Hello friends,
Today is August 8th 2024 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 Valve's New Project
🎮 Arena Breakout: Infinite is about to hit Early Access
🎮 Level Infinite Showcase
🎮 WB wants to sell their Games division, allegedly
⚡[NEW Section] Lightning Round!
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
According to Kotaku, it looks like Valve is working on a new Half-Life project that is not a VR game. Keep in mind that the following is just a speculation at this point.
The whole thing started when fans noticed a listing for a Valve game codenamed Project White Sands. The original post and all the mentions are already scrubbed from the web, but Kotaku confirmed that it was legitimate. They even went a little further suggesting that White Sands is the name of the desert in New Mexico, the state where the Half-Life’s Black Mesa facility is located.
It all started yet another long-forgotten frenzy of fans speculating about Half-Life 3, a game that’s been on and off everybody’s mind for more than 15 years now. But Valve hasn’t responded yet to any allegations about the upcoming title.
Personally, when I think about Half-Life 3 I tend to think about one of Aesop's Fables, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. About 10 years ago almost every year (especially around E3, may it rest in peace) we would hear that this year Valve will finally announce it, that they are working on it in secret and that it’s going to be amazing. But the whole thing was busted time and time again. My guess is that even the most dedicated fans are tired of this whole charade and that the only thing that will bring them back would be cold hard facts from Valve actually confirming it. Otherwise, it’s just more of the same 🐺
But let me know what you think. Are you still waiting for Gordon Freeman’s glorious return?
A few months ago I talked quite a bit about a “Tarkov killer” and a new fancy extraction shooter that’s developed by MoreFun studios after it’s been such a success on mobile.
After a round of beta tests, the studio finally announced that the game will hit Early Access on August 13th.
The studio is ready to take it to the next level with more features, weapons and maps. Here’s the official statement of MoreFun’s Enzo Zhang, the producer of the game:
During the Closed Beta Test (CBT) earlier this year for Arena Breakout: Infinite, our team constantly improved the game, addressing bugs and adding new features. From our CBT learnings, we felt the best way to streamline and structure early access development was through our own official website. We feel this is the best and most collaborative development approach as we use this early access period to quickly deliver the most complete 1.0 version of Arena Breakout: Infinite on PC.
But after my experience during the Beta, I’m honestly not very eager to come back. I realize the state of the game and I honestly couldn’t care less about bugs and such. The thing that drove me away the most were the balance (or mostly the absent of one) and matchmaking. The latter still drives me crazy when I’m playing other shooters as for some reason not a single game managed to do it fairly. Meaning that as a new player 9 out of 10 matches you play with cyber athletes that headshot you across the whole map without using a scope. And that is not a great experience. I’ll probably give this one a shot when (and if) it’s released on Steam during Early Access, but I’m very sceptical now about a game that I was waiting so long for…
Level Infinite, a brand owned by Tencent, recently announced the return of its “Into the Infinite” showcase, featuring both Exoborne and Dune Awakening this year.
Dune Awakening has been generating a lot of buzz after its reveal at Summer Game Fest this year, but Exoborne is something that also deserves a bit of attention (and for some reason I completely missed it 😅)
Exoborne is a tactical open-world extraction shooter set in an apocalyptic U.S. transformed by extreme forces of nature. Lay it all on the line as you explore a dynamic open world full of warring factions and hostile players, where you scavenge, craft, and fight to stay alive.
I expect that during this showcase they will dive deeper into the gameplay for both and maybe even finally set up a release or Early Access timeline. And they are both pretty exciting at least based on the trailers. Fingers crossed for 2024 release window 🤞
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According to Insider Gaming and Financial Times, Warner Bros. is looking at the possibility of selling off at least a part (if not everything) of its games division. And this is just a few weeks after Warner Bros. Games acquired MultiVersus developer Player First Games.
It’s all just pure speculation at this point as it isn’t confirmed by WB. But it all comes as a bit of a surprise. Currently, the company owns a bunch of very valuable IPs, such as Harry Potter and Mortal Kombat while also being a publisher for the infamous Suicide Squad game.
I mean, it’s understandable considering how unstable the game market is right now with every other company either laying off their staff or restructuring or both, but still. Suicide Squad was a bit of a disaster, but they have a lot of titles to compensate for that. It’s also not clear if the company wants to pull out of the business completely or just try to sell off assets to save money, so we’ll just have to wait and see once again.
This is a new (test) section of the newsletter that I was planning to introduce for quite some time. It will contain a short summary of a bunch of different news with some links to the source material in case you want to dive deeper into it.
As always, I’m always looking for your opinions, so let me know if you like it or if you enjoy the previous format more!
Let’s go!
🎬 George R.R. Martin says that there are at least 7 GoT spin-offs currently in development
After wrapping up the second season of the House of Dragons, the author said that there are a lot of projects (both announced and not) that they have up their sleeve for the Game of Thrones universe that include:
Aegon the Conqueror (live action)
Ten Thousand Ships (live action)
Unannounced Live Action
The Golden Empire (animated)
Sea Snake (animated)
Unannounced Animated Series 1
Unannounced Animated Series 2
🎬 John Wick TV Series is announced
John Wick: Under The High Table is a new series that’s going to take place after the events of the 4th movie but it won’t feature John Wick. It will however have Keany Reeves in a production capacity. According to reports, it’ll feature the old guard attempting to reclaim the High Table for themselves, while a group of newbies attempt to step in and mould things to their own liking.
🎮 WolfEye Studios is working on a new game that will please Dishonored / Prey fans
Raphael Colantonio, the founder of Arkane Studios and the current President and Creative Director of WolfEye Studios, teased on X some news about their upcoming project:
We’ll reveal a bit more about our next game in a few days… Fans of the previous 1st person games I was involved with (Dishonored and Prey) will be happy.
I did it. I beat Normal, Nightmare and Hell for the first time in my life 🙌
The Hell difficulty is definitely brutal and it took a lot of effort, but I got really lucky during the early Hell grinding as I got all the runes required to complete a really OP build (Martial Arts Assassin) and it’s been a cakewalk ever since I got those dual Mosaic claws. And I also need a new set of eyes now 😅 (look up on YouTube “Mosaic Assassin Gameplay” and you’ll know what I’m talking about)
Other than that, I don’t know if I ever mentioned it before, but I’m going back to learning English as I’ll need to complete a test soon to have a shot at staying in Canada (wish me luck). So I’m going to be both a student and a mentor at the same time 😅
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
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Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
