January 2024

Hogwarts Legacy ends 2023 as the UK’s biggest physical video game.

It means EA Sports FC 24 was unable to catch Warner Bros' Harry Potter spin-off. Hogwarts Legacy launched in February on PS5, PC and Xbox Series S and X, while EA’s football title landed in September.

It is the first time in a decade that EA’s football game, previously operating under the FIFA licence, isn’t the UK’s top boxed game. The last time this happened was in 2013 when Grand Theft Auto 5 took the top spot.

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Frogwares has announced that it is the sole publisher of The Sinking City.

The developer of the 2019 eldritch horror will be publishing the title on all platforms.

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Last week, a government official was removed from one of China's regulatory agencies following a dip in gaming stocks in response to new game proposals.

As reported by Reuters, per sources familiar with the matter, the withdrawn individual was head of the publishing unit of the Communist Party’s Publicity Department.

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It can be difficult keeping track of the various comings and goings in the games industry, which is why we compile them in semi-regular round-ups.

If you have new appointments or transitions in your company that belong here, please send the names of the appointees, new role and company, and prior role and company to newhires@gamesindustry.biz.

Emily Gera has been appointed to the role of senior writer at Baldur's Gate 3 maker, Larain Studios.

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Sony has been fined €13.5 million by French antitrust regulator Autorité de la Concurrence, which has accused the company of "abusing its dominant position in the market" by restricting third-party PlayStation 4 controllers.

Filed by the regulator last month following a referral from French controller manufacturer Subsonic, its investigation found that Sony put counterfeiting measures in place in November 2015 that caused third-party controllers to regularly disconnect from the console during system updates.

The competition regulator also found that third-party manufacturers faced difficulty in joining its licensing program, which it alleged that Sony "refused to communicate" terms and criteria to manufacturers who'd requested it.

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Sega Europe has announced some big changes to its leadership structure, including the return of former president Jurgen Post.

Post rejoins as COO of West Studios and regional managing director as of today. He previously served as president and COO for Sega Europe from 2012 to 2017, during what the publisher described as a "period of exponential growth."

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Rebellion CEO Jason Kingsley and CTO Chris Kingsley have been made 'Commanders of the Order of the British Empire' in the King's New Year's Honours List.

The co-founders of the UK game developer had already received OBEs (Officers of the Order of the British Empire) in 2019 (for Chris) and 2012 (for Jason).

They've both received CBEs for services to the creative industries.

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Square Enix will be actively pushing into the generative AI field, exploring how it can be used in the company's internal games development.

The plans emerge from the Japanese publisher's annual New Year's Letter from its company president – this time penned by Takashi Kiryu, who took over from Yosuke Matsuda after the latter stepped down at the end of his ten-year tenure.

Kiryu observed that, while the potential for artificial intelligence has been debated for a few years, the rise of ChatGPT last year "made it apparent that the applicability of generative AI was by no means limited to text."

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Jukai Studio announced its closure over the holidays, despite launching its horror survival title Stray Souls last October.

In a statement shared to social media on December 22, the developer cited "many reasons" for its decision to shut down, including the closure of its publisher Versus Evil, cyberbullying, poor reception to Stray Souls, and bad sales.

"We did everything in our power to bring the project to completion in the best possible form, but throughout the entire duration we, our publisher staff, other publisher dev teams and our close ones were constantly attacked by a cyber persecutor, and some of you, as our community, were also tormented with unwanted messages and emails," the developer said.

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Crunchyroll will start airing episodes of Chibi Maruko-chan from January 14, 2024. It’ll be available in the original Japanese dub with English subtitles. [Thanks, Manga Mogura RE!]

You can check out Crunchyroll’s trailer for Chibi Maruko-chan here:

Chibi Maruko-chan started serialization in 1986, with the manga ending in 2022. A show based on the premise originally ran between 1990 and 1992. The current one started in 1995. It, like Sazae-san and Doraemon, is a widely popular and cultural show in Japan, as well as some countries of East Asia. 

CD Projekt Red, the developer behind the prolific Cyberpunk 2077 and Witcher video games, is not interested in being acquired.

Speaking with Polish outlet Parkiet (and shared by IGN), chief strategy officer of parent company CD Projekt S.A. Adam Kiciński said the company is fine as it is, and hopes it will continue to grow independently.

"We are not interested in integrating ourselves into any larger entity," Kiciński told the publication. "Throughout our entire lives we have worked towards the position we currently hold. We believe that in a few years, we will be even bigger and stronger." The exec said the company has "ambitious plans" for the future, but it values its independence. "Independence is really appealing, it's a kind of freedom," he said.

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I realise we're all struggling through the dank depths of January but it's never too early in the year to talk about sex, baby. Twitch have updated their attire policies to stop an outbreak of "implied nudity" among thirstier streamers, who have taken to filming themselves nude with black censor bars, or positioning the camera to suggest that they're fully or partially naked outside the frame.

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When I was 13 years old, I struggled to beat Cynthia, the Pokémon League champion in Pokémon Platinum. U.S.-based 13-year-old Willis Gibson just beat an unbeatable Tetris game that players have been attempting to complete since its release on the NES in 1989. 

On January 1, Gibson reached level 157 of Tetris, a feat previously thought impossible. New techniques, like the "hypertapping" one discovered in 2010 by Thor Aackerlund (thanks, BBC), and "rolling," discovered in 2021 according to IGN, allowed players to reach never before seen levels. Before that, getting past the thirties was all but impossible and now, Gibson has made it to level 157. As you can see in the video below, upon reaching that level, Tetris serves Gibson a kill screen – meaning it has crashed – ending his impossible run. 

It took Gibson, who goes by Blue Scuti on YouTube, 38 minutes to reach this new kill screen. BBC reports that Gibson has been playing Tetris for about two years, or since he was 11. Alongside his achievement of reaching level 157, Gibson also obtained the new highest score for Tetris. 

They said it couldn't be done, but to the nay-sayers let me tell you this - Tetris has finally been "beaten".

In a world first, 13-year-old Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson - who is a competitive Tetris player - has managed to get the decades old falling block game to reveal its "kill screen". While not your traditional end of game, with credits or even game over message, this screen essentially sees Tetris crash. This is beating Tetris, a once thought impossible feat.

The delight shown by the young player, who was born over two decades after the game actually released, as the screen freezes is palpable. "Oh my god," Gibson repeats. "I'm going to pass out, I can't feel my fingers."

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Hello! A new year, a new slate of games to look forward to. Shall we do this all over again? Why not!

In amongst the remakes and sequels, there's plenty of genuinely new stuff to look forward to in 2024. Naiad promises to take us all wild swimming, for starters, and then Animal Well promises to... actually, we're not entirely sure, but we're up for it anyway.

There's range, oddness, and some pleasant returning faces, then. And the best thing, as ever, is all the games we don't even know about yet. We hope you have a wonderful 2024, whatever you play, and whatever you get up to.

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Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is shutting down in April, after nearly 10 years of A-list fabulousness.

The mobile sensation, which was released back in June 2014 by Kardashian and Glu Mobile, will no longer offer users any in-app purchases. It will be removed from the various app stores as well.

Those who already have Kim Kardashian: Hollywood installed can continue to play the game and use up their K-Stars (its in-game virtual currency) up until 8th April. After then, the "game will become inaccessible for all players".

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Well, well, well. Of all the detectives in all the world, she came to me. She was a dame with hair red as communion wine spilled by a bishop looking at a nun's cleava- oh what, wait, she's how old? Christ, Philip, get your head out of the gutter for once, this is a family website. I was previously a snob about the Nancy Drew point and click puzzle games, and then came to regret it when a fan of them (very nicely) emailed me explaining they're actually really good. We're going to find out for ourselves by playing them. There are north of 30 in total, and I will update the rankings at the end of each article.

The first is 1998's Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill, in which Nancy solves the murder of a Floridian highschooler named Jake Roberts, and there's a lot to love about it right away. There's a restrained cast, three locations in total, and the school sports team is called the Fighting Manatees. Thus the icon for the game is a lil' cartoon manatee - and to be absolutely accurate, this is the remastered version of the game from 2010, not the original 90s version. I'm as disappointed as you.

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For the first time since 2015, Disney wasn’t at the top of 2023’s global box office. And while there are a few different factors and reasons for the Mickey Mouse empire slipping from first to second, a significant reason for the shift is because of the super-successful Super Mario animated film.

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As part of the Famitsu 2024 New Year Greetings column sharing messages from major members of the video game industry, Sony Head of PlayStation Indies Shuhei Yoshida cited five indie games people should pay attention to. He pointed to Baby Steps, Pacific Drive, The Plucky Squire, SCHiM, and Ultros. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

All five of the titles will appear on PlayStation platforms, with SCHiM being the only one not coming to the PlayStation 5. Also, both Baby Steps and The Plucky Squire are Devolver Digital games. Baby Stepsis a walking simulator with Bennett Foddy as one of its developers, in which someone must control both of a character’s legs to move. It is heading to the PS5 and PC. It has a 2024 release window.

The Plucky Squireinvolves traveling from 2D to 3D across different objects to go through an adventure as a squire. Former Pokemon art director James Turner is working on that. That will be on the PS5, Switch, Xbox Series X, and PC in 2024.

A collection of Monty Mole games from the 1980s will be making their Nintendo Switch debut on Monday, 8th January (well, here in the UK, at least - they are already available in the US).

The Monty Mole Collection comprises five games, covering the original Monty Mole saga. This includes the main trilogy of games: Wanted! Monty Mole, Monty on the Run, and Auf Wiedersehen Monty.

In addition, there are two bonus games to enjoy: Moley Christmas (which was originally given away with a magazine. As the name suggests, it will provide players with a "seasonal adventure") and Sam Stoat: Safebreaker. This is the "solo adventure of Sam Stoat, a supporting character from the main Monty Mole games".

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It's a new year, and there is a new Humble Choice bundle to ring in 2024.

Every month, the team at Humble selects a collection of PC games for its members to keep forever. In addition, members get 20 percent off the vast collection of games in the Humble Store, plus there's a charity donation. It's a nice little deal all round, really.

This month, the bundle building team has grouped together another eight games for its subscribers to enjoy. These are: Marvel's Midnight Suns, Two Point Campus, Aragami 2, OTXO, The Red Lantern, Roguebook, Hell Pie and Twin Mirror.

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Russian Roulette is just an edgy version of Snakes & Ladders. It's pure luck gussied up with high stakes and the cool aesthetic of spinning a six-shooter. A grizzled mafioso whose cheeks glitter with fragments of other people's teeth has as much chance of winning Russian Roulette as a sleepy five-year-old in SpongeBob pyjamas. But take Russian Roulette, swap the revolver for a pump-action shotgun, mix up live and dud rounds, and add Inscryption-esque items which let you change the rules, and now you have a more skillful game. That's Buckshot Roulette, the latest from Mike Klubnika, the dev behind those excellent horror games about operating machinery. Great weird machines here too.

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Happy New Year, folks! Have you recovered from the all the 100+ hour RPGs that came out last year? Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that everyone seems to be taking a bit of a breather in 2024, because (at time of writing at least) the official "big'uns" calendar is looking remarkably slim at the moment. There are still some heavy-hitters coming our way this year, such as , Star Wars Outlaws and Path Of Exile 2, but 2024 looks like another year where it will be the smaller, independent games that shine the brightest. They certainly make up the bulk of our most anticipated games list for 2024, which the RPS Treehouse has been feverishly putting together over the last few days. The bad news is that there are still loads of great games coming out. So come, join us, and see what's on our personal wishlists for 2024.

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Rockfish have announced that they're updating arcade dogfighter Everspace 2 to run on Unreal Engine 5. The engine rollover will arrive as part of or alongside the game's Incursions update in spring 2024, which includes tweaks and bugfixes as well as extra legendary items and a new game feature of some description. The idea is less to take advantage of UE5's various whizbangs and bellwhistles, like the new Nanite geometry system, than to grease the launch chutes for future Everspace 2 updates and expansions.

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We got our first look at Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Dondoko Island at last year's Xbox Partner showcase. Right as it dropped, I was in New York giving the Animal Crossing-esque minigame a go myself, albeit for a quickfire half hour of bashing rubbish bags with a baseball bat and plonking a urinal on the dirt to satisfy a tutorial. Still, in that brief time I've come away thinking I could lose much of my life to the promise of converting a polluted island into an idyll with the power of abs and friendship. There is the strong possibility of a grind. But hey, it's optional!

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Having spent some time in Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth's Hawaii, I've come to realise that it's a wonderful place, home to trams that'll let you see the sights and soak in the warm breeze. But moreso than that, it's home to the previous game's Pokémon parody, Sujimon, which has now kicked into overdrive. From what I can tell, Infinite Wealth is as much a Pokémon trainers paradise as it is a game about the Japanese criminal underworld. I'm sold.

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Here’s something unironically wonderful. Via a post by Larian Studios writer Rachel Quirke, we’ve just learned of a deeply moving tribute to a player’s father that appears in the studios’ award-winning RPG Baldur’s Gate 3. In October 2020, a member of the Larian forums posted to thank the developer for releasing the…

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Normally, when you do something amazing like winning a tournament or beating an impossible game, you celebrate and get congratulated for your accomplishment. That was definitely true for 13-year-old Tetris master Willis “Blue Scuti” Gibson, who became the first known human to “beat” the classic NES game over the…

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The successor to the Nintendo Switch could arrive as soon as next year, cost $400, and be more of an “iterative” upgrade “rather than a revolution.” That’s according to the CEO of a Tokyo-based video game consultancy firm, who recently spoke with GamesIndustry.biz.

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Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the first couple of months of the year were a dead zone for new game releases. Typically, publishers rushed to get their shiny new titles out in time for the holiday gift rush. But then some clever genius realized that people buy games all year round. 2023 kicked off with a…

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Korean game publisher Nexon is being fined 11.6 billion won, or approximately $8.85 million, for manipulating the drop rates of randomized items and loot boxes in games without informing players. This practice has apparently been affecting games like MapleStory and Bubble Fighter since 2010. [Thanks, @Citrussalt!]

According to the Korean Fair Trade Commission, Nexon had been changing the item drop rates for loot boxes and other gacha mechanics in its games, including reducing some items to a 0% chance of appearing, without disclosing these changes to players. Nexon also apparantly released a statement claiming no changes had been made, aiming to "lure customers by giving them false information". 28% of MapleStory's 560 billion won in sales came from in-game purchases in 2020.

Nexon itself has accepted the decision and apologised to it's customers, but has said it may seek to challenge the decision claiming the company was not required to reveal probability information at the time.

You can find the Korean Fair Trade Commission's official statement below, or read an English summary via the Korea Times here.

Square Enix has been taking to social media to celebrate the new year with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, with the latest images involving a kadomatsu display with Cait Sith and Cactaurs. It also features knitted ornamental mochi.

Here is the official display. Cait Sith is in the back, and it appears to be the same plush toy Square Enix was selling. The two Cactaur are alongside it and dressed up to look like the kadomatsu. The plush mochi is in front.

IGN shared a big chunk of footage from Dragon's Dogma 2, showcasing gameplay from 4 of the game's vocations, or classes. These include the shield-wielding Fighter and the nimble Thief, as well as advanced vocations like the greatsword-toting Warrior and powerful Sorceror. [Thanks, IGN!]

Fans of the original will be pleased to see the return of many characteristic elements of the first Dragon's Dogma. Despite the shiny new graphics and systems, Pawns still chatter in the same archaic English and Ogres can still dropkick you from from over a screen away, just as they did in the original.

There are a number of interesting new things to note, however, including a moment near the beginning where a Fighter perfectly times a block against a goblin attacking with a lit torch, which appears to imbue his weapons with fire without needing support from an allied mage. If that is indeed what happens (and he didn't just get a buff from an ally in the bushes) then it could be an interesting sign of potential new interactions between enemies and players.

Hololive Vtuber Sakamata Chloe took to social media to announce she will be taking a break. The performer noted she’d caught COVID-19 and will be taking time to recover.

Here is Chloe’s official announcement. She reported that when she went to the doctor, her fever was at 39.3°C. That’s almost 103°F. It was then revealed that she had caught COVID-19. She also reported that she will be taking time to recover and is taking medicine.

Prior to the announcement on January 4, 2024, she had previously noted she wasn’t feeling well. On January 3, 2024, she noted her fever had hit 37.8°C (~100°F). 

So, what did you get up to on the holiday break? I was intending to spend a bit of time catching up on my horribly late slate of projects, but I ended up going down yet another rabbit hole - and this one's quite intriguing. Cyberpunk 2077 on PC ships with a range of internal benchmarks and streaming tests, only one of which users actually get to see. However, several others are available and thanks to a quirk of CD Projekt RED's cross-platform save system, it's possible to port those benchmark sequences across to consoles. I wasn't exactly optimistic that they would work - but they do. The question is, are they in any way useful?

CDPR's 'official' benchmark and a range of others are accessible in the PC version of the game and by my count, four of them auto-save during their duration, or else allow you to make a manual save as they start. This makes them exceptionally easy to access on the PC game (you load them like any other save game) but it also means that they transfer across once you log into CDPR's online network.

Under this system, the last manual save, quick save and auto save move from system to system, and that's how I managed to 'port' across PC's benchmark sequences across to consoles. Unfortunately, saving progress isn't possible in the official benchmark available from the main menu, but it's arguably less interesting than the others anyway.

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Nintendo hacker Gary Bowser has denied being involved in a new flash cart project claimed to allow Switch users to play back-ups of their owned games.

The MIG-Switch flash cart, officially, is a "third party back-up and development device for the Nintendo Switch" according to the device website, that's not endorsed nor licenced by Nintendo of Japan. While the idea behind the device is players can back up games they own legally, it also opens the door for piracy and for people to potentially play roms of games they do not own.

However, Bowser - who was sentenced to 40 months in prison for the distribution and sale of piracy-enabling devices back in 2022 - said he was "not involved" in any aspect of the MIG-Switch. Rather, the hacker reportedly said he had been the "subject of DNS poisoning attack on [his] nameservers" (thanks, VGC).

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Amazon Prime Gaming is offering four free titles throughout the month of January, including Atari Mania and Endling - Extinction is Forever.

The first of these titles is available from today, 4th January, with the rest then released periodically throughout the month.

From today, Prime subscribers will be able to get their hands on the BAFTA award-winning and "eco-conscious adventure" Endling - Extinction is Forever. In this game, players take on the role of a mother fox, as she tries to make her way in the world with her cubs. She is the last mother fox on Earth (pictured in header image above).

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Korean publisher Nexon have been fined 11.6 billion won - around $8.9 million - for secretly altering the drop rates of coveted items in free-to-play MMO gacha game MapleStory. The fine, issued by the Korea Fair Trade Commission, is the largest penalty ever doled out for violation of South Korea's Act on Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce.

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I have been bouncing off Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, partly because the new protagonist design leaves me cold, and partly because it being a 2D affair has me yearning for something closer to the 1989 Apple II original, with its finicky platforming and sword-fighting. Katharine says it's decent, however, and the latest trailers are intriguing. One is an overview of the new metroidvania's locations, of which you can read much more in Katharine's last preview. The other is a quick dive into the game's approach to accessibility, which appears to be a lot more holistic than you'll find in many games.

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As part of the Famitsu 2024 New Year Greetings column talking to important members of the game industry, head of Ys Net Yu Suzuki said that stories like Spy x Family or The Apothecary Diaries could be good for making games. The developer also talked about his goals for the coming year. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Yu Suzuki didn’t specify or give any details on how stories like Spy x Family could help in making new games. He only suggested they could have potential.

The developer’s keyphrase for 2024 is “create the type of games you want to play yourself.” The developer’s aspirations for the new year consist of forming a project with scriptwriters and musicians from different industries.

In 2023, Suzuki and YS Net released the previously Apple Arcade exclusive rail shooter Air Twister on home consoles and PC. Air Twister is one example of Suzuki collaborating with artists from outside the game industry, as renowned Dutch composer and multi-instrumentalist Valensia created the soundtrack of the game.