Playful Studios, the developer of Super Lucky’s Tale that was founded by the co-creator of Words With Friends, has announced major layoffs. In a statement, the company said it is enacting a round of significant layoffs as a result of “continued changes in the global video game marketplace.”
In a statement, Paul Bettner and Katy Drake Bettner said they are proud of what Playful has created since its founding in 2012. The pair also acknowledged that they took “significant risks” to grow their studio as they “dared to dream big,” but not all of its efforts worked out.
“Continued changes in the global video game marketplace require Playful to evolve its approach to the development and production of our current and future projects,” they said. “The studio will be pivoting to a more streamlined production model based on distributed game development and dynamic, project-based teams.”
As a result of this change, Playful is making the decision to “significantly reduce” the company’s full-time staff as part of an “incredibly difficult decision.”
“We are truly heartbroken to be parting ways with many of our friends and colleagues. These are people who have poured their hearts into every game Playful has created, who have supported us and each other every step of the way, and have truly made this studio what it is today,” Paul and Katy Bettner said. We will be working closely with each person affected by this transition to help them move forward.”
Paul Bettner started his career in games working on the Age of Empires series at Ensemble Studios for Microsoft. He started a new company, NewToy, in 2008. The studio would go on to create the extremely popular Words With Friends, which was acquired by Zynga in 2010. Bettner became vice president and general manager of Zynga until 2012, at which point he left to start Playful.
In news that should surprise no one, Marvel is reportedly moving forward with a sequel to Captain Marvel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Marvel has hired WandaVision writer Megan McDonnell to script the sequel that will star Brie Larson again in the title role.
The writers/directors of the 2019 Captain Marvel, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, are not coming back for Captain Marvel 2, according to the report. They are reportedly in discussions to direct an upcoming Marvel Disney+ series, but there is no word on what that will be.
THR also claims that Marvel is looking to hire a woman to direct Captain Marvel 2, which could hit theatres in the 2022. The report also claims the movie will be set in the present day, which is decades later than the first movie, which took place in the ’90s.
Captain Marvel, which also starred a digitally de-aged Samuel L. Jackson, as well as Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Annette Bening, Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Chan, and Lashana Lynch, made more than $1.1 billion at the global box office.
Captain Marvel 2 will apparently be part of the MCU Phase 4, which kicks off in May with the new Black Widow movie starring Scarlett Johansson.
Season 1 of Netflix’s Locke and Key, the highly anticipated adaptation of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez’s beloved horror comic, hasn’t even hit Netflix yet–it arrives February 7. But although a second season hasn’t yet been officially greenlit by the streaming service, executive producer Carlton Cuse is in the process of writing Locke and Key Season 2.
“We’re writing Season 2, even though it hasn’t been greenlit. We’re working in a room,” Cuse told GameSpot during an interview with him and Locke and Key showrunner Meredith Averill.
Locke and Key follows the Locke family after a tragedy sends them across the country to take up residence in their ancestral home, Keyhouse–a mysterious mansion filled with magical keys. The comics ran from 2008 to 2013, and fans generally hold the series’ ending in high regard. Giving the way some adaptations have wound up lately, some fans might worry that the Netflix version will eventually diverge so much from the books that the story will become unrecognizable from the version we know and love. Cuse and Averill said that’s a distinct possibility, though they’re determined to tell a story that’s right for the medium of television.
“We can’t really answer that question yet,” Cuse said. “I think by the time we get to the end of the season, we’ll have a better sense of how much longer the show can go. We’ve spent a lot of time talking with Joe [Hill], and I think, in concert with Joe, we’ll figure out the answer to that question. I mean, it is a cool ending, but again, the show’s diverging from the comics and it becomes something [else]. We want to be sure that the ending works for the TV series and we’re not just forcing ourselves into an ending for endings’ sake. We want the ending to be something that really feels like it’s the right conclusion for our story.”
Averill expanded on that thought, acknowledging the various versions of this adaptation that have been attempted in the past, including the Fox-made pilot that screened at San Diego Comic-Con in 2011, as well as the Hulu pilot from a few years ago.
“We always joke that one day there needs to be a college course where they dissect the three different versions of the Locke and Key pilot, because I think it’s a nice lesson that in an adaptation, there’s not one way to kind of skin a cat, to forgive the grotesque saying,” the showrunner said. “But it really shows that there are different ways to tell the story, and this is just the version that we were most excited to tell, that we loved.”
Connor Jessup and Emilia Jones as Tyler and Kinsey Locke
However, there’s another potential hurdle in the show’s future: Successive seasons of the show will naturally need to take place over a longer period of time than the books do, and in the world of the comics, adults have a much harder time perceiving Keyhouse’s magic. When the show begins, Tyler Locke is 17 and his sister Kinsey is 16. What will happen when they’re 18 or in their 20s? How can the story stay the same if the Locke kids become the Locke adults?
“I think that’s something that hopefully will be explored [in future seasons],” Darby Stanchfield, who plays Nina Locke, told GameSpot.
“These are kids who are about to become adults, and we know in the story that when you become an adult your relationship to this world changes,” Connor Jessup, who plays Tyler, agreed. “I’m really curious to explore that.”
There’s one potential solution: In the comics, adults like Nina have an easier time perceiving the keys’ magic when intoxicated. Will the whole family need to be constantly drunk the longer the story goes?
Darby Stanchfield as Nina Locke
“Gin for everybody!” Stanchfield laughed.
“Yes, I think’s that’s the message we’re trying to say,” Jessup joked.
Locke and Key hits Netflix February 7.
Disclosure: ViacomCBS is GameSpot’s parent company.
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Garou: Mark of the Wolves, the 1999 SNK classic fighter, launched on PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and PC in 2016 with terrible netcode that made playing the game against opponents online difficult. Now, in 2020, Garou has received a significant update, featuring new netcode.
The news was announced on Twitter by SNK’s community manager, who explained that the game will now feature netcode from Code Mystics, which specializes in netcode and emulation.
Code Mystics uses “rollback” netcode, instead of input delay, to account for the slight lag in online play. Rollback is a method that means your actions occur on screen the instant you input the controls, rather than having any lag; it can mean that your opponents look a little jerkier, but it gives you a greater sense of direct control. Here’s a primer video on the distinction between these methods.
Steam and GOG users can still use the older method of online play by entering the beta code “dotemuversion” if they so desire. On PS4 and PS Vita, an update has changed the netcode permanently.
This news unfortunately does not extend to the Nintendo Switch version of the game, which is not playable online.
SNK’s most recent new fighting game was 2019’s Samurai Shodown.
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Wasteland Remastered is coming to PC and Xbox One next month. The 1987 original is getting a visual overhaul while retaining much of the original game’s aesthetic, and you’ll be able to check it out on February 25, 2020.
The game is coming to PC via Steam, the Windows Store, and GOG, and it’s also coming to Xbox One. Better yet, it’ll be included with Xbox Game Pass, so if you’re a subscriber you’ll be able to check it out at no additional cost.
You’ve been asking, and now we can share… Wasteland Remastered drops in just one more month—February 25 for Windows (Windows Store, Steam, GOG) and Xbox One (with Xbox Game Pass)! pic.twitter.com/qSCqITMRcq
A 2019 tweet from inXile Entertainment head Brian Fargo–who was the director of the original Wasteland–shows how the new version compares to the older one.
The Wasteland 1 remaster is still coming later this year for Windows but a little surprise is that we are also going to bring it to Xbox! In progress screen below: pic.twitter.com/lulkzpOzqW
Wasteland Remastered is not the only Wasteland game coming in 2020. Wasteland 3 releases on May 19, 2020, and is looking like a huge upgrade from the already-very-good Wasteland 2. Brian Fargo is looking to retire after the game’s release.
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As suspected, actor Daniel Craig is finished playing James Bond. The actor confirmed in an interview published this week that he’s moving on from the British super-spy after No Time To Die.
“This is going to be my last James Bond adventure,” Craig told Entertainment Weekly.
This is re-confirmation from Craig that he’s finished playing 007, as he told Stephen Colbert in November 2019 that he’s moving on from the role after No Time To Die.
No Time To Die will be Craig’s fifth outing as James Bond. His first appearance as the character was in 2006’s Casino Royale, and he reprised the role in Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre.
In 2015, Craig said he wasn’t very keen on coming back to play James Bond again, but he was eventually lured back to the role. He told Variety that 007 movie producer Barbara Broccoli wouldn’t take no for an answer. “It’s not in her wheelhouse,” Craig said. “I had a nice long break [after Spectre], which I really needed. And then she was just persistent and came to me with some ideas, which we started formulating, and I got excited again.”
As for Craig’s forthcoming departure from the James Bond series, Broccoli said she’s in “total denial.”
The James Bond series will undoubtedly live on after No Time To Die, but who will play 007 in the future? That remains unknown, but Broccoli said the character will always be played by a man, at least while she’s controlling the series.
For No Time To Die, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, and Léa Seydoux (who also appears in Death Stranding) all return to the roles of M, Q, Miss Moneypenny, and Madeleine Swann respectively. The new cast members include Rami Malek as the villain, as well as Billy Magnussen and Ana de Armas.
Dishonored has not had a new video game since Dishonored: Death of the Outsider in 2017, but tabletop fans will soon have another way to delve into the rich world of the series. Modiphius Entertainment has announced a Dishonored tabletop RPG is currently in the works, and will release in summer 2020.
The game will use a streamlined version of the 2d20 system that the company designed for its Star Trek Adventures and Conan games, and is being designed in collaboration with Dishonored director Harvey Smith. The game has brought on a “diverse selection of writers and artists,” many of whom were involved in the creation of the games too. It will involve exploring the Empire of the Isle.
The rules system will be developed by Nathan Dowdell (Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of) and is aiming to be fast-paced, with a new “Momentum System” being designed to incorporate the series’ Chaos mechanics and Void powers.
The game will come in a deluxe, 300 page hardcover book, and there will be custom dice and cards available too. The book is said to feature:
An introduction to the Empire of the Isles, and an in-depth look at its history, its people and the struggles they face.
A step-by-step guide to play the role of the Protagonists: from grim assassins and rugged criminals, to intrepid explorers and stoic crown loyalists.
A host of antagonists and a myriad different storyhooks to inspire you, from the harsh, cold lands of Tyvia to sunny Karnaca.
Insight on the strange nature of the Void, as well as rules to harness the its reality-bending powers.
“The Oil Trail”, a mini-campaign in four acts that serves as a perfect introduction to the City of Dunwall.
A streamlined narrative edition of the Modiphius 2d20 game system.
Modiphius has also worked with Bethesda on The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms and Fallout: Wasteland Warfare. They also created the tabletop version of Mutant: Year Zero.
Aside from this tabletop series, the Dishonored series was last said to be “resting for now” in August 2018, so it might be a while before we see another video game in this universe.
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The 9th annual New York Videogame Awards were held this week in Manhattan, and The Outer Worlds was the night’s big winner. The Obsidian-developed RPG took home the overall Game of the Year award.
Other titles that received Game of the Year nominations included Outer Wilds, Luigi’s Mansion 3, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Resident Evil 2, Death Stranding, Telling Lies, and Disco Elysium.
Obsidian has more in store for The Outer Worlds, as the studio is planning to release story DLC for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC game later in 2020. The game is available on Xbox Game Pass, so subscribers can pick up the game at no extra cost.
Other titles that won big at the New York Videogame Awards were Disco Elysium (Best Indie Game and Best Writing) and Sayonara Wild Hearts (Best Mobile Game and Best Music). You can see the full list of categories and winners below.
Former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime was honored with the Andrew Yoon Legend Award, and you can watch his acceptance speech in the video above.
2020 New York Videogame Awards
Big Apple Award for Best Game of the Year:
The Outer Worlds
Andrew Yoon Legend Award:
Reggie Fils-Aimé
Statue of Liberty Award for Best World:
Outer Wilds
Herman Melville Award for Best Writing:
Disco Elysium
Coney Island Dreamland Award for Best AR/VR Game:
Minecraft Earth
Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game:
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Central Park Children’s Zoo Award for Best Kids Game:
Luigi’s Mansion 3
A-Train Award for Best Mobile Game:
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Off Broadway Award for Best Indie Game:
Disco Elysium
Freedom Tower Award for Best Remake:
Resident Evil 2
Great White Way Award for Best Acting in a Game:
Courtney Hope as Jesse in Control
Captain Award for Best Rookie Esports Team:
FPX (League of Legends)
Joltin’ Joe Award: Best Esports Player of the Year:
The world’s most iconic groundnut, Mr. Peanut, has died. Planters, the company that created the cane-wielding, top hat-wearing legume, confirmed his death on social media. He was 104.
Mr. Peanut died after the car he was driving–the Nutmobile–attempted to swerve to avoid an armadillo in the road. The snack pitchman was driving with Wesley Snipes and Matt Walsh on the fateful day. The three found themselves dangling on a tree. Their combined weight was too great, and Mr. Peanut sacrificed himself to save his friends.
This is all recounted in a Super Bowl 54 advertisement that Planters released early–check it out below.
It seems unlikely that this is the end of the story–people are theorizing that Mr. Peanut somehow survived the fall and the ensuing explosion. Others believe Planters might be re-branding, with a new mascot to be announced during the Super Bowl.
What we do know is that Planters is paying big money for this ad campaign. Super Bowl broadcaster Fox is charging $5.6 million for 30 seconds of airtime during the Super Bowl. The game takes place on Sunday, February 3, and sees the The Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers do battle at the Hard Hock Stadium in Miami, Florida.
The Mr. Peanut mascot was created by 14-year-old Antonio Gentile in 1916 as part of a contest that Planters put on to create mascot for the up-and-coming peanut company.
Tributes for Mr. Peanut poured in from other popular food and entertainment brands following the announcement of his death.
Mr. Peanut, you’re gone too soon. You rode the hot dog highways with us in the Nutmobile and were always there when we needed some nutty advice. You died as you lived, helping friends when they needed you most. Forever in our hearts ❤️ #RIPeanuthttps://t.co/DtpZaWk8r6
Respawn has announced that a special edition Devstream for Apex Legends will be held Thursday, January 23 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. The livestream promises to provide the first official look at Season 4.
During the stream, Respawn will also be holding an early celebration for the one year anniversary of the reveal and launch of Apex Legends. The anniversary is officially February 4, which we believe might be the start date of Season 4. The current season of Apex Legends, Season 3: Meltdown, is scheduled to end February 3.
Cheers to one year! 🎉 Tune in tomorrow at 10am PST for a special edition Devstream where we celebrate year one of Apex as well as get our first look at Season 4. pic.twitter.com/6acmxFhHem
Apex Legends is currently in the midst of its latest limited-time event, Grand Soirée Arcade. The event is a 14-day in-game celebration for Apex Legends, hosting a rotating collection of seven limited-time modes throughout its runtime. Grand Soirée Arcade adds several new in-game challenges and weapon and character skins (both rare and legendary). The event concludes on January 28.
The most surprising change in the update is the removal of extended energy mags, a change that Respawn clarified it hadn’t intended to push live so soon as it actually addresses something that’s being added to Apex Legends in Season 4. Though this cryptic tease does offer some credence to the rumors that another Titanfall 2 weapon will soon be added to Apex Legends, Respawn has not yet clarified what exact change is happening in Season 4 to warrant the removal of extended energy mags. Perhaps we’ll find out tomorrow.
