Author: Game Infliction

DOOM Eternal is finally getting official mod support some four years after its initial release, id Software announced during today’s QuakeCon 2024 livestream.

According to a post on Bethesda’s Slayers Club blog, DOOM Eternal Update 6.66 Rev 3 adds the ability to opt into mod support via Steam’s beta branch. Support for the Microsoft Store version will be added “soon,” with no mention of a console version.

Ever since EA revealed that it was dropping the FIFA license, rumors have abounded that arch-rival 2K Sports is planning to pick up the mantle and make its own soccer sim. But in today’s earnings call, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said that any potential competitor to EA Sports FC would face numerous complications.

“I would just note with regards to the FIFA license, it does not bring along with it rights; it doesn’t come along with players, teams, or leagues,” Zelnick said. “So it’s not as simple, for example, as negotiating with the NFL, or the NBA, or MLB, where at most you have to negotiate with a league and a player’s association. So anyone who would want to compete in the straight ahead sim environment for soccer… you wouldn’t just have to address one particular brand license, there’s a whole lot more than that.”

Unlike American leagues like the NFL, international soccer consists of a complex web of teams, leagues, tournaments, and players, many of whom must be negotiated with individually. EA has largely cornered the market in that regard, locking up the rights to the Premier League, La Liga, and other popular groups with EA Sports FC. Konami spent years trying to chip away at EA’s dominance with Pro Evolution Soccer before finally pivoting to the free-to-play eFootball, leaving EA largely uncontested in the soccer market.

EA dropped the FIFA license in 2022 amid reports that the organization, which serves as the governing body for the various national associations around the world, was asking for more than $1 billion per four-year World Cup cycle. EA rebranded the series as EA Sports FC in 2023 with relatively few changes. Since then there has been speculation that Take-Two might take on the FIFA license, but there remain numerous questions about how it would approach the licensing for various teams and leagues.

The benefits to making an EA Sports FC competitor

Zelnick did point out that there are great potential rewards for developing a successful sim. “We’re very mindful that it’s incredibly difficult to build a great sim experience for console, it takes a long time, and if you do it right your users are very loyal and very embedded.”

College Football 25, which finally released to big player counts last month, spent close to four years in development as EA painstakingly negotiated with schools and players. Take-Two would face a similar challenge with a potential FIFA game, but without the added benefit of an established technological baseline unless its heavily repurposed tech from NBA 2K. Asked what its success might mean for Take-Two, Zelnick said that the company had taken notice of the revival’s success but that it had nothing to announce regarding a potential return to college basketball, whether in NBA 2K or elsewhere.

In the meantime, Zelnick was quick to remind listeners that Take-Two is already in the soccer business thanks to Top Eleven, which he called the “number one mobile soccer manager title.” He also shouted out NBA 2K, WWE 2K, and the rest of the publisher’s sports games, calling the various leagues “great partners.”

“From our point of view, we have a great sports portfolio… I’m sure we will make more announcements in due course,” Zelnick said.

He also commented on the Borderlands movie’s terrible reviews in comments exclusive to IGN, asking fans to “give it a chance,” and talked about the potential impact of the video game voice actor strike. For more, check out all the rest of the biggest games releasing in 2024.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.

Video game voice actors continue to strike in an effort to push gaming companies toward a deal on AI protections for all actors. But while CEOs at major publishers like EA and Take-Two don’t think the strike will have a short-term business impact, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledges that a “long-term strike wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

Speaking to IGN today ahead of the company’s Q1 earnings, Zelnick responded to a question about whether or not the strike would impact the company’s business broadly. Like EA CEO Andrew Wilson, he doesn’t expect an immediate impact to the business. That’s to be expected, given that technically games in production before August 25, 2023 are not officially struck work. While actors can still opt to express solidarity by refusing to work on them, it seems likely that most of Take-Two’s upcoming slate of games already has most of its acting work complete anyway. GTA VI, for instance, isn’t expected to be impacted.

But should the strike wear on for longer, potentially impacting projects signed since last year or which don’t have acting work captured yet, Zelnick admits it wouldn’t be a good thing.

“We deeply value our talent relationships. Historically, we’ve worked really successfully with all the guilds, including SAG-AFTRA. We’re going to continue to work hard to come to a resolution. We’ve already reached common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, so I’m confident we can find a way to get to a deal and we certainly hope that we will. That said, we do not expect the strike to have an impact on our business in the near-term. Obviously, a long-term strike wouldn’t be good for anyone.”

As Zelnick notes, SAG-AFTRA and game companies have come to an agreement on 24 out of 25 proposals, with the remaining proposal concerning use of artificial intelligence to create digital replicas of actors for use in games. Union members are demanding that companies disclose use of generative AI to create such models to actors and receive consent before doing so, as well as compensation for that use.

SAG-AFTRA claims that among other disagreements, companies are attempting to exclude certain types of actors from these agreements, while the union wants these agreements to cover everyone: face, motion, and voice actors. We’ve written elsewhere about what this strike and its impacts might mean for gamers.

Take-Two reported total net bookings of $1.22 billion for the quarter, within its guidance, and projects net bookings between $1.4 billion and $1.47 billion for Q2. Its full year guidance remains unchanged, expecting between $5.55 billion and $5.65 billion in net bookings. The company also reported that GTA V sales have exceeded 200 million, and Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold over 65 million units today. Its expectations for GTA 6’s release in Fall of 2025 remain unchanged.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.