Another week has come to an end, and if you’re a regular reader, you’ll know what that means: it’s once again time to take a look at the events of the past week in the gaming industry.
We’re in the midst of what many might consider to be a transitional period for the world of gaming; many companies are undergoing layoffs, games are being cancelled, and studios may be rethinking their relationship to standard AAA development.
While a sea change may be underway, there are still plenty of smaller, more granular events to look back on, so let’s recap the week in gaming news!
Sony is reportedly working on a new handheld
We start with a fairly explosive rumour, although you should, of course, bear in mind that this is just a report and that nothing has officially been confirmed on Sony’s end.
Bloomberg this week reported that Sony is currently working on a new handheld device to rival the Nintendo Switch, and that said device will focus on being able to play PS5 games.
It presumably won’t be a cloud-based handheld, as that’s what the PlayStation Portal is for, although since there’s been no official reveal, we don’t know what the specs will look like. Still, exciting news for disgruntled PS Vita fans!
Mass Effect director’s game cancelled and studio closed
Casey Hudson, best known for his work as a director on BioWare’s critically-acclaimed Mass Effect series, suffered a blow this week as his studio Humanoid Origin was shut down.
Humanoid Origin blames its closure on “an unexpected shortfall of funding” which left the studio “unable to sustain operations”, and as such, its “new science-fiction universe” won’t be coming to fruition.
Sadly, this won’t be the only instance of an ex-BioWare developer’s studio seemingly closing down this week, either.
Cities: Skylines 2 still doesn’t have a console release date
We know that the absence of a release date is more the absence of news than the presence of it, but when it comes to Cities: Skylines 2, an ongoing delay does feel worthy of reporting.
In a Steam update this week, Colossal Order and Paradox stated that there’s still no console release date for Cities: Skylines 2, blaming “hardware limitations”.
We understand where they’re coming from, but that seems like a particularly insane take given that we’re only halfway through the generation. Perhaps Cities: Skylines 2 was simply never meant to come to consoles in the first place.
The PS2 has officially hit 160 million sales
In case you needed reminding of just how massively successful the PlayStation 2 was, Sony released sales numbers for the phenomenally popular console this week, and they’re just as crazy as you’d imagine.
Over on Sony’s PlayStation 30th anniversary recap page, you can see that the PS2 managed to achieve 160 million sales during its lifetime. That number was already revealed by Jim Ryan earlier this year, but it’s now been enshrined in PlayStation archival fact.
Although the PS2’s achievement is hugely impressive, the Nintendo Switch is no slouch either; at around 146 million units, the Switch could well catch up to the PS2 during its lifetime.
Shuhei Yoshida is retiring from PlayStation
PlayStation legend Shuhei Yoshida will retire from Sony at the start of next year, the man himself announced in a new interview with his (soon to be former) company.
Yoshida says that after reflecting on over 30 years with PlayStation, he decided it was time to step down, but it doesn’t seem that he’ll be departing the industry; rather, we may well see him pop up elsewhere.
In an exchange with a user on X/Twitter, Yoshida confirmed that he would “like to stay in the industry”, so it seems we haven’t seen the last of this icon yet.
Ex-BioWare dev Mac Walters’ studio goes into hibernation
Another ex-BioWare developer’s studio was shut down (or, at the very least, it will “pause operations”) this week, this time in the form of Mass Effect writer Mac Walters’ Worlds Untold.
The studio, which was funded by Chinese gaming company NetEase, has had its funding pulled, although Walters and his studio will continue to seek funding from elsewhere.
For now, though, it seems that the staffers at Worlds Untold will be seeking alternative employment, which indicates that we won’t be hearing from Walters’ studio for some time.
Tencent announces Horizon-esque Light of Motiram
Did you think that Guerrilla’s Horizon series would have been much better if it had been a free-to-play open-world survival-crafter that took influence from Palworld? If so, then Light of Motiram is your game.
The new game, which is coming to PC, PS5, and mobile devices (and possibly other consoles as well), has an art style that’s very similar indeed to Guerrilla’s games, revolving as it does around “mechanimals”.
These creatures can assist you in combat, help you with gathering and crafting materials, and generally serve as companions, but you’ll also be fighting them in epic scraps either alone or alongside your friends.
Stalker 2’s first patch is here, and it’s big
In November, Stalker 2 was finally released after a protracted development cycle, and although initial critical reception was largely positive, many reviewers noted the game’s abundant bugs and glitches.
Well, this week, developer GSC Game World released the first Stalker 2 update, and it contains fixes for “over 650 different bugs and issues”, which should give you an idea of just how many bugs there were at launch.
It’d take far too long to list all of the bugs and glitches fixed by the update here, so head over to the Steam announcement to take a look at the full notes if you like.
Lies of P’s DLC is coming early next year
Although Lies of P was released all the way back in 2023, it’s still yet to see its first DLC expansion launch, but this week, we got an idea of when we can expect that to happen.
According to a report by Korean news platform EBN (via Eurogamer), Lies of P’s first DLC is targeting a Q1 launch for next year, so we can presumably expect it sometime between January and March.
Developer Round8 is also currently working on its next major new IP, which will be a sci-fi survival horror project akin to the likes of Dead Space or The Callisto Protocol.
