🎮 Beyond Good & Evil 2, Dead Rising Remaster, Mobile AAA... (2024)

Hello friends,

Today is June 27th 2024 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌

In today’s news:

• 🎮 Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still coming

• 🎮 Dead Rising Remaster

• 🎮 AAA Mobile games are not having the best days

• 🎮 State of Decay 2 Devs deserve more recognition

• 🎮 Dr Disrespect’s backlash story

• 🎮 Why do AAA Games Take So Long?

• 😄 Personal Update

All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️

Let’s dig in!

Does anybody remember it? It’s a game that was teased almost 10 years ago on E3 2017 by Ubisoft. It gained some traction and people (such as myself) rejoiced to see a new instalment in this kind of forgotten game world. After that, we’ve seen an early gameplay footage and then nothing…

The game went into a long hiatus with only slight mentions being shared with the public. For example, there were multiple news stories about restarts and team changes over the years, and almost everybody assumed that this one was dead and buried already.

But with the Beyond Good & Evil 20th Anniversary Edition hitting the shelves this week, Ubisoft finally decided to break the silence and say that:

Yes, Beyond Good & Evil 2 is still in development, and we cannot wait for you to discover more about Jade’s past in the 20th Anniversary Edition

So, it’s great news for the fans, though I’m sure that after almost a decade of development, it doesn’t look at all like the initial concepts and trailers. So we’ll have to wait and see some new announcements, gameplay reveals and details as we haven’t heard much besides that it’s “still coming”.

Have you played the first game? What do you think about the sequel?

And another game in the long line of recent remakes and remasters. Capcom announced this week that they are working on a remaster of Dead Rising, a 2006 game that is arguably the best in the series.

If you haven’t played it, here’s the deal. It’s a third-person zombie shooter with a twist. The story revolves around Frank West who is a freelance photographer and photojournalist who has covered many world events, wars, and other big stories. Looking for the next big scoop, he stumbles onto some strange events happening in the small town of Willamette, Colorado and discovers a zombie outbreak.

The most interesting thing is that once you get into the game, you have a fixed timer of 3 in-game days. During these days you need to uncover as many details behind what’s happened as possible and get out of there alive. It’s a bit annoying at times just because so many games let you explore the world freely without putting any pressure on you, but it all makes sense in this plot. Oh, and also, it allows you to craft all sorts of stylish weapons to dismantle any threat that stands in your way. For example, you can combine a chainsaw with a two-sided paddle and mow through zombies with a double chainsaw.

I haven’t played the latest two games in the series, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one back in the day. And I’ll be looking forward to this one!

Do you remember that commercial posted by IGN when the iPhone 15 Pro was hitting the shelves?

Well, it turns out this was a great concept, but nothing more. According to the recent numbers shared by mobilegamer.biz, these games bombed fascinatingly hard.

All these premium games have the same concept, you play a free trial version of the game for a bit and then you hit with a progression paywall that you can pass only by purchasing a game in the App Store. According to reports, Assassin’s Creed Mirage, for example, has been purchased 3000 times with 100k in downloads. RE4 has been purchased 7000 times with 300+k in downloads. And let me tell you, it’s not a great conversion rate.

It’s worth speculating that with numbers like this, what’s the point of porting these games? None of the games displayed in this commercial are designed to be played on a mobile phone, even if we are talking about the latest iPad. I mean, I played first-person shooters on my iPad and let me tell you, it’s not a great experience.

Let’s crunch some numbers. The latest iPhone that can even run these games costs about 1.5-1.7 CAD. PlayStation 5 can be bought for about 800. A 24-inch monitor you can buy for about 300-400 and it’s not even the cheapest one. These games have almost the same price tag in both the App Store and the PS Store with the latter one having regular sales and giveaways. I wasn’t always great at math, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense however you look at it from a gaming perspective.

I’d suggest to these studios to not waste their time and if they want to do a mobile game to consider doing one that is designed to be played and experienced on mobile.

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A story shared by Insider Gaming. It's a story about Undead Labs granting a fan’s wish by adding his late father in State of Decay 2.

The whole recap is shared by a user on Reddit:

So my dad died a few years ago and I'm one of the many who are obsessed with this game. So... I sent the devs a message asking to put him in the game. And they did what they could, which means just adding his name to random survivors. 3 years later and I found HIM. not just his name. But his traits, everything about him. This will always be my forever community.

I think I’ve already mentioned that I’m a big fan of the series. Well, big is maybe a wrong word, but I like it very much and I’ve played through both the first and second one quite extensively (about 40+ hours each). But I’ve started respecting these guys even more now. IMHO, after things like that, devs deserve real recognition.

It’s a great example of how gaming companies can show their fans that they really care. A simple gesture like this can go a long way in the community and I’m genuinely glad for the fan who got to this point in the game and shared this touching story 🥲

This news probably won't rock your boat if you don’t know who this guy is. But this is extremely popular individual that gained a lot of traction during the battle-royale era playing games like PUBG and Fortnite. He was frequently compared to Shroud who really popularized the genre on Twitch and was one of the faces of said platform for some time. He is probably one of the most successful streamers, both in terms of financials and popularity. Until this weekend, apparently.

You see, he was permanently banned on Twitch in 2020. And for a long time, no one knew what actually happened. The only thing that was known is that both Twitch and Dr just parted ways, but nobody pursued any legal action or otherwise. But we know now.

Cody Conners, a former higher-up at Twitch, suddenly decided to share some details of this departure on June 21, claiming that Dr Disrespect got banned because he “got caught sexting a minor” and trying to “meet up with her at TwitchCon.” And thus began a huge sh*tstorm for a famous streamer that is still not over.

Following these events, Disrespect decided to take an indefinite pause in all his streaming activities and take a step back from all the publicity. Nobody know what exactly is going to happen later, but I doubt that it’s the last time we are seeing him on screen.

If you want to know more, Kotaku kindly summarized the whole thing.

I’ve watched a couple of his streams but never really got his overconfident and co*cky persona, and I’m not really Twitch kind of guy. But this news is just disgusting. Because of all the hush-hush that’s been going around his departure from Twitch it just makes sense and he is not really denying these allegations which makes the whole thing even more disturbing. But it’s not the first time a really famous person got their skeletons revealed to the public and most definitely not the last…

Quite an interesting video dedicated to game development.

Mark Darrah, an Executive Producer in Bioware who’s been responsible for most of the Dragon Age games and is currently working as a consultant on the new Dragon Age: The Veilguard has shared a bit of details about why AAA games take so long to make, why the early announcements and so much more.

I won’t dive into all the details, as I think that anybody who’s interested in game development or always frustrated that the games take too long to hit the market, this video is just for you.

The answers may surprise you 😉

For a person who’s never worked on a AAA title, I found a lot of interesting insights and things to think about. As a fan of Dragon Age and a Producer, it’s great that some of the veterans of the industry don’t shy away from sharing their knowledge and experience with the younger generation. The highest recommend of all!

My vacation is progressing smoothly and a bit non-productively. But I’ve managed to catch up on a lot of work-related activities that I’ve been putting off. And I’m thinking about putting one of them into a post.

For example, as part of my personal development, I’m creating a skill matrix for a Producer that my manager will use to grade me and then we will discuss the steps I need to take to improve and grow as a Producer.

Also, we are planning to see the latest A Quiet Place movie tomorrow, so that’s exciting! 😶

This is all the news I have for you folks today.

Thanks for making it this far! 🙌

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Have a great week!

Alex from Gamedev Relay.