Griffin provided an update on the game.
In response to a fan asking whether or not the game was, in fact, actually being worked on, Griffin said Silksong “is real”, that it’s “progressing”, and that it “will release”.
Unfortunately, he stopped short of providing any kind of release date or update regarding when we can expect the game to arrive, but it’s nice to know Team Cherry hasn’t forgotten about it, at any rate.
Sony may have quietly shut down a Horizon MMO
Reportedly, Sony and Korean studio NCSoft were working together on an MMO set in the universe of the Horizon games, but that MMO has now apparently been shut down.
According to Korean news site MTR (with translation from ResetEra), the project known as “Project H” has been cancelled as part of a wider NCSoft review regarding its in-progress development projects.
It’s widely believed that Project H is the same game as Project Skyline, which, given the font used in certain job listings to work on the game, was almost certainly the Horizon MMO in question.
Xbox announces more Game Pass titles for this month
The next wave of Xbox Game Pass titles for January has been announced, and it should go a long way towards making up for the rather meagre offerings of early January.
Games coming to the service for the rest of January and the early part of February include Sniper Elite: Resistance, Eternal Strands, and Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector.
Of course, that’s not all we got in the way of Xbox news this week, because the Developer Direct that aired this week gave us lots more to ponder.
Dragon Age and EA Sports FC were flops, EA says
According to a new EA financial statement released this week, two of the studio’s biggest releases for 2024 were, relatively speaking, seemingly flops.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard sold about half of the copies EA expected it to, the company said, while major flagship sports title EA Sports FC 24 underperformed as well.
No reasons were given for the games’ unsatisfying performance, but EA may well hesitate before releasing more games in the Dragon Age series in future, while major shakeups could be coming to EA Sports FC as a result.
Xbox Developer Direct reveals Xbox-related news galore
This week, the Developer Direct that was announced last week aired, and we got news on Doom: The Dark Ages, South of Midnight, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, as well as a brand new announcement.
Doom: The Dark Ages launches on May 15th, while South of Midnight is coming on April 8th and Clair Obscur arrives on April 24th. All of them will be on Game Pass on day one, too.
Perhaps even more excitingly, though, Ninja Gaiden 4 has been confirmed, and it’s coming from Platinum Games and Team Ninja. A remaster of Ninja Gaiden 2 was also released to enjoy this week, so it’s all go in Xbox Towers.
Pokemon TCG Pocket is getting a new expansion soon
Mobile game Pokemon TCG Pocket will be getting a new expansion soon, and the game’s trading update will also be released summarily.
The Space-Time Smackdown expansion will revolve around Sinnoh legendaries Dialga and Palkia, and it’ll also feature plenty of new critters to collect.
Meanwhile, the game’s trading update will give you the chance to exchange cards with your friends, although there are quite a few asterisks next to that statement that might give you pause if you’re excited to get started.
Gaming execs depart their companies for different reasons
Two major gaming execs departed their companies this week, namely Insomniac Games founder Ted Price and Warner Bros. Games head David Haddad.
In Price’s case, he’s looking to retire from the industry full stop, so he’ll likely be spending more time with his family and perhaps even finding more time to play games himself.
Haddad, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to be leaving the industry, but his departure does come after a terrible year for WB, with flops like Suicide Squad and MultiVersus proving disastrous for the company.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard updates may be ending
It looks as though Dragon Age: The Veilguard may have just received its final major update, following news this week that the game underperformed.
In the patch notes for the game’s fifth major patch (catchily named Patch 5), EA says it’s “moving to monitor for any game-breaking bugs should those occur” after being “happy” with the game’s release state.
That sounds an awful lot like EA is done with Veilguard, so don’t expect any major DLC packs or expansions anytime soon either.
