Tales of Kenzera: ZAU developer Surgent Studios has announced that its next game, Dead Take, will star Neil Newbon and Ben Starr. The horror game, which is set to be released later this year onSteam, will combine gameplay with live-action video. “Set in a luxurious yet secluded Hollywood Hills mansion, Dead Take casts players as an actor searching for his friend gone missing after a lavish Hollywood party,” reads a description for the game....

Players who feel the ‘HD Rumble’ feature on Nintendo Switch is too noisy will be happy to hear that, according to Nintendo, Switch 2 will be quieter. When used at its highest intensity, the rumble in the Switch Joy-Cons can sometimes get quite loud, particularly in some action games where developers have chosen to use full-force rumble when landing attacks. However, a small note on one ofNintendo‘sSwitch 2pages appears to suggest that this issue will be lessened with the new console....

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says not only does he think AI won’t lead to job losses, he believes it could lead to increased employment. In an interview withGamesIndustry.biz, Zelnick was asked what role AI plays inTake-Two‘s strategy, and whether there are any guardrails the industry needs to implement to protect itself. Zelnick replied by saying he feels AI is just another tool, that he’s certain it won’t lead to redundancies and that it will help productivity and profitability....

Discussions are reportedly continuing between Tencent and Ubisoft over a potential deal to take the company private. In October,Bloombergsources claimed that the Chinese conglomerate – which already owns around 10% ofUbisoft– and Guillemot Brothers Ltdhad been speaking with advisers to explore ways to stabilize Ubisoft, following a year in which its market value has more than halved. Those discussions are said to have included the possibility of the pair teaming up to take Ubisoft private, although talks were said to be at an early stage....

It’s been an exceptionally busy year for new video game releases, so we’ll forgive you if an ever-growing gaming backlog means you still haven’t found the time to play everything you had on your list this year. That said, we wouldn’t want you to miss out on some of the amazing video game soundtracks that have been released. Last year, we asked video game composers toshare their favourite soundtracks of 2022, and with a couple of words on what makes the music in the game they’ve chosen so special....

The co-creator of HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation and its lead actors have commented on the potential fate of the character Joel in Season 2. Warning: this article contains spoilers forThe Last of Us Part 2. Season 1 was a largely faithful retelling of the first game in thePlayStationseries, and if the next season follows suit there’s a major twist in store for viewers. In the opening act of The Last of Us Part 2, Joel is brutally murdered by Abby, who is the daughter of the surgeon he killed to save Ellie’s life at the end of Part 1....

The nominations have been announced for the 2025 Grammy awards, including the award for best video game soundtrack. This is the third time the Best Score Soundtrack for Video Games and Other Interactive Media award has been featured in the Grammy Awards, having made its debut at the 2023 ceremony. This year the five nominated games are as follows: The God of War Ragnarök: Valhalla nod marks the third nomination for Bear McCreary, who is the only composer to have been nominated every year since the award was introduced....

Ubisoft has reiterated that its long-in-development pirate adventure Skull & Bones will release during its next fiscal year starting April 2022, and confirmed the game is now “multiplayer first”. Skull & Boneshas been delayed countless times since its announcement nearly five years ago, but it’s now had a rare nine-month stretch since its last delay. Speaking duringUbisoft’s latest earnings call on Thursday, CFO Frédérick Duguet provided an update on the game’s new direction since it wasinternally rebooted in 2020, as peran exclusive VGC reportpublished the same year....

Ubisoft has claimed that the cost of porting its existing games to Stadia “is not that high”. The company is one of the cloud gaming platform’s biggest early supporters,contributing six titles to Stadia’s November launch line-up. The publisher has also confirmed plans to offers its upcoming Uplay+PCsubscription service onStadianext year. Asked about the additional R&D spend required to bring games to Stadia versus traditional consoles during the publisher’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday,UbisoftCEOYves Guillemotsaid it’s “not that high” although he cautioned costs may increase with future titles....

A new report has found that UK consumer spending on video games last year saw a decrease for the first time since 2019. The report, provided by UK video game trade body UKIE, found that the total UK market valuation for 2024 was £7.63 billion ($10.19 billion), down slightly from 2023’s valuation of £7.82 billion ($10.44 billion). According to its detailed breakdown, boxed software was down 34% year-on-year and digitalPC gameswere down 1....

Venture capital funding in video games fell to its lowest in three years last quarter. According to data from PitchBook as reported byBloomberg, venture capital groups invested a total of $700.3 million in video games in the third quarter of 2023, which is the lowest since the second quarter of 2020. The report points out that venture capital groups invested more than $2 billion every quarter for two years, up to the second quarter of 2022 when it hit a peak of $5....

Walmart has ordered its employees to remove all store signage referencing “violent games,” following recent shootings in two of its stores, whichPresident Trump partly blamed on video games. This week, Walmart sent employees a notice titled “Immediate Action: Remove Signing and Displays Referencing Violence,” according to employees onTwitterandRedditand verified byVice. The notice instructs employees to immediately remove or turn off “any signing or displays that contain violent images or aggressive behavior,” including demos of “violent games, specificallyPlayStationorXboxunits....

Raven Software has removed Warzone’s Armored Royale mode in order to help combat an invisibility glitch. The issue, which causes players to appear invisible,first reared its head in December 2020following the introduction of attack helicopters to the game. Players were able to turn invisible by being revived after being downed in the minigun seat of the attack helicopter, leading Raven to temporarily remove the vehicle from the battle royale game....