The games published under Private Division, Take-Two Interactive’s former indie label, are under new management. Bloomberg reports that the former employees of Annapurna Interactive have formed a new, as-yet-unnamed company that will take over Private Division’s games portfolio.

Last year, Take-Two sold off the indie label to a then unnamed buyer that Bloomberg reports is Haveli Investments, a private equity firm based in Texas. Also last year, the staff at Annapurna Interactive, the games arm of the Annapurna Pictures media company, resigned en masse sparking questions about the fate of its own portfolio of games. The resignations came after negotiations to spin off Annapurna Interactive into its own independent company apparently broke down. Annapurna’s former employees have come together with Haveli Investments to form a new company and Bloomberg reports that Private Division’s existing employees will face layoffs but the details are currently unclear.

The new company will oversee Private Division’s existing and in-development titles including the Lord of the Rings-meets-Animal Crossing game Tales of the Shire, due out in March, and Pokémon developer Game Freak’s forthcoming game codenamed Project Bloom.

You can finally make your PS5 gaming set up all black everything. Sony has announced that it will soon release the rest of the PS5 suite of accessories in the midnight black colorway.

Sony’s offering the Dual Sense Edge Controller, the Pulse wireless headphones and earbuds, and the PlayStation Portal in sleek and sexy midnight black to match the PS5 cover and Dual Sense controller it released back in 2021.

Though the announcement wasn’t specifically apart of the CES celebrations, it did neatly coincide with the news that Sony’s giving Helldivers the Sonic and Mario treatment. The company also announced that its Horizon Zero Dawn adaptation is no longer a TV show produced by Netflix but a full-fledged movie that’ll cover Aloy’s exploits in the first game, and that the second season of The Last of Us is coming to HBO in April.

PlayStation’s website has the details on pricing for the electronics with pre-orders starting on January 16th.

If you’d rather wait, the accessories will hit retailers on February 20th.

With the Marvel Rivals train firmly on its way, it’s time to start the game’s first official season. In a short trailer, Marvel Rivals developer Net Ease has announced that season 1 begins later this week on January 10th.

According to the trailer, season 1 features the arrival of Dracula who plunges New York City into eternal night by *checks notes* teaming up with Dr. Doom to tamper with the moon’s orbit. (Hey, it’s a comic book game, weird nonsensical stuff is supposed to happen.) Apparently Dracula has imprisoned Dr. Strange in a pocket dimension and has also unleashed a horde of vampires because messing with the moon just wasn’t enough.

To fight against this nefarious plot, Rivals will add four new characters to the game’s roster — The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, Mr. Fantastic, and The Thing — the hero collective known as The Fantastic Four. Throughout the week leading up to season’s launch, players will be get a first look at the new heroes and their abilities starting January 7th. The addition also has a bit of synergy with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe as The Fantastic Four movie starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby releases in July of this year.

Marvel Rivals appears to be scratching the hero shooter itch reminiscent of the early days of the original Overwatch. Developer Net Ease announced that the game has surpassed 20 million players shortly after the free-to-play game’s launch in early December.

PlayStation had a rocky 2024 but still put out some great games.

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After years of of chasing live-service and open-world blockbusters, games like Astro Bot and Balatro showed that old formats could be a solution to modern industry problems.

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Here’s what to watch over the holidays in case all those live sports broadcasts don’t work out.

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Metaphor: ReFantanzio is one of 2024’s best games racking up a stack of Game Awards including best RPG, best art direction, and best narrative. But one category in which Metaphor particularly stood out was its music. The soundtrack, produced by Shoji Meguro – the long-time music director of the Persona series, is one of the outstanding achievements in video game music this year, particularly its battle theme which became a viral hit. In an interview with The Verge, Meguro talked about his work on the Metaphor soundtrack including what went into what is perhaps the coolest piece of video game battle music ever made.

Meguro, known for his work producing the pop-y, jazzy vibes of the Persona soundtracks, acknowledged that Metaphor’s heavy orchestral / choral sound is not something Persona fans would expect from him and definitely outside his own wheelhouse. He said in order to effectively change gears from Persona to Metaphor, he had to relearn classical music theory.

“But that’s what makes creating this score so exciting,” he said. “When I was first told about Metaphor: ReFantazio, I was told it would be an epic, high-fantasy RPG. And immediately I heard the sound of great...

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Variety is reporting that Paramount Pictures is planning to extend the Sonic The Hedgehog trilogy by yet another movie. Sonic The Hedgehog 4 has been greenlit with a target release window of spring 2027.

The news comes mere hours before Sonic The Hedgehog 3 releases in theaters on Friday December 19th. The movie once again stars Ben Schwartz as Sonic, Colleen O’Shaughnessey and Idris Elba as his friends Tails and Knuckles, with Jim Carey returning as their nemesis Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Sonic 3 will also feature the arrival of Keanu Reeves playing Sonic’s on-again off-again enemy-turned-friend Shadow The Hedgehog.

With Sonic 3 anticipating tidy profits as North America prepares for the Christmas / New Year’s moviegoing season, developing a fourth movie makes sense. There are several rogue characters from the Sonic universe aiming for their silver screen debut. (See what I did there?) Neither Variety nor Paramount Pictures have confirmed any plot details or who might get their Sonic movie debut. We’ll probably get a hint though, in the post-credits for Sonic 3.

Sony has announced that it has increased its holdings in Japanese media giant and FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa Corporation. Sony acquired the shares for 50 billion yen or roughly $300 million, bringing its total ownership to 10 percent and making it the Kadokawa’s largest shareholder.

The news comes after earlier rumors that Sony was considering acquiring the company outright. Kadokawa confirmed that Sony had expressed interest in acquiring shares, but that, at the time, no decision had been made. An acquisition would have brought Kadokawa’s considerable holdings in Japanese movie, television, publishing, and video game production — which includes the Elden Ring developer and Danganronpa studio Spike Chunsoft — under Sony’s control.

Getting its hands on more IP seems to be the name of Sony’s game with this announcement. According to the press release, Sony and Kadokawa will, “discuss specific initiatives for collaboration” regarding adaptation, development, and production of Kadokawa IP. Or to put it more simply, there’s now a not-small chance that an Elden Ring live-action movie might be on the way.

The ever-dwindling field of games media has a new player: Walmart. Restart is new website run by Moonrock — a marketing company specializing in bringing brands to video games — and sponsored by the largest retailer in the United States.

A new games site sponsored by Walmart doesn’t seem inherently bad, especially as the games media landscape continues to shrink. Publications are shutting down, ad revenues are drying up, and existing sites now operate with fewer and fewer employees. Earlier this year, Ziff Davis, IGN’s parent company, acquired a handful of media sites including Eurogamer; Rock, Paper, Shotgun; and VG247. In the time since, there have been staff departures and layoffs including buyouts offered to employees earlier this month. According to a report in Aftermath, this latest round of buyouts has apparently left GamesIndustry.biz, a site that’s been around for over 20 years, with only one full-time employee.

Restart’s business model isn’t wholly unique. Before it was unceremoniously shut down earlier this year, Game Informer magazine was owned and operated by GameStop, and for decades Nintendo ran its own magazine. Other websites like IGN, Polygon, and The Verge also run sponsored content and include affiliate links in articles. To survive in the current digital media landscape, the support of deep-pocketed individuals or corporations is all but required. In this regard, Restart is just like any other publication.

According to its editorial mission, “Restart is sponsored by Walmart, but we operate as an independent site.” The mission statement explains that while its articles will feature affiliate links to Walmart products, the site itself will receive no portion of the sale. “We hope you can see this gives us zero incentive to provide biased review scores or other information about a game.”

But Restart is also entering a media landscape where the wall between corporate interests and editorial independence has become perilously thin, and with a few rare exceptions, games media has slowly shifted away from providing readers thoughtful discussion and critique to providing a product that can be monetized to hell and back. That driving ethos is clearly outlined in a post by Moonrock on its Substack. “Restart.run serves as a dynamic hub where gaming content meets retail opportunities, allowing gamers to transition effortlessly from discovering new games to purchasing them on Walmart’s platform.”

Breath of the Styled.

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The Game Awards’ final world premiere was Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. Developed by Naughty Dog, Intergalactic is a futuristic space opera with the kind of futurepunk vibes that remind me of Cowboy Bebop. That comparison is apt as Intergalactic game director and Naughty Dog studio head Neil Druckmann mentioned on the game’s website that it stars a space bounty hunter. Indeed, the trailer even featured an anime playing in the background reminiscent of Dirty Pair.

Here’s Naughty Dog’s description of the game, from the YouTube trailer:

Set thousands of years in the future, Intergalactic puts players into the role of Jordan A. Mun, a dangerous bounty hunter who ends up stranded on Sempiria — a distant planet whose communication with the outside universe went dark hundreds of years ago. Jordan will have to use all her skills and wits if she hopes to be the first person in over 600 years to leave its orbit.

Tati Gabrielle, who played Prudence Night in the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, stars as Jordan. Ironically, Gabrielle was part of the cast of another Naughty Dog project playing Jo Braddock in the Uncharted movie. It also will feature comedian and actor Kumail Nanjiani who makes a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance as the bounty Jordan’s after. Druckmann ended Intergalactic’s announcement with the news that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have taken a break from winning all the awards for their movie soundtracks to work on the music for the game.

There’s no release date yet, but the game is in development for the PS5.

Josef Fares is back and so is his penchant for cursing. The director of Hazelight Studios has returned to The Game Awards to debut his next game: Split Fiction.

Split Fiction is a game that feels very much in Hazelight’s wheelhouse. Like It Takes Two and A Way Out before it, Split Fiction is a two-person split-screen co-op game. In it, two game developers have been trapped in a world they created and must play together to escape.

It’s been a quiet but massively successful handful of years for Hazelight Studios. In 2021, it took home Game of the Year for It Takes Two in which two players must work together to overcome the myriad dangers of their home (and their failing marriage) Honey, I Shrunk The Kids-style.

Earlier this year, the studio announced that It Takes Two sold 20 million copies. Polygon did a deep dive into the game’s sales numbers, determining that it sold at an astonishingly consistent and enviable clip of half a million copies per month since its release in March 2021. A truly remarkable feat given the game had very little marketing outside its initial release window and at a time when most consumers’ multiplayer tastes were wrapped up in “forever games” like Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite. With bona fides like that, it’s safe to say folks will be looking at Split Fiction, launching March 6th on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, with great interest.

FromSoftware, the studio that just this month said it was “not really considering developments such as an Elden Ring 2,” has revealed a game that looks a lot like it could be Elden Ring 2.

Elden Ring Nightreign is the next entry in the Elden Ring series. The trailer, debuting during this year’s The Game Awards, didn’t share much narrative details, but from the game’s official announcement, it doesn’t seem like game director Hidetaka Miyzaki told a fib. Nightreign goes in a completely different gameplay direction from the base game and the Shadows of the Erdtree DLC. Described as an action survival game, Nightreign is a standalone co-op multiplayer game lets up to three players work together to survive a single day in a parallel universe to the Lands Between.

Players, called Nightfarers, will have up to eight different characters to choose from each with unique abilities and ultimate attacks. Each day, they have to fight through a battery of monsters to ultimately face off against a tough boss.

While we don’t yet know when this takes place in Lands Between chronology, the trailer did show off a ton of gameplay. It appears to be similar to Elden Ring but with a greater emphasis on aggressive, flippy-dippy martial arts moves rather than the slower, more thoughtful combat in Elden Ring and Erdtree. The announcement also mentioned a constantly changing map that shrinks with each day along with abilities and gear players can use to customize their characters upon death. Taken all together, it sounds like FromSoftware put a little Hades chocolate in the Elden Ring peanut butter with a dash of Fortnite co-op and Overwatch hero classes for flavor.

FromSoftware has, so far, only confirmed Xbox, PlayStation, and PC platforms and, surprisingly, a release date. Elden Ring Nightreign will launch sometime next year.

The game’s most interesting bits are trapped in cutscenes while its boring bits are the stuff you actually have to play out.

Read the full story at The Verge.

There are certain sounds that just feel good to the over 30 set. There’s the sound of dial-up internet or the new message jingle on AIM or MSN Messenger. Most of these nostalgic noises have been replaced with new ones or lost to time, but PlayStation has revived one in celebration of its 30th anniversary. Yeah, you know the one.

For a limited time, players can customize their PS5 UI using themes from throughout PlayStation’s past. Choose a theme from any of the four previous PlayStation consoles and a special 30th anniversary theme. I’m guessing most players will go with the OG PSX theme while a fair number will likely settle on the PS2.

In addition to these slick-ass PS5 themes,...

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From romance to character classes, BioWare has made made almost all the game’s options compelling.

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Larian Studios isn’t done with big updates for Baldur’s Gate 3 just yet. The studio is planning yet another quality-of-life update for the game with Patch 8.

“Arriving next year, this update will introduce some of the most eagerly awaited features to BG3: cross-play, and photo mode, along with 12 new subclasses,” Larian wrote on its Steam Community page.

Cross play will introduce multiplayer capabilities between any of the game’s platforms including Steam, PC, Mac, Xbox, and PlayStation. Cross platform multiplayer progression will also be added.

Another big community ask that Patch 8 will satisfy is the addition of photo mode. The feature will come with a robust suite of options including poses for party members, picture frames, photo...

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Humanoid Origin, the game studio founded by former BioWare general manager Casey Hudson, is shutting down operations. The closure was announced in a post on the company’s LinkedIn page. “Despite efforts to shield the studio from broader challenges in the industry, an unexpected shortfall of funding left us unable to sustain operations,” the post read.

Humanoid Origin was founded by Hudson in 2021 when it was then known as Humanoid Studios. Hudson started the studio after leaving a 20-year career at BioWare where he worked as a producer and director on several of the studio’s seminal titles including Mass Effect and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Hudson left BioWare in 2014 for a brief stint at Microsoft Studios before returning...

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Rumble, the video streaming platform that’s become the home for right-wing personalities like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and Tim Pool as well as full-throated racists like Nick Fuentes, has a new member joining its ranks: Dr Disrespect. The streamer announced the news via social media and Rumble confirmed it in a press release, stating that the streamer will provide a mix of free and paid content for the platform as well as “acting as an advisor and helping to build the Rumble Gaming community.”

The move to Rumble is the latest development in the Dr Disrespect streaming saga that began four years ago. In 2020, Dr Disrespect, whose real name is Herschel “Guy” Beahm, was banned from Twitch with little explanation mere months after...

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