Author: Game Infliction

Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus games for August 2024: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (PS4 and PS5); Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach (PS4 and PS5); and Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (PS4).

In a new PlayStation Blog post, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Director of Content Acquisition & Operations Adam Michel revealed that all three games will be available to active PlayStation Plus subscribers starting Tuesday, August 6, and have until Monday, September 2, to redeem these digital copies. PS Plus subscribers who have yet to claim the free games for July 2024 (Borderlands 3, NHL 24, and Among Us) have until August 6 to redeem those games as part of their PS Plus subscription.

LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is a compilation of video games representing all nine installments in the Skywalker Saga sub-trilogies, starting with A New Hope and concluding with The Rise of Skywalker. It also includes additional characters and DLC characters based on other Star Wars shows and projects, including The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

In our review of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, which we awarded an 8 out of 10, my colleague Tristan Ogilvie wrote: “LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga provides some rollicking reimaginings of Star Wars’ most iconic moments and seats them inside a series of interplanetary playgrounds that are dense with discovery and entertaining diversions.”

Five Nights at Freddy’s Security Breach is a horror game released in 2021 and is the eleventh installment in the widely popular Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise.

Security Breach is set in a mall. Players control a boy named Gregory, who finds himself trapped in Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. He must survive the night by evading hostile animatronic mascots and other enemies.

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights is an indie ARPG. It was originally released in January 2021 as a Steam Early Access title before a full release in June. Players control Lily, a young priestess who is looking to unravel the mystery regarding a destroyed kingdom of Land’s End.

Its release became quite a hit for Indie games, with Gematsu reporting in March 2022 that the game had sold over 600,000 digital copies across the globe. In February 2024, during a Nintendo Direct showcase, a sequel, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, was announced and released on March 24, 2024, for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Destiny developer Bungie has today announced significant cuts at the studio that have seen 220 people, or 17% of the studio’s workforce, let go.

The cuts affect every level of the company, including most of the Sony-owned studio’s executive and senior leader roles, Bungie boss Pete Parsons said in a post on Bungie.net. “Today is a difficult and painful day,” Parsons added.

Departing staff will be offered “a generous exit package” that includes severance, bonus, and health coverage, Bungie promised.

Parsons blamed the cuts on the rising costs of development, “industry shifts,” and “enduring economic conditions.” Because of this, Parsons insistsed, Bungie has had to make “substantial changes” to its cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on live service looter shooter Destiny and the upcoming Marathon.

The cuts come after what was seen as the successful launch of Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape. Parsons acknowledged this in his post, but said they were necessary “to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable financials.” Parsons also said the cuts were made “after exhausting all other mitigation options,” although he failed to say what they were.

The 220 layoffs come alongside the integration of an additional 155 roles, or 12% of Bungie’s workforce, into parent company Sony Interactive Entertainment over the next few quarters. Parsons said this move saves “a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force.”

That suggests that if Sony hadn’t taken on these 155 roles, 375 staff would have lost their jobs today, and that the actual reduction in Bungie’s workforce over time will be substantially more than 17%, at around 34%.

Meanwhile, Bungie is working with PlayStation Studios to spin out one of its incubation projects, an action game set in a brand-new sci-fi universe, to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios “to continue its promising development. ”

“This will be a time of tremendous change for our studio,” Parsons said.

Parsons went on to explain how Bungie got to this point, confirming that the studio had been “running in the red” after its financial safety margins were exceeded following delays to both The Final Shape and Marathon and a rapid expansion that “stretched our talent too thin.”

Over 850 staff remain at Bungie building Destiny and Marathon, Parsons said.

Here’s the statement in full:

This morning, I’m sharing with all of you some of the most difficult changes we’ve ever had to make as a studio. Due to rising costs of development and industry shifts as well as enduring economic conditions, it has become clear that we need to make substantial changes to our cost structure and focus development efforts entirely on Destiny and Marathon. 

That means beginning today, 220 of our roles will be eliminated, representing roughly 17% of our studio’s workforce.  

These actions will affect every level of the company, including most of our executive and senior leader roles.   

Today is a difficult and painful day, especially for our departing colleagues, all of which have made important and valuable contributions to Bungie. Our goal is to support them with the utmost care and respect. For everyone affected by this job reduction, we will be offering a generous exit package, including severance, bonus and health coverage.

I realize all of this is hard news, especially following the success we have seen with The Final Shape. But as we’ve navigated the broader economic realities over the last year, and after exhausting all other mitigation options, this has become a necessary decision to refocus our studio and our business with more realistic goals and viable financials.

We are committing to two other major changes today that we believe will support our focus, leverage Sony’s strengths, and create new opportunities for Bungie talent.

First, we are deepening our integration with Sony Interactive Entertainment, working to integrate 155 of our roles, roughly 12%, into SIE over the next few quarters. SIE has worked tirelessly with us to identify roles for as many of our people as possible, enabling us together to save a great deal of talent that would otherwise have been affected by the reduction in force.   

Second, we are working with PlayStation Studios leadership to spin out one of our incubation projects – an action game set in a brand-new science-fantasy universe – to form a new studio within PlayStation Studios to continue its promising development.  

This will be a time of tremendous change for our studio.

Let’s unpack how we ended up in this position; it’s important to understand how we got here. 

For over five years, it has been our goal to ship games in three enduring, global franchises. To realize that ambition, we set up several incubation projects, each seeded with senior development leaders from our existing teams. We eventually realized that this model stretched our talent too thin, too quickly.  It also forced our studio support structures to scale to a larger level than we could realistically support, given our two primary products in development – Destiny and Marathon. 

Additionally, in 2023, our rapid expansion ran headlong into a broad economic slowdown, a sharp downturn in the games industry, our quality miss with Destiny 2: Lightfall, and the need to give both The Final Shape and Marathon the time needed to ensure both projects deliver at the quality our players expect and deserve. We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red.

After this new trajectory became clear, we knew we had to change our course and speed, and we did everything we could to avoid today’s outcome. Even with exhaustive efforts undertaken across our leadership and product teams to resolve our financial challenges, these steps were simply not enough.  

As a result, today we must say goodbye to incredible talent, colleagues, and friends.

This will be a challenging time at Bungie, and we’ll need to help our team navigate these changes in the weeks and months ahead. This will be a hard week, and we know that our team will need time to process, to ask questions, and to absorb this news. Today, and over the next several weeks, we will host team meetings and town halls, team breakout sessions, and private, individual sessions to ensure we are keeping our communication open and transparent. 

Bungie will continue to make great games. We still have over 850 team members building Destiny and Marathon, and we will continue to build amazing experiences that exceed our players’ expectations.   

There will be a time to talk about our goals and projects, but today is not that day. Today, our focus is on supporting our people.

In March, multiple sources told IGN that Bungie was in the midst of shifting around its creative leadership on Marathon, including removing long-time Bungie designer Christopher Barrett from the game director role. IGN learned he was being replaced by former Valorant game director Joe Ziegler, who left Riot Games for Bungie in 2022.

At the time, IGN was told that Bungie was pouring resources into getting Marathon out the door. The game’s direction had shifted somewhat under Ziegler’s new leadership, one source said, including moving away from custom player characters in favor of a selectable cast of heroes.

There were also internal fears and rumors that layoffs would immediately follow the release of The Final Shape, with one source saying “nothing adds up” and “something will need to happen to curb costs unless The Final Shape does so well to cover the gap and people can move to Marathon.”

Unfortunately, those fears have now been realized.

Bungie has found itself rocked by a number of major shake-ups in recent years that have tanked morale at the studio and left its future uncertain. Sony officially acquired the studio mid-2022, with the promise it would largely retain a semblance of freedom as an independent subsidiary. Sources told IGN that’s largely remained true, but Bungie has struggled to meet key financial targets, with Destiny 2 significantly underperforming last year.

In October, Bungie laid off roughly 100 of its then-1,200 employees amid greater cost-cutting measures that saw Marathon delayed to 2025 and employee benefits slashed, further damaging the mood internally.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Microsoft has revealed a new transparent Xbox controller that rekindles memories of the OG Xbox era: the Sky Cipher Special Edition. It’s available to preorder now at the Microsoft Store for $69.99, with a release date of August 13.

In a post on Xbox Wire, Daniel Ruiz, Sr. Marketing Manager, Xbox Accessories, said the Sky Cipher features a transparent blue design “complemented by metallic features and silver interior parts that shine through from inside, exuding an aura of sophistication and futuristic appeal.”

Leaning into the nostalgia for console generations gone by, Microsoft’s video promoting the new transparent controller begins with the OG Xbox bootup animation. Perhaps Microsoft plans to release a transparent console next?

Going back and taking it forward

Introducing the Sky Cipher Special Edition Xbox Wireless controller. Pre-order now: https://t.co/G9ebMwE4Kn pic.twitter.com/yUz7IpPQR8

— Xbox (@Xbox) July 31, 2024

Here’s the official blurb:

Elevate your experience and style with the Sky Cipher controller. Stay elegantly on target with Sky Blue metallic triggers and a matching D-pad surrounded by a dark blue accent. Refine your game with two-tone thumbsticks featuring Sky Blue bases and dark blue tops. Hold on to the action with rubberized, Sky Blue grips on the back case. Looking closely at the hand grips, you can see the rumble pack vibrate and react to your gameplay.

Otherwise, the Sky Cipher Special Edition is the same Xbox Series X and S wireless controller Microsoft has sold for years, and includes USB-C connectivity, a 3.5mm audio jack, and up to 40 hours of battery life.

Alongside the reveal of this controller is the announcement that the Sky Cipher introduces a new packaging design for Xbox controllers “that embodies our commitment to reducing product carbon footprint.”

Braid developer Jonathan Blow has said the recently released anniversary edition of the indie puzzle platformer has sold “horribly,” and indicated he is now struggling to employ staff full-time.

Blow, who also created The Witness, catapulted into the upper echelons of indie video game development after Braid enjoyed enormous success on Xbox Live Arcade in 2008. It’s since become known as one of the greatest indie games of all time, with a number of perfect review scores under its belt.

16 years later, in May 2024, Blow released a remaster with fully repainted artwork, new puzzles, and in-depth commentary, across PC via Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, Android, and iOS, with the mobile version released by Netflix to those with an active subscription. The Anniversary Edition was announced during Sony’s State of Play event in August 2020.

As surfaced by a user on ResetEra, a YouTube channel called “Blow Fan” published a compilation of commentary from Blow on Braid, Anniversary Edition’s sales performance, made during a number of livestreams in the months since launch. The picture Blow paints here is clear: Braid, Anniversary Edition has flopped.

In one stream dated June 17, Blow said Braid, Anniversary Edition had sold “horribly.” “It has sold like dogs**t compared to what we need to make for the company to survive,” he continued. “So the future is uncertain, let’s put it that way.”

Then, on July 21, Blow was asked again about sales. “No, they’ve been terrible,” he replied. “Utterly terrible.”

In another stream dated July 22, said releasing Braid, Anniversary Edition on so many platforms “made a difference, but the problem is most of those platforms are f***ing dead now.”

“Steam is easily still our biggest platform,” he continued. “There would have been something to be said for just not porting to half those platforms.

“It’s a really interesting thing that we did. We did commentary in a way that nobody’s ever done it, at a much more thorough level than anybody’s ever done it. And at some point, you just have to know that what you did was a good thing, even if the world doesn’t really acknowledge it. And this is one of those cases, I think.”