Favorite Game:Game Research Institute

At a Glance Zeekerss’ co-op scavenging game has become extremely popular in the last three months, and may have the money to show for it. 2023’s breakout horror hit Lethal Company is believed to have sold 10 million copies since its Early Access release in mid-October. Push to Talk estimated both its sales milestone and gross revenue of $113.9 million. The latter was determined with the Boxleiter method, which considers user reviews, pricing, and Valve’s cut among its factors. With that same m ...

At a Glance The Batman: Arkham veterans set up a new studio that’s aiming for the triple-A space with a smaller staff on hand. Rocksteady Studios alums Jamie Walker and Sefton Hill have reportedly established a new studio. Per Polygon, it’s called Hundred Star Games and has already pulled in several Rocksteady staff. Hill and Walker exited the DC Comics game developer last year. The pair founded the studio in 2004, and Hill would go to be a key creative on its Batman: Arkham trilogy. Hundred S ...

At a Glance Ninja Theory is going strictly digital for Hellblade II so the game can be as the developers want it to be. When Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II releases on May 21, it’ll be digital-only release. Ninja Theory revealed its upcoming sequel will run $50 and won’t have a physical release. Other big Xbox exclusives like Starfield and Halo Infinite had physical editions, making this change notable. By going digital-only, the developer says it could make the game it wanted, “reflecting the sho ...

At a Glance On a global level, mobile titles like Honkai: Star Rail and Roblox were extremely popular with players throughout 2023. A new report from data.ai shows a slight dip in the mobile game industry in 2023. Player spending hit $107.31 billion last year (down 2 percent from 2022), continuing a downward trend that began in 2021. Despite those decreases, it’s up nearly 7 percent from 2020’s $100.53 billion.China led the charge on that front with $37.6 billion in player spending. It was ...

The upcoming DICE Awards offer one final look back and ceremony for 2023’s biggest games. Nominees for the 2024 DICE Awards have been revealed, and the list is headlined by 2023’s biggest titles. Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has the most nominations at nine overall. Along with Game of the Year, it’s nominated for Game Direction, Best Character (Miles Morales), and Animation. Remedy’s Alan Wake II trails behind with eight nominations, including Art Direction, Character (Saga Anderson), ...

Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner has raised $100 million to continue supporting the lucrative card battler while creating new titles. The Series B investment round was led by Griffin Gaming Partners and according to Second Dinner co-founder and chief development office, Ben Brode, will perhaps allow the studio to diversify its portfolio. “Most of Second Dinner is focused on Marvel Snap but we’ve also got a couple other things cookin’,” he said. Brode previously served as lead designer on Bli ...

At a Glance Should Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves do come to non-Xbox consoles, it Microsoft’s games strategy into question. Xbox exclusives Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush may be coming to non-Xbox consoles sometime this year. Sources speaking to Game File’s Stephen Totilo claim the free-to-play pirate game is being looked at for the PlayStation 5. Notably, it’d be the first time an Xbox game came to a PlayStation console. As for Hi-Fi Rush, rumors over the weekend claimed a marquis Xbox game w ...

At a Glance NVIDIA Ace lets studios use AI tools to fully generate in-game NPCs, from lip-syncing to conversations and animation. Ubisoft and Tencent have taken further steps to incorporate AI into game development. Both studios have begun to use NVIDIA’s AI-generation tool, Ace. The PC company broke the news itself at CES 2024. Both companies are some of the first major studios to use the technology, which also includes NetEase and Genshin Impact studio MiHoYo. Ace was formally announced las ...

At a Glance Seth “Dopply” Fulkerson decided to make Arzette after remastering the code of the often-mocked CD-i Zelda games. Fulkerson recruited key creatives who worked on the CD-i games to contribute to this passion project. It’s nothing new in the video game industry to hear that a developer was inspired by Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda series. But what if they’re inspired by two games that Nintendo itself would rather stay buried in the annals of history? Seedy Eye Software is answering ...

At a Glance In another life, Until Dawn would be a Sony London game that launched for the then-upcoming PlayStation Move controller. 2015’s Until Dawn was a breakout game for developer Supermassive Games, but the initial version once belonged to Sony’s London studio. Anonymous ex-staff speaking to Time Extension about how the title was once a launch game for the PlayStation Move. That report also gives a glimpse at its sudden cancellation and changing hands. “We were meant to be leading the c ...