Author: Game Infliction

Five ex-Criterion and Need for Speed developers, including former GM Matt Webster, have founded Fuse Games, a AAA studio focused on “blockbuster spectacle and player-centric innovations in social gameplay, self-expression, and creativity”.

Joining Webster, who will serve as the new studio’s GM, are head of content Steve Uphill, head of production Pete Lake, head of operations Alan McDairmant, and head of technology Andrei Shires, according to Eurogamer. The quintet of developers departed Criterion in December with over 90 combined years of experience at the prolific racing studio.

Fuse Games will develop for consoles and PC. Despite the developers’ experience with racing games, Webster told GI.biz the team hasn’t committed to a genre for its debut: “Obviously arcade racers and open world racers are what we know very deeply,” they said.

“But we have played around in other genres over the years, including Battlefront, Battlefield… VR. We know what we are good at, and that spans a broad range of things now. Once we select our genre, we want to lead that genre.”

Webster and his colleagues are looking to set up shop in Guildford, the same UK town Criterion calls home. The staff has already been built up to 17 employees.

The developers left Criterion just weeks after the studio shipped its latest Need for Speed game in December. IGN’s Need for Speed Unbound review praised its bold new style while noting its lack of innovation.

Jordan covers games, shows, and movies as a freelance writer for IGN.

Danish developer IO Interactive made a name for itself over two decades ago when it released Hitman: Codename 47, the first in a long line of games starring everyone’s favorite sardonic assassin with a barcode tattooed on the back of his bald head. The series has spawned over half a dozen games, two major motion pictures, and lots of commercial success and critical acclaim.

Now, however, with the most recent Hitman game trilogy completed and all folded together under the Hitman: World of Assassination umbrella, IO Interactive is moving on to two other projects: a James Bond 007 game – of which little is known about so far – as well as a new online fantasy-RPG, which looks like it will come after Bond and we know even less about. Hitman, the studio says, is on hiatus for now.

All of this preamble is to set up what I’m about to say, and that is this: Microsoft, if it isn’t already, should be taking a long, hard look at IO Interactive as its next potential acquisition target – regardless of whether or not the Activision-Blizzard deal is approved by regulators, but especially if it isn’t. The fact is, there aren’t a lot of independent AAA game development studios left on the market. Embracer Group bought Gearbox (and a whole bunch of others), Sony took Bungie off the market, Microsoft has spent the past several years acquiring the likes of Obsidian, inXile, and Playground, etc.

To be fair, IO’s prowess outside of Hitman is, for now, relatively unproven. The original Xbox third-person strategy shooter Freedom Fighters was awesome, but that was a long time ago. The two Kane & Lynch games were also a long time ago, and they weren’t awesome. However, the studio seems like the perfect fit for James Bond, and if it works, that could develop into a long-term partnership with the licensor. The online fantasy-RPG is more of a wild card, but it’s so different from anything the studio has ever done that it’s bound to be, at the very least, a project that has creatively energized the IO team.

As such, I’m not sure there’s a better bang-for-your-buck acquisition target out there than IO. Of course, that’s if they even want to be bought. They were owned by Eidos Interactive (later Square Enix) for many, many years, but the studio eventually negotiated its independence. That it has not only survived but thrived in the years since speaks to a well-managed organization. Microsoft would be wise to snap them up – again, if the studio is even willing to sit down at the negotiating table – and add hundreds of talented developers as well as one proven franchise (in a genre Xbox currently has no presence in), one potentially huge licensed game that could be to Xbox what Goldeneye was to Nintendo, and one fantasy-RPG that, well…OK, I guess Xbox already has plenty of in-house RPG talent. But hey, too much is never enough, right?

No doubt Phil Spencer has already picked up the phone and called IO Interactive at some point, but on the off chance he hasn’t, I certainly hope he will. I’m hard-pressed to think of a more talented studio that’s capable of delivering AAA success that’s not already been gobbled up by some other larger publisher or investment group. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see what happens with the Activision-Blizzard situation first, but after that, I look forward to seeing what Microsoft does next.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Arkane Studios has shared the official story trailer for its upcoming co-op shooter Redfall which shares the mad science origins of the game’s vampire apocalypse.

The lengthy three minute trailer (below) opens with an optimistic message from a character called Ava, who says a drop of her blood was promised to “free people from sickness and death”.

This seemingly turned into a dangerous experiment that resulted in her death, however, with the extracted blood not just healing people and granting immortality, but turning them into vampires too. These vampires took over the town of Redfall, which quickly collapsed into a broken society led by gangs of the savage monsters.

Some of the stronger vampires are also introduced in the trailer, suggesting that Redfall will be separated into four areas with vampire leaders at the helm of each. These include The Hollow Man, a winged vampire with protruding organs; Bloody Tom, a massive, muscly vampire; Miss Whisper, who seems to have branch-like growths all over her body; and the Black Sun, suggested to be the most powerful of all.

Various gameplay clips also featured in the trailer, showing how up to four players can take on the town at once to defeat facilities full of the vampires in a ton of creative ways.

Arkane announced earlier in March that Redfall will support cross-play, meaning players can team up regardless of platform, though its barrier to entry is raised in other ways as Redfall will become one of the first Xbox first party games to cost $70 when it launches on May 2.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer and acting UK news editor. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Kirby’s Dream Land 2 has joined the Nintendo Switch Online collection along with BurgerTime Deluxe, Side Pocket, and Xevious.

Nintendo shared its March 2023 NES, Super NES, and Game Boy Updates for its Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in a YouTube video that turned the spotlight on the new additions, which are available on both the Basic NSO and Expansion Pack tiers.

Players will be able to explore the Rainbow Islands in Kirby’s Dream Land 2 and feast on arcade action in BurgerTime Deluxe, both of which are joining the Game Boy library, while also putting their skills to the test in Side Pocket, now in the SNES collection, and Xevious, in the NES library.

Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games were added to the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service in February, with classic Game Boy games available to those with the Basic NSO subscription, and Game Boy Advance games going to Expansion Pack subscribers.

The Expansion Pack for Nintendo Switch Online caused some controversy when it launched last October with players initially unhappy with the performance of the service, however, the games did play at 60Hz in all territories and more improvements have been made since.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.