Month: October 2024

Sundance audience award-winning documentary The Remarkable Life of Ibelin – which tells the story of quadriplegic World of Warcraft player Mats Steen – is set to debut on Netflix next month.
Norwegian gamer Steen battled the degenerative disease Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and passed away in 2014 aged 25. However, during his 25 years, he touched many lives via his World of Warcraft avatar, Ibelin.
“Unbeknownst to his relatives, Steen was able to form deep friendships across vast distances, because of his passion and pastime,” reads a Netflix feature on the documentary.

The Remarkable Life of Ibelin | Official Trailer | Netflix

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If it’s freebies you’re after, the Epic Games Store has another bunch for you to add to your calendar, with acclaimed photography puzzler Toem and zombie rogue-like The Last Stand: Aftermath both now confirmed to be getting the freebie treatment next week.

Starting with Toem, it’s a game of chill beats and quirky characters that sees players setting off on an expedition across a gloriously presented black-and-white world. Along the way, there are gentle problems to solve, all requiring creative use of your camera.

Christian Donlan called Toem a “cheerful modern classic” in his Essential review, championing its “playful challenges and a warm sense of place”.

TOEM – Accolades Trailer | PS5

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The Borderlands film has made headlines for, sadly, not the right reasons recently. The adaptation based on Gearbox’s games of the same name failed to capture the hearts (and wallets) of audiences on its August release, and was widely panned by critics.
And, now, we have a better idea of just how much of a commercial flop the Cate Blanchett -fronted film actually was. According to film industry data website The Numbers (via PC Gamer), the film’s theatrical release has closed with just $30,975,300 to its name.
While I certainly wouldn’t sniff at a little shy of $31m in my bank account, from a Hollywood big screen release perspective, that figure really isn’t great. To give more context, it was estimated Borderlands had a production cost of around $115m. Meanwhile, its marketing and distribution costs were said to be $30m.

Borderlands 4 – Official Teaser Trailer

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Floundering 5v5 shooter Concord is set to go offline indefinitely this Friday – just two weeks after its PS5 and PC release – as Sony and Firewalk Studios admit “our initial launch didn’t land”.

Concord – one of several games snapped up by Sony as part of its live-service push under former PlayStation boss Jim Ryan – was initially announced last May. Since then, the response has been tepid, culimating in less-than-stellar player numbers at launch, and subsequent estimates it only sold around 25,000 copies across PS5 and PC.

And now, Sony is taking the remarkable step of pulling the game offline this Friday, 6th September. In a post announcing the news on the PlayStation Blog, game director Ryan Ellis wrote, “While many qualities of the experience resonated with players, we also recognise that other aspects of the game and our initial launch didn’t land the way we’d intended.”

Concord – Gameplay Trailer | PS5 Games

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Dragon’s Dogma 2 director Hideaki Itsuno is leaving Capcom after “30 years and five months”.
Itsuno – who’s best known for his work on Dragon’s Dogma and Devil May Cry – says he’s leaving to “start developing a new game in a new environment”, with hopes his new projects will be “even more memorable than the ones [he has] created so far”.
Itsuno did not confirm at this time if he was leaving to join another studio, or if he planned to establish his own.

PlayStation live-service Concord won’t sell you a battle pass – would it be better if it did?

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Two and a half years after announcing The Witcher 4 – or rather the “the first instalment in the new Witcher saga”, as it’s now more officially known – CD Projekt has confirmed pre-production is almost over and that full production on the game will begin “soon”.

CD Projekt’s joint CEO Michał Nowakowski shared the news in a press release outlining the studio’s work so far in 2024, explaining development on the new Witcher game (codenamed Polaris) is “nearing a major milestone which will mark the end of the pre-production phase”.

In an earnings video accompanying CD Projekt’s latest financial results, chief financial officer Piotr Nielubowicz expanded on Nowakowski’s comments a little, saying, “The Polaris team, working on the next game in The Witcher saga, made substantial progress, which will soon enable us to wrap up pre-production and take this project to the full production phase.”

The Witcher 3 Next-Gen Patch 4.02 – The Best It’s Ever Been – PS5 vs Xbox Series X/S

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