The Witcher 4 Has More Than 400 People Working On It, Full Production Begins This Year
Development on the The Witcher 4–codenamed Polaris–has taken another step forward, as CD Projekt Red revealed that it has 403 employees working on it. Earlier this year, joint CEO Adam Badowski had mentioned how he was aiming to have “around 400” people on the next mainline Witcher game. This is roughly two-thirds of CDPR’s workforce, and according to joint CEO Michal Nowakowski (via VGC), this will allow the production phase of the game to begin later this year.
Early in the development of Polaris, Nowakowski mentioned how the game had just 17 people working on it as most of the staff had been reorganized and sent to work on other projects following the release of Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion. Cyberpunk 2077 still has 17 people providing support, while other projects like Orion, Sirius, and Hadar have 47, 37, and 20 people working on them, respectively. As of February 29, 2024, CDPR has 627 developers assigned to several games, services, and other projects.
Polaris is the fourth main Witcher game and will be the start of a new trilogy in the series. The first Witcher game is also getting a remake and CDPR is aiming to modernize it while also removing some of its more dated elements. During the development of Phantom Liberty, CDPR implemented an organizational overhaul. The company has aimed to create more open lines of communication and set up flexible teams that can quickly respond to any issues during the production of a game.
Halo And COD Support Dev Lays Off 25 People, Citing “Unprecedented Challenges”
Certain Affinity, an independent game developer known for assisting on mega-franchises like Call of Duty and Halo, has laid off a significant number of workers in just the latest example of mass layoffs in the video game industry.
In a blog post, CEO Max Hoberman said the video game industry has faced “unprecedented challenges” in the past 12 months, and Certain Affinity is not immune to those issues. In response, Certain Affinity is laying off 25 of its US-based workers. The majority of those impacted are on teams handling business operations, Hoberman said. Certain Affinity’s website said the company has about 250 employees, so 25 layoffs works out to around 10% of the company. That percentage might not be accurate given that Certain Affinity also operates in Canada, nor do we know when the website might have been updated last.
This was Certain Affinity’s first mass layoff in the company’s 17-year history. Explaining the cuts, Hoberman said the “most significant” element was the “industry-wide slowdown” of funding for the kind of work that Certain Affinity does, which includes co-development. Additionally, third-party investors are showing “reluctance” to fund games and game companies, and this has made it “exceptionally difficult to sign new work or secure other forms of funding.”
Affected staffers at Certain Affinity are getting severance pay and continuing benefits. Additionally, those being let go are having their vested stock awards made “portable” so affected staffers are still able to reap the rewards down the road.
“We have built an amazing culture where we all come together to support one another in times of need. We ask for your understanding and patience while we navigate this unprecedented event. Thank you,” Hoberman said.
Based in Austin, Texas, Certain Affinity has worked on huge franchises like Call of Duty, Halo, Mafia, Doom, World of Tanks, Hogwarts Legacy, and more. The studio has made its own games, too, including Age of Booty and Crimson Alliance. Looking ahead, Certain Affinity is making its own original FPS game, currently in the works under the codename Project Loro.
The company’s founder and CEO, Hoberman, was the multiplayer/online lead for the Halo series at Bungie before leaving to start Certain Affinity in 2006.
2024 has been another tough year for game developers, with a reported 8,000+ layoffs in the video game industry so far this year. Some are expecting the run of mass layoffs to continue. For more, check out GameSpot’s piece on video game industry layoffs and how we got here.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 Update Arrives On PC And PS5, Adding A Much-Requested Feature
Capcom is finally letting Dragon’s Dogma 2 players begin a brand-new game after previously starting an adventure, something that surprisingly wasn’t available when the action-RPG launched earlier this month. It’s one of the major focuses of an update that’s now available on PS5 and PC. The patch should arrive on Xbox Series X|S “in the next few days.”
Other notable tweaks to Dragon’s Dogma 2 as part of the official patch notes include being able to obtain a dwelling earlier in the game and new graphical options on PS5. For example, PlayStation players can now turn off motion blur as well as cap frame rate at 30fps in the options menu.
Earlier this week, Capcom revealed that Dragon’s Dogma 2 would receive the critical new-game option that previously wasn’t available. This omission led to negative Steam user reviews, since people couldn’t even delete their save to start up a fresh playthrough.
Looking ahead, Capcom has plans for “improvements to frame rate” for Dragon’s Dogma 2. Another sore subject for players has been microtransactions, though there is already a Dragon’s Dogma 2 mod letting people circumvent them.
For more, check out 20 things to know before playing Dragon’s Dogma 2. Don’t forget to read GameSpot’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 review, either.
Full patch notes are below:
PlayStation 5 / Steam
- Adding the option to start a new game when save data already exists.
- Changing the number of “Art of Metamorphosis” items available at Pawn Guilds in the game to 99.
- Making the quest that allows players to acquire their own dwelling (where they can save and rest) available earlier in the game.
- Miscellaneous text display issues.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes.
PlayStation 5
- Adding the option* to switch Motion Blur on/off in Options.
- Adding the option* to switch Ray Tracing on/off in Options.
- Adding the option to set Frame Rate at Max 30fps in Options.
Steam
- Improving quality when DLSS SUPER RESOLUTION is enabled.
- Fixing an issue related to the display of models under some specific settings.
*These options won’t affect frame rate significantly. Improvements to frame rate are planned for future updates.
Updates to Xbox Series X|S are planned in the next few days.
Fanatical’s New Steam Deck Bundle Is Full Of Cyberpunk Therapy And Kingdom Management Games
A new bundle deal is available from Fanatical, and this one is specifically aimed at people who enjoy their gaming on the go. Each game in this collection is Steam Deck Verified, so you’ll be able to install them on your device–or an equivalent piece of hardware like the ROG Ally–and start gaming right away. No muss, no fuss, and there’s an interesting selection of titles to choose from below. You can mix and match titles for this bundle, with pricing starting at $5 for three games, $8 for five games, or $10 for seven games.
Fanatical Play-On-The-Go Spring Edition Bundle
- Metal Mutation
- Trash Sailors
- Dig: Deep In Galaxies
- Sheepo
- Gearshifters
- Battle Axe
- Silent Rain
- Yes, Your Grace
- Garden In!
- She and the Light Bearer
- Bosorka
- Fight’N Rage
- Mind Scanners
- Amid Evil
- Ephemeral Tale
- Relicta
- Road to Ballhalla
- Far: Lone Sails
- Party Hard 2
- A Juggler’s Tale
- Boomerang Fu
There are some good games here that might have fallen under your radar when they were first released. For example, Mind Scanners is a retro-futuristic psychiatry simulation in which you diagnose the citizens of a dystopian metropolis. You have to manage your time and resources, operate a series of arcade-style devices as you administer treatments, and deal with some tough ethical dilemmas. The game is essentially Papers, Please mixed with cyberpunk themes, and it makes for a fun mobile experience.
Another highlight on this list is Yes, Your Grace, a kingdom-management RPG where you have to address the needs of your local peasants while dealing with intrigue in the royal court. Everyone wants help, but you can only do so much, and the wrong decision could plunge your kingdom into war.
For something different and less focused on diplomacy, there are some great action games to consider here. Wield magical weaponry in the boomer shooter Amid Evil, kick some butt in old-school 2D brawler Fight ‘N Rage, and take down noisy revelers in Party Hard 2. You can see the full list of games above, and for more deals, check out the Fanatical Prestige Bundle for AAA delights, Humble’s celebration of boomer shooters, and Woot’s month-long video game sale.
Disclosure: Fanatical and GameSpot are both owned by Fandom.
Make Sure To Swallow Your Drink Before Looking At These Bugged MLB The Show 24 Faces
The newly released MLB The Show 24 has turned into a horror show after its latest patch, with multiple players sporting warped and distorted faces. From features clipping through players’ caps to eyes bugging out from strangely squished faces, the frankly hilarious glitch has added some unintentional comedy to San Diego Studio’s baseball sim.
Only certain players seem to have been subjected to the facial glitches, which seem to squish a player’s features in to result in weak chins and strange bug eyes. Multiple players have posted screenshots on X, formerly Twitter, of the warped players appearing in their games.
The glitches aren’t just present on the field, but also when a player’s likeness is blown up on the scoreboard, resulting in some hilarious imagery.
San Diego Studios tweeted to let fans know it is aware of the issue, with a fix already in the works. It seems that the glitch was introduced with this week’s Update 3, along with a number of other bugs that aren’t quite as fun as the goofed-up graphics, with players on Reddit reporting game crashes and even loss of progress since the patch landed.
MLB The Show 24 released earlier in March, and has received mixed to positive reviews, with an aggregate score of 79 on Metacritic at the time of writing. GameSpot’s review scored the game a 7 out of 10, saying: “MLB The Show 24 delights with another season of Storylines: The Negro Leagues and continued on-field excellence, but some modes are still in desperate need of an overhaul.” User reviews have been somewhat less positive, with a number of ongoing server and technical issues plaguing the game, and especially its co-op mode, since launch.
Dead Cells Studio Teams With Other Indie Devs For The Triple-I Showcase
30+ independent studios are teaming up to put on a showcase for their games. Called the Triple-I Initiative, this April presentation will reveal what studios like Mega Crit Games (Slay the Spire), Red Hook Studios (Darkest Dungeon), Heart Machine (Hyper Light Drifter), and Evil Empire (Dead Cells) are working on next, among many others.
The initiative was kicked off by Evil Empire, which first approached many of the studios at last year’s Gamescom to pitch the concept. “The goal is to have a straight-to-the-point show packed with announcements as a collective of studios, to speak directly to players, the people who have been directly supporting us since day one,” Evil Empire COO Benjamin Laulan said in a press release. “The show will run for about 45 minutes, featuring news by the most successful and creative folks out there. No hosting segments, no advertisements, no sponsorships, no extra fluff, just games.”
At GDC, I caught up with Evil Empire marketing director Bérenger Dupré and some of the folks at these other studios to talk about the Triple-I Initiative. First and foremost, with the seemingly rising number of showcases every year, I wanted to know why these studios wanted to make another one instead of preparing material for an existing virtual presentation.
“We’ve been known for the moment for working only on the live ops of Dead Cells for the past five years and–spoiler alert–we are also working on new games, and we had to announce one of these games at some point, and timing-wise, we couldn’t have the leisure to attach this announcement to a showcase because it was not matching with the dates,” Dupré said.
“It also allows us to experiment with visibility and another way of breaking through because sometimes you break through because you’re in the right spot at the right time or your game looks nothing like another game or its mechanics are so hooky that you just get a kind of a nice flashpoint.” Red Hood co-founder Chris Bourassa added. “But you can’t rely on a flashpoint every time you ship and none of us want to be one-hit wonders. So how you reach people and how you sell your game has a lot to say about how successful your game is going to be.
“And some of it’s timing,” Red Hook’s other co-founder, Tyler Sigman, added. “There’s been times in the past where I’m like, ‘Oh, we would consider being part of another showcase.’ But the timing didn’t line up. The common denominator there is you’re ultimately not in control–someone else is going to determine whether [your trailer is shown] and what I liked about this is [it] lets us just make our own [showcase]. If we make our own, no one can force us to turn it off because we are controlling the power button. So that’s good too just because [of] that level of making the opportunity yourself rather than waiting for someone to give it to you.”
In addition to these reasons, Dupré said that it feels like the games that will be featured in the Triple-I Initiative rarely fit anywhere else. “At Gamescom in August, we started meeting some friends [to discuss how] we felt that we could create [a showcase] because when you look at the showcase season, you have the big first party showcases, you have awards, and you have the more niche showcases for [specifically] wholesome games or VR, but you don’t have [a showcase] for the in-between space.”
It’s a sentiment that easily ties back to the idea of “indie” games having a very loose definition in the industry. Some think that so long as a game isn’t tied to a publisher, it’s indie. Others think having a publisher is fine so long as your team and the scope of your game is small enough, but then the definition of “small enough” varies from person to person. Thus the idea of a “triple-I” game and the Triple-I Initiative is born. These are games that aren’t large enough and don’t have the financial backing to contend with Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo triple-A first-party titles but they’re a bit bigger in scope and more well-known than a lot of other studios that are considered indie.
“Since using letters seems to be the trend in the industry, we figured that adding a couple of Is to indie was a fair way to describe this new format,” Dupré said. “Also, triple-I just sounds cool.”
“I’m trying to think of when [the term triple-I] first started popping up, but it often gets attributed to some of our games for that reason because it’s like, ‘Well [we’re] not triple-A and double-A is kind of a weird [because] it undersells it because it’s still indie, but how indie?'” Sigman said. “And it’s not a spectrum where there’s a good and a bad side of that. It’s more like we identify in a certain way and I think that often our games get mentioned a lot together by either players or friends and so I think the smart thing that [Evil Empire] did was realizing, ‘Wait, we already kind of work together,’ [and] I think that’s really good and it doesn’t come at the expense of anyone. We all benefit from more heightened awareness of our type of games.”
“It’s not [meant to be] a gatekeeping thing,” Mega Crit Games co-founder Casey Yano added, clarifying that even the triple-I label has nuance to it. But the hope is that fans will tune into the Triple-I Initiative knowing they won’t see trailers for huge games driven by the latest graphics. These are smaller passion projects. “Maybe [it’s a game] made by somebody [who] broke off from a big studio and wanted to do something a little bit smaller scale, or something doing something more experimental without any red tape. We’re all different. It’s not like ‘This is a triple-I, this is not triple-I.'”
Regarding what players can expect to see, all of the studios are currently keeping things close to the chest, but I was told that I can expect to be wowed by some of the announcements. “At least ours is not a small thing,” Bourassa teased. “[Evil Empire] was pretty adamant that these trailers, whether it’s a world premiere or whatever the content is, need to be impactful and noteworthy. Yes, this is an evasive answer, but basically, there’s a standard in terms of the impact.”
The Triple-I Initiative will premiere on April 10 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. You can watch it on YouTube and Twitch.
Get The Stellar PS5 Slim Spider-Man Bundle Deal Before It Expires This Weekend
The PS5 Slim Digital Edition hasn’t seen any notable discounts since arriving last year, making this an incredible offer. Along with the PS5 Slim Digital Edition console and a DualSense controller, you’re getting a digital copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Keep in mind that this version of PS5 can’t play discs, though you can add a disc drive at a later date by purchasing the $80 expansion.
The PS5 Slim Digital Edition bundle is out of stock at Amazon, so grab it at one of the other retailers below while you can.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire Ending Explained
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire includes a metric ton of outlandish monster-on-monster action, which is obviously the main draw. But it’s also a movie that’s dense with story and lore about Kong and his people, and the seemingly timeless humans who used to live on Skull Island. And, on top of that, it sets up a new status quo in Warner Bros’ MonsterVerse that opens up some interesting possibilities for a franchise endgame, should they decide to go that direction from here.
Let’s talk about it.
Warning: This remainder of this article will consist of spoilers for the plot of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, including its ending.
There are three core plotlines in Godzilla x Kong: Kong and his fight against the Skar King in the Hollow Earth; the people from Monarch (Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Kaylee Hottle returning from the last movie, and new addition Dan Stevens) who are also exploring Hollow Earth and trying to figure out what Kong has gotten himself into; and Godzilla back on the surface, leveling up his powers in anticipation of the Skar King’s arrival.
Kong’s thread is the primary one that drives all the film’s action. He’s still exploring Hollow Earth in search of his people, and new pathways keep opening up–and one of these new holes allows him to finally find some other giant apes. But these are hostile, and they attack Kong, but he defeats them and escapes, with the unwitting assistance of a giant kid ape named Suka who ends up serving as his sidekick–a son of Kong, if you will.
With Suka as his guide, Kong finds the ape base and discovers the main villain, the Skar King, has enslaved a bunch of other apes for some nefarious purpose. Kong attacks, and the Skar King unleashes his biggest weapon: another Godzilla-like titan named Shimo, this one crawling on four legs and firing a beam of ice from its mouth. Kong escapes, barely, but more evil apes are in pursuit. Kong is very much overmatched.
Our human characters, meanwhile, are investigating some kind of signal that’s coming from beneath the Earth–one that young Jia, who is deaf, can’t stop seeing in her head. And so Ilene (Rebecca Hall) sets off into Hollow Earth with Trapper (Dan Stevens), Bernie (Brian Tyree Henry) and a Monarch military guy destined to be killed off quickly, to try to find out what’s going on.
It takes some time for them to learn anything, because the Monarch outpost they try to visit has been destroyed, but eventually they encounter more humans–members of the Iwi tribe from Skull Island. Jia was thought to be the last of them, but it turns out they had relocated underground in order to more closely monitor the Skar King, who had been imprisoned in a part of Hollow Earth that was completely closed off. The evil ape has made a lot of progress toward escaping, and the signal that Jia had felt was the Iwi’s distress signal, essentially.
It also turns out Jia, as the only surface-dwelling Iwi remaining, is the only one able to fulfill an important prophecy related to this situation, in which an Iwi from Skull Island would summon Mothra at an ancient temple. And Jia does just that.
That’s going to end up being a crucial contribution to the coming fight against the Skar King, but it’s not the only way the humans are able to help. Kong, after repeated fights against the bad apes, is pretty beat up and one of his arms is basically useless at this point. But Trapper has an idea–the folks at that previously mentioned destroyed outpost had in storage a mechanized arm brace for Kong that had never been used. They manage to fit it on the big guy (we’re not going to worry about how), and now he’s stronger than ever.
But he still needs more help. He needs Godzilla, who had killed another irradiated kaiju and absorbed its power, and is now even more powerful than before. So Kong heads to the surface to try to recruit him. It goes poorly at first. The two encounter each other near some of the Pyramids in Egypt, and proceed to completely wreck the ancient landmarks by fighting too close to them. Kong tries to stop the fight, but Godzilla ain’t hearing it. But that changes when Mothra shows up–when Mothra speaks, Godzilla listens. Mothra is able to get Godzilla on board, and they all head back down to Hollow Earth to face the Skar King.
A spectacular major battle ensues, but it’s just the prelude to the real thing. The Skar King escapes to the surface with Shimo during the fight, and this titanic battle continues in Rio de Janeiro. From here we get what we expect from this franchise: these giant beasts beating the crap out of each other and devastating an iconic world city in the process, with Shimo’s ice beam freezing the city’s famous beaches. (This is the second time a movie has frozen those beaches in the past decade, after Gerard Butler”s Geostorm.) It’s anybody’s game for a while, but the breaking point comes when the chain that the Skar King uses to control Shimo is broken. And Shimo responds appropriately, by sending an ice blast the Skar King’s way–the balance of the fight completely upended, Kong is able to use the Skar King’s new vulnerability to put him down.
And this leaves us with the titular new empire, and a new status quo with Kong, Godzilla, Mothra in some kind of alliance, and the humans of Earth left to continue to hope they don’t get stepped on.
Does Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire have a post-credits scene?
No, Godzilla x Kong doesn’t have any bonus scenes after the credits that might tease the direction that Warner Bros. plans on taking this franchise. It’s likely that the studio is in wait-and-see mode with this one, without much urgency to get the next one started–while these movies have been successful, they haven’t done well enough to warrant a sequel greenlight before the numbers have been crunched.
So for now, the situation after Godzilla x Kong is basically the same as it was after Godzilla (2014), King of the Monsters, and Godzilla vs. Kong, with titans running around everywhere and the humans unable to do much about it. That obviously leaves open the possibility for more, should Warner Bros. choose to make another movie or another season of the Monarch series on Apple TV. But this ending is open-ended, allowing for the possibility of doing more in this universe without broadcasting any specific intent. So we’ll have to wait and see.
The Witcher Book Deals: Save On Novel Box Sets, Graphic Novels, And More
Before it was a video game or Netflix series, The Witcher was a book series penned by Andrzej Sapkowski, and if you’ve only played the games or seen the TV show, you’re missing out on some of the most iconic fantasy novels in recent memory. Catching up will require you to flip through thousands of pages of action, but at least you can do it for cheap, as several of the original books, along with spin-off comics and manga, are currently discounted at Amazon.
New readers will want to start with The Complete Witcher Saga 5-novel box set, as it covers the vast majority of Geralt’s journey. It’s also close to its lowest-ever price, at $39.50 (down from $90). The collection includes updated cover designs and a sleeve to store the volumes when you’re not reading them. Despite the collection’s name, it’s not the full series, but you’re still getting five great books. This box set includes:
- Blood of Elves
- The Time of Contempt
- Baptism of Fire
- The Tower of Swallows
- Lady of the Lake
For something smaller, you can check out The Witcher Stories Box Set, which gets you two more books, The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny. It’s down to $20 (was $35). To round out these collections, you can grab Season of Storms, the eighth book in Geralt’s journey. Consider picking it up now even if you won’t get to it for a while, as it’s discounted to $12.49 (down from $18).
Beyond books, you’ll find a nice collection of comics and manga on sale, including the 440-page Witcher Omnibus Comic Series for $18 (down from $30) and The Witcher: Ronin for $12 (down from $20). Plenty of other great books are on sale, and you’ll even find a hilarious Witcher 3 statuette on sale that depicts Geralt relaxing in a tub with his rubber ducky. Consider picking up your own rubber duck, along with a book, to unwind like the world’s most famous witcher.
Best Witcher Book Deals
This Indie Game Has You Control A 2D And 3D Character At The Same Time
Indie game developer and publisher Crescent Moon Games and Those Dang Games recently revealed its latest game, Screenbound. What’s especially unique about this game is that it’s played in both 2D and 3D.
A video posted to X/Twitter by @ JakeSucky showcases firsthand how the game runs. Players control a person playing a Game Boy-like system while running around certain obstacles. But the catch is that whenever the player moves, their Game Boy character will also move, and on top of that, the handheld character will also have to fight monsters to progress forward.
It’s clear that the game is making fun of how some people may be glued to their devices. The developers are clearly self-aware because, on the game’s Steam page description, it reads, “Screenbound is a game about being distracted, but totally in control.”
The Steam page goes on to explain that the combat will be in the 2D world, and players will be able to collect their rewards in the 3D world. Screenbound will also have tons of hidden items scattered across the world for players to find.
It’s unclear when the game will be released, but we do know that it will support Xbox controllers.