What’s that? A new Episode of the Gamesline Podcast? That’s right, this week John and Lorelai sit down to talk about the most recent news and games they’ve been playing. Lorelai is still living in Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail when she’s not playing Earth Defense Force 6, Coral Island, or the new early access game Fields of Mystria. John’s been playing more Zenless Zone Zero, Granblue Vs. Rising, and Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance.

In the news, they go over everything from the Nintendo Indie World and Partner Showcases with more Capcom fighting game collections, Castlevania DS collections, and the Suikoden remasters actually existing. They also talk about Itsuno leaving Capcom, Marvel Snap not paying Marvel artists, NetEase shutting down the Visions of Mana developer, Guilty Gear Strive getting a switch port and Croc I guess.

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Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 42: Switching it Up appeared first on Gamesline.

Losses of All Kinds

Tencent and NetEase have both expressed intention to pull out of Japanese game development, and NetEase has taken the first step out. Ouka Studios, developer of the just released Visions of Mana, is reportedly getting shut down by the Chinese holdings corporation. Tencent has reportedly backed out of multiple new funding ventures as well.

Take This, a nonprofit focused on mental health in the games industry, is in danger of closing. They are currently reporting that they are underfunded, and would need to raise $80k by the end of September or will have to cease operations.

The global version of Final Fantasy Brave Exvius will be shutting down. The Japanese version will stay online for the foreseeable future.

Hideaki Itsuno, director of Devil May Cry 2-5, both Dragon’s Dogma titles, Project Justice, Capcom vs SNK 2, and contributor to many more classic Capcom games, is leaving the company. Itsuno says he will be “developing a new game in a new environment,” which means he’ll still be in the industry.

Co-Creator of Wizardry, Andrew Greenberg, has passed away. Wizardry is considered the origin of the RPG genre, and was the direct inspiration to Dragon Quest and Megami Tensei.

Ports and Remasters, As Usual

Guilty Gear Strive is getting a Switch port. Releasing January 23rd, it’ll have rollback netcode, but will not be crossplay with the other versions of the game.

Naoki Yoshida, also known as Yoshi P, has said that the Final Fantasy XIV team is working on a version “for Nintendo consoles”. He isn’t saying it outright, but he is most likely referring to a version of the game for Nintendo’s next platform.

Long-running children’s MMO Wizard 101 is getting ported to current consoles.

Argonaut Games, joint developer of the original Star Fox games, has been revived after closing in 2004. To coincide with their rebirth, they will be releasing a remaster of Croc: Legend of the Gobbos, which is due out this year for consoles and PC.

The post The Bulletin: Croc Of Shit appeared first on Gamesline.

Developers Were Direct In Xbox’s New Showcase

Microsoft’s Xbox Developer Direct showed off updates on a few new titles. We got our first look at MachineGames’ Indiana Jones game, The Great Circle, that’s coming out this year surprisingly.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II got its release date, dropping May 21st.

Obsidian’s next RPG epic, Avowed, is confirmed for Fall this year. There was a “deep dive” on the game shown at the Direct.

Square Enix showed up to talk Visions of Mana, the next Mana title after a decade. They also showed off a nice chunk of new info.

And finally, Ara: History Untold, a Civilization-like game made by people who worked on the classic series.

2024 is Already Rocky in the Layoffs Department

A variety of layoffs have transpired in the past while, including

• Discord laying off 17% of their staff.
• Google has released “hundreds” of staff from their Google Assistant team.
• Behaviour Interactive of Dead by Daylight fame has cut “around 45 people”.
• Unity laid off 1,800 staff even after releases in November last year.
• Twitch laid off 35% of their staff, following multiple layoffs last year.

Layoffs continue to happen at an intense rate in our industry, and most of it can be attributed to poor management and overhiring.

And Yet, Games Continue to be Made

Even though they let go of a few people, Behaviour Interactive was also able to put out a new season of Dead by Daylight content. This time around, famous writer Alan Wake will be joining the game as a survivor.

Xbox and PC exclusive Hi-Fi Rush has been rated for Xbox One, PS4, and Switch.

The Golden Sun GBA games have been added to Switch Online + Expansion Pack.

Sometimes Good Things Happen!

NCSOFT, rights holders of City of Heroes, have given full license to Homecoming, a CoH fan server, to officially run the servers with their support.

Eddy Gordo has been confirmed as the first DLC character for Tekken 8.

A debug version of Persona 5 has leaked onto the Internet Archive. A few things have been dug up so far, including unfinished versions of iconic music from the game.

…But Also, Dumb Things Happen Too

For some genius reason, all heroes will now have a self-healing passive ability in Overwatch 2 next season.

Square Enix said that they used AI art for in-game icons in their upcoming title Foamstars.

Also, the Apple Vision Pro launches today, here’s Geoff wearing it.

The post The Bulletin: Xbox Developer Direct 2024 appeared first on Gamesline.