October has been a tough month for the games industry, even though it’s barely two weeks in. Fornite creator Epic Games is laying off 830 employees to cut costs, and UK studio Creative Assembly, owned by Sega, is axing the online shooter Hyenas before its official release, with job losses expected. It had been in development for six years.
Creating big-budget video games is tougher now than it’s ever been. The increasing complexity of new titles, with their detailed 4K visuals and elaborate cross-platform online multiplayer modes, means that everything takes longer to develop. Recently, the head of Xbox Games Studios, Matt Booty, told tech site Axios that development cycles for triple A games aren’t two or three years any more: “They’re four and five and six years.”
Big studios seem to have two options to cope with long development times: run a lengthy early access period in which players get to experience a game as it’s being built (a model that has proved successful for smaller indie developers), or launch the full game and patch it later. With Baldur’s Gate 3, for example, Larian Studios launched a beta version in October 2020 and gave fans access to the first act of the game, gradually introducing new features such as multiplayer over the next three years. Gamers had to pay full price for the game, but they got free access to all the pre-order bonuses, and the chance to play a role in the direction development took. But there are mixed feelings about this approach. “We’ve seen that in the past, other games were very successful in early access, and then on the day of release they didn’t sell much more because they saturated already,” Larian’s CEO Swen Vincke told PC Gamer in August.
Launch the full game without early access, however, and you risk alienating players who have been patiently waiting for several years. The launch of sci-fi odyssey No Man’s Sky was considered to be a failure by many, who found it graphically less impressive than early demos and missing much-hyped features. But developer Hello Games was able to grow its audience through free post-launch upgrades and feature enhancements. Elsewhere, the catastrophic arrival of Cyberpunk 2077 saw CD Projekt Red vilified by players and the media, its PC version seriously bugged and its console versions almost unplayable. Only now, three years later (and a decade after the game was announced), has a huge update and DLC drop finally delivered the compelling sci-fi adventure. It came with a cost to employees, though. The company had the money ($125m reportedly) to turn the game around post-launch, but the studio announced waves of layoffs, which have prompted the formation of a union.
But Hyenas, an online shooter in the style of Overwatch, never got to take either of those routes. The game was canned after its beta period. In a press release, Sega blamed the cancellation on lower profitablity in Europe due to the economic downturn and an end to a lockdown-related spending boom. Creative Assembly wrote on social media: “We knew our plans were ambitious and we knew we were diving headfirst into competition with some of the greats.” But perhaps it couldn’t have known how congested the online shooter market would become. It’s not the only one. The struggling game Apex Legends had its mobile version cancelled, while Activision Blizzard conceded that Overwatch 2 player numbers and engagement were declining. Recently the publisher ditched its Overwatch eSports league.
Faced with the having to predict industry trends six years out, developers are surely playing it safe with the projects they commit resources to. But is there such a thing as safe any more? As we head toward the end of 2023, video game streamers and news sites will already be planning their games of the year lists, possibly accompanied by hyperbolic references to a “fantastic year for games”. But it hasn’t been such a great year for a lot of people making them. Pressures of time, money, expectations and technology are multiplying, creating a volatile, unpredictable development environment. And there is also the creative and emotional stress of working on a single game for four, five or six years – longer than most movies, albums or plays – all the while wondering if it will survive beyond early access, or launch.
The answer (along with unionisation) may be a switch to condensed projects, such as Ubisoft’s recent Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which is a fraction of the size of Origins or Valhalla but still makes you feel part of a larger world and is getting very positive reviews. Either that or the gaming audience, often extremely exacting and even hostile, will have to learn to accept early access or regular patches with triple A titles.
Games are made by human beings. Something has to give.
What to play
Yes, I’m recommending a board game this week, a brand new translation of the original Capcom survival horror classic, Resident Evil: The Board Game. It’s a cooperative game for up to four players in which you explore a modular version of the zombie-infested mansion, solving puzzles and attempting side-quests. I’ve just started playing but the mechanics of the game work incredibly well (the turn-based combat captures the tension and horror perfectly), and it’s beautifully presented. Created by Steamforged, it’s perfect for a Halloween get-together.
Approximate play time: from 90 minutes (mini scenarios) to 27 hours (full campaign)
What to read
• The latest VR headset from Meta is attracting very positive reviews in the gaming press. PC Gamer praises, The Quest 3’s sharp 4K resolution lenses, while T3 is impressed by its mixed-reality performance. It’s also more comfortable, lighter and easier to adjust, and the controllers are less burdensome.
• On the theme of game development and the possible slide toward shorter gaming experiences, here’s a piece from IGN praising standalone DLC titles such as Uncharted: Lost Legacy, which provide more condensed explorations of familiar franchises. I would have loved a snappy spin-off from Alien: Isolation or Bloodborne – games I can’t quite face a full sequel for, but would be happy to leap back into for a 10-hour blast.
• The first video game magazine I worked on, Edge, is celebrating its 30th birthday this month with a list of the best 100 games of its lifetime. I was one of the people who put forward their favourite titles – if you want to discover what made the cut, you’re going to have to buy a copy.
• I really enjoyed this short article by Jay Castello, looking at what happens to the Dungeons & Dragons experience when it transfers from pencil and dice to video game, taking Baldur’s Gate 3 as its example.
What to click
Assassin’s Creed Mirage review – a stripped-back stab in the right direction
Playing God: Rod Humble on building the radical new simulator Life By You
Shell called out for promoting fossil fuels to youth via Fortnite
Question Block
This question comes from brilliant Twitch streamer and gaming host Frankie Ward, who asked:
“It feels as if gaming’s most anticipated new and returning titles are released this year: Final Fantasy XVI, Zelda, Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield, Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1, Lies of P … And that presents two questions: where does one start and what does that mean for next year’s release calendar?”
I’m going to suggest starting with Lies of P or Starfield first because these are brand new titles that a lot of people are still discovering. It’s fun to get in on the ground level and have fresh experiences at the same time as other players. I also like to multitask with games from different genres – like always having a fiction and a non-fiction book on the go – so you can slip in sessions with Street Fighter 6, Mortal Kombat 1 or indeed Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 as a palette cleanser between big open-world gaming sessions. You also want to break up those epic RPGs, because doing FFXVI, then Zelda, then Baldur’s Gate is going to be as exhausting as a nonstop Lord of the Rings: Special Edition binge. I suggest chucking Venba, Dredge or Thirsty Suitors in between as a filling. You might also want to study next year’s release schedule – for example, getting FFXVI out of the way might be a smart move because Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is being released in February.
On the subject of next year, we don’t have to worry about where 2023’s packed lineup will leave 2024. Plenty of games that slipped will bulk out an already stuffed agenda. There are new Persona, Like a Dragon, Prince of Persia and Tekken instalments; there’s also long-awaited titles such as Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II and Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl, and Star Wars Outlaws (above) may also be released. So don’t worry about not having much to play in 2024, and you can use 2025 – which currently has a sparse release calendar – to catch up on everything you didn’t have time to play.
If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com
