June 21, 2025 • 23 mins
In this episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew, Brett discusses the recent patch for Dune Awakening that removes vehicle ramming in PvP, as well as the community's positive reaction. He moves on to cover Battlefield 2042's new Mass Effect bundle and comments on Warner Brothers' restructuring of its leadership team, focusing on major franchises like Mortal Kombat and Harry Potter. Brett also touches on layoffs at Splitgate 2, Embracer Group's workforce reduction, GOG's new donation system, Xbox's collaboration with Zena Canary, and the latest updates on Battlefield Labs. The episode wraps up with reviews of the first-person shooter 'Kristol: Theater of Idols' and Bungee's delayed marathon reboot. Brett emphasizes the importance of prioritizing talent over diversity quotas in game development.
3 Fun Facts:
- In Dune Awakening, players used to "Goomba Stomp" others with ornithopters in PvP, repeatedly ramming to knock them out, until a recent patch removed this quirky tactic.
- The new shooter "Kristal Theater of Idols" has a wild mechanic—players have to sacrifice their own blood to reload guns, which affects their health.
- GOG now lets you voluntarily donate money when you buy games, with all donations supporting the preservation of classic games.
Key Themes:
- Dune Awakening PvP vehicle ramming patch
- Battlefield 2042 Mass Effect bundle criticism
- Warner Brothers leadership restructuring and direction
- Embracer Group layoffs and game cancellations
- GOG donation system for game preservation
- Upcoming Xbox classic games program
- Bungie’s Marathon reboot struggles and delays
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew and I'm your
host Brett
Deister.
Mmm, that's good. Alright, so Dune
(00:21):
Awakening has a patch which was released this week to
remove the ability to damage other players in PvP by ramming them
with their vehicles. Especially specific was the orithopters they called
the Goomba Stomp which was just stomp on you until you died. There's nothing
you could do because there's really no weapons that can actually kill the thing.
So it was a very annoying thing. This changes effects a popular
(00:44):
tactic used by players in the Deep desert. That's the end game. Prior to the
patch players could be knocked down into a revive state by being hit by an
ornithopter leading to repeated attacks while they self revived.
And then one of the creative director acknowledged this issue on Reddit
and indicated that the team was working on a fix. Community reaction to the
patch has been generally positive, which yes, because if you can't really
(01:06):
knock down ornithopter but it can basically knock you
down, it's it's not really fun.
Now some players express a desire for further changes such as vehicle taking damage from
significant impact. I would agree with this. I think that needs to be
something at least for the ornithopter. I think the
(01:27):
land bike I don't think it needs that much because those treads
decay pretty quick. But I think the ornithopter needs some type
of damage taken for that.
If you're going to keep on ramming somebody with it and you're going to be
doing a hard ram, yeah, you should be able
to do that. The article mentions that a large group of ornithopter players will still
(01:49):
pose a threat despite the change. Then there was an
AMA on Reddit about it and the deep desert will remain a PvP
area, but additional PvE content is being developed.
The executive producer stated that the game does not want to exclude solo
casuals or small players and the senior game director confirmed
that players do not have to engage in
(02:10):
PvP but may encounter hostile players
and there are no plans to change the PvP name. Nature
of the Deep Desert Currently the player base is in
the game disappear. If so if your player
base if you haven't really been logging back
in for 25 days then
(02:32):
it it's gone. Your base is gone. So please log
into your game and make sure that your base does not disappear
because if it disappears you're in trouble.
The game is described as a survival MMO PvP and
the community manager mentioned that a roadmap for future
plans will be published after the launch period. So we're still in the
(02:55):
launch period because it's still relatively new and so they're trying to fix issues
instead of actually making newer interesting things. I'm pretty sure they have a
lot of plans in place for things to come out, but this is
where we're at now. I'm glad that they're fixing the issue. I do think there
needs to be a small damage taken if you're going to keep on ramming people
like that to kind of signify that it will eventually just kill your
(03:17):
ornithopter. And that's usually a late game thing to
get anyways. I'm still kind of in the early ish game
where I have to be wary of
quicksand. Almost died four times to quicksand.
Easy fix is to get is to get out, get your
tool that you can pick up your land bike and run away from the quicksand
(03:39):
and don't die from it. But all in all, it's a
pretty fun game. I think the sword play is a little boring, and I think
the combat probably is the least interesting thing of the game.
I think everything else is very interesting except for the combat. It kind of
gets a little stale, a little dry.
But hey, all right. Moving on to
(04:01):
Battlefield 2042 is receiving a Mass Effect bundle
that includes the N7 themed skin for Specialists
and Weapons. The citadel bundle cost 3,000. Battlefield currency
approximately $25, requiring separate purchases of
2400 or 1-1100
VFC. Now
(04:24):
it looks interesting. I just don't play Battlefield
2042 anymore because what is the point anymore?
Because they aren't really updating it anymore. It doesn't really matter to me. So
if you like Mass Effect and you like Battlefield, this is probably the Match Made
in Heaven bundle for you. But for me there really is
no point to it. But that's just my opinion.
(04:48):
All right. Warner Brothers has restructured its leadership team to refocus
on major technical properties including Mortal Kombat,
Harry Potter, D.C. and Game of Thrones. Three studio
heads were promoted to senior vice president position. Sean
Hemrick, Steven Fori, and
(05:08):
yeah, I'm not even say his name. But another guy.
I'm terrible at names. I'm sorry. And if they're hard to pronounce is
Yves La La. I don't.
That's a big butcher right there. But Hemrick will
oversee Mortal Kombat. DC Games Last will
manage Harry Potter and Game of Thrones and Fenor will
(05:32):
handle game of publishing technology, technology customer
service, quality insurance and user research.
New leadership will report to the CEO of games and global streaming at Warner Brothers
Discovery and all teams under Warner Brothers will direct report directly to
the new vice presidents. No layoffs have associated with
a leadership change. Warner Brother Games recently closed three studios
(05:55):
Model Player First Games and Warner Brothers Games San
Diego citing a strategic change in direction.
A sequel to Hogwarts Legacy is confirmed. A new game
titled Game of Thrones War of Westeros was announced to set to launch
next year as a real time strategy game.
So another restructuring going to be interesting to see
(06:18):
if it's actually going to do anything, if it's actually going
to help. But right now the
biggest problem with this is
that they just have no games. They're like making games but they have
no games coming out in the foreseeable future.
They're making the Game of Thrones RTS. They already came out with Mortal
(06:41):
Kombat 1 and that's probably going to be updated for a little bit longer.
And they came out a few years ago with Harry Potter game
Hogwarts Legacy, which was a great game. They did have
a DC game called and Suicide Squad did not do
very, very well. They were going to do Wonder Woman
game. Excuse me, a Wonder Woman game. But
(07:05):
that did not do that didn't even come out at all.
Apparently it was so bad that they didn't even do it. They just basically
shuttered Monolith, which I think
the biggest problem right now is they already had a really great game that
they probably should have finished and let Monolith actually finish that one, which was
the Lord of the Rings game with
(07:28):
Talion. But yeah, that's never gonna see the light of day it seems like because
they're gonna focus on these instead of Lord of the Rings, which is another
really great franchise and they already had a really great franchise game that they could
have actually kept on doing, but they didn't do it for whatever
reason. And they came out with the Nemesis
system through the Shadows of War and
(07:50):
the Shadows of Mordor series game.
So we could have seen like them
using their patent on that technology. But yeah,
we're not going to see that at all. It just is.
All right, so the developer
of Splitgate 2 has announced announced layoffs, undisclosed number of
(08:12):
employees. The company announced the layoffs via a LinkedIn post. Stated
they parted ways with a small group of team members and the studio
is redirecting resources to improve the Split Gate 2 gameplay experience.
Based on community feedback early June Yeah, he made the Make
FPS games great again at the summer fest, which caused
controversy. No, it didn't. It caused controversy for like five people.
(08:36):
There was really no controversy. I
saw it. I'm like, okay, that's cool. I agree with the statement.
If you have a problem with that statement, you're either an idiot
or you need help because there is nothing wrong with that
statement. Don't you want things to be great? I do. A lot of
people do. So having a a
(08:59):
concern because it may be aligned with
Trump is the funniest crap I've ever seen. It
basically displays Trump derangement syndromes to the
max. And it's the funniest thing. You cannot get over it.
You hate a person so much that anybody else that uses a phrase that
makes something great again cannot use it because it will
(09:23):
invoke isms like
racism, xeno. Well, and. And BS too.
Xenophobia. All these things
that make no sense. But no, we can't say make something
great again because that would entail
Trump. It's the dumbest thing.
(09:46):
All right. Embracer Group has reduced its workforce by over 1800 people in the
past year. The company and annual release report was released detailing
internal headcounts. The PC console games
segment decreased from 6,404 employees to
4,901 18, a reduction of
1,486, just over a quarter. So that's three
(10:08):
months. That's a pretty heavy reduction.
The mobile Segment reduced from 1,081 to
743 employees. Entertainment Service segment
decreased from 771 to 738 employees. Total
workforce reduction amount to 1,857
people. Embracer turnover rate was 20%
(10:30):
with 560 voluntary departures and 517
dismissals. The restructuring program began in June
2023 as a proposed 2 billion partnership collapsed
with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Fund. The
previous report indicated a headcount reduction of
4532 people and the cancellation of 80
(10:53):
in development projects. The female workforce decreased from 30
to 27% because that's the most important thing.
The organizational changes related to
Asmondi spinoff. Embracer CEO
Lars is stepping down but will become the executive chair of the
board. Embracer has 464 IP
(11:16):
rights and is working on 108 game development projects.
The company plans to release 76 different games in the
financial year of 2025-2026, including
new IPs, sequels and remasters. GOG has implemented a new
system. Oh, never mind it's the next story.
So yeah, it's just battle round for
(11:40):
Embracer Group. Remember when they kept on like buying a bunch of studios and stuff
and it's like, oh, this is going to be cool. It's going to be new
games and stuff. And then, well, their
first few games out the door were just not good. And everybody's like, what is
this? And there were some that were okay, but for the most part they were
not good. And then you see the partnership fail with Saudi Arabia's
(12:00):
savvy games fund, which I don't know why they were banking on something like that.
That's why they had a huge spending spree. Because they're like, look, we'll get money
from the Arabs. And it's like, nope, you will not. Because you actually
have to make good games and you have to stop doing this
woke BS to actually make good games. So
good luck to you. I'll be interested to see. I'm still
(12:24):
really wanting to play Titanfall 2. Titanfall 2? No, Titan Quest.
There was Titan in there somewhere. Titan Quest 2. Titanfall
2 came out years ago. My bad. Titan Quest
2 I'm interested in. I'm still interested in Titanfall 2. To be honest with you,
I'm more interested in Titanfall 3. But that will never happen. EA.
(12:45):
But anyways, we'll see what
Racer Group does if there's actually a turnaround or there's going to be more layoffs
and there probably will be more unless they get their
act together.
All right, moving on to. GOG has implemented a new system that allows
users to donate when purchasing games. The donation system
(13:07):
offers users the option to contribute
preset amounts of any amount they choose. Donations are linked to
GOG's preservation program, which aims to keep older
games running on new hardware. The donation option applies to both new
and old games. So if
you want another reason why we hate tipping so much, here's another
(13:29):
reason why we hate tipping so much. I get it. And it's.
It's a valiant effort to keep games, especially old games, from
running on new systems. But we're inundated with
here's a donation, here's a tip, here's something or other
and nobody wants it anymore. I'm just gonna say nobody
wants this. The only people that want this are the businesses
(13:51):
and, or maybe some creators. But
I mean, we're buying the game, we're buying
games from your store that should be good enough for it. But I mean, at
least it's voluntary now. How pushy the voluntary is,
is Another question, But at least it's voluntary. That's the best thing I got
for that. All right. Xbox is reportedly collaborating with
(14:15):
Xena Canary development team. The collaboration
aims to create a classic program to bring original Xbox and
Xbox360 games to current consoles PC
and Game Pass. The program is expected to include visual and performance
enhancements for games. The launch of this program is anticipated to
coincide with Xbox 25th anniversary.
(14:39):
The information was shared by a known Xbox Game Pass leaker.
So this might be a good thing if they're done. Well,
no, Microsoft has done a pretty good job with their remasters. I mean, the
Halo Master Chief collection was pretty good. The Age of the Empire 2 kind
of thing where they did was pretty good. Their Age of Mythology remake
(15:01):
was good, and even the remaster, I think they did a Remaster two was
pretty good. So they have a pretty good track record doing it. I'm not quite
sure about the game Gears of War,
but we'll see. We'll see what they actually do with this. Oh, and
Skyrim. No, Oblivion. Sorry. Oblivion remake
was pretty, pretty good. Body
(15:24):
type A and body type B was stupid, but beyond that it was good
all right. New updates for Battlefield
6 so a new update of Battlefield Labs released on June 19,
2025. This includes support for Nvidia DLSS4 and the option to
disable the border around the capture zone. Interesting.
The watermark in the game has changed from pre alpha to
(15:47):
Alpha, so they've moved on and files related to the
Battle royale mode have been added in this update. There is an
expectation of news regarding the class system coming soon. The
next entry in the Battlefield series is scheduled for an official announcement this
summer. The game will feature a single player mode developed by
Motive Studios, influenced by TV shows and movies such as
(16:09):
Lioness and Civil War. Some footage from
Battlefield Labs have been shared online despite it not being intended for public
viewing. A short clip from the single player campaign of the Battlefield game
has been leaked, discovered by Dana Minor Temporal
Temporal Data Minor. The
footage is identified as a work in progress and is not gameplay
(16:31):
for a play for a playtest lacking traditional watermarks
from such tests. The clip reportedly shows a mission to destroy a
dam and tarish
a country that is far away. The campaign
is said to consist of eight missions plus a prologue set
(16:52):
in locations such as the one I Tried, I Butchered, Egypt,
the US and Gibraltar. There is currently no official release
date or title for the next Battlefield game. EA has announced a summer
reveal for the game, but the exact timing is unspecified.
And then so that this is what you have. We actually
may have a single player campaign that
(17:15):
it's going to be closely linked to Lioness and Civil War.
So it could be good, could be bad, could be gay and good game bad
because Lioness season two was all about that for some odd reason.
Not really quite sure why it was, but it was
anyways. Moving on to Kristal Theater of Idols is
(17:36):
a first person shooter game influenced by Bioshock and cult horror elements
from Resident Evil 4. The game requires players to
sacrifice their own blood to reload their guns, which affects their
health. Crystal is developed by Vermillion
Studios, which was acquired by embracer group in 2020 and is
published by Blumhouse Games. The game protagonist
(17:58):
is Gabriel, the captain of the Tess Del Sol,
who is sent to an island with a sea of
with a sea religion called
Tormentosa
to confront living Idol ST statues.
The game features a gothic nautical
(18:21):
setting, includes mechanics such as
harvesting blood from dead animals and finding health restoring
syringes. The game art development consists of around 20
people have worked on it for 5 years.
Looks interesting, looks good. I'm quite interested to see what they're going to
do with that with you have to reload using your
(18:43):
own blood. I think that brings an interesting dynamic that we haven't really seen in
first person shooter games. So this could be good.
All right, so the downfall of Bungie and or Marathon so Bungie
Marathon reboot has been delayed from its original release date
of September 2023 to an unspecified featured date. The
(19:04):
delay is attributed to feedback received from alpha
playtests that conclude in early May.
No release date has been announced, but Bungie plans to provide an update
later this fall fall regarding the game's progress and new release
date. Bungie aims to enhance the game by improving
survival elements, AI encounters and loot
(19:26):
rewards and combat strategy. The development team is
also focused on enhancing visual fidelity, narrative storytelling and
social experiences, including the addition of proximity chat.
Despite challenges, PlayStation previously reported strong early engagement with
Marathon. All right, what what we're seeing here is that this game was
just awful. No one was talking about this in a good way.
(19:49):
Everybody was like this game is okay. The AIM botting
is a little overhanded, the art direction
is weird and it's just an
okay arc. Raiders was talked about in a way more positive light
and played more than this game. This game
has have had issues.
(20:11):
It has a ton of issues of stolen
assets of stolen art, stuff from players with
with no monetary or even a hey
we got this ID visual idea from this person type of the thing
these stole assets and they tried to like make
it off as their own. Did not work very well. And this
(20:33):
is why where we're at the game is just not
appealing at all. They really just need to
redo the whole game, redo the whole art direction and just
make a good game. But they don't know how to do it
anymore. Seems
like Destiny 2 was kind of the last hurrah of Bungie
(20:56):
cuz they don't know what they're doing besides stealing stuff,
passing off on their own work. Big no, no.
We need to figure it out again. Probably should just drop all the woke
and look, look how good we are because every time a development team does that,
you know they've bled talent, you know they can't really make a game and
you know it's going to be awful when everything's about
(21:19):
image and not about the substance of the game. There
are problems with the game and we see seen it in real time
time and time again. Happened with Dragon Age, Veil Guard,
happened with Assassin's Creed Shadows. Now it's happening with this game, happened
with Concord and so on and so forth until
they figure out that hiring talent is better than
(21:41):
hiring for their black, Asian women or
whatever. Hire for hire the best person you can
to do the job, not higher whatever it is for
the diversity report that makes no sense
and it actually does not add any value to your bottom line.
Let's get back to common sense. The common sense is
(22:06):
care more about making a great game. You care more about look how much
statistics we have on who's working at our office and our
development team because it's stupid and nobody cares.
All I care about is you make a great game. Don't care how many women
are working there, don't care how many black people are working here, don't care about
how many white people, gay people, lesbians, non
(22:27):
existent, non binary people because you don't exist.
Just make a good game. That's all you have to do.
All right. Anyways, if you agree or disagree,
let me know with the comments below. But thank you once again for joining Digital
Coffee Gaming Brew. I really do appreciate it and join me next week as to
(22:48):
talk about what's going on in the gaming industry. All right guys, stay safe, get
to playing the games you want to play that actually are fun and see you
next week later.
And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Gaming Brew and I'm your
host Brett
Deister.
Mmm, that's good. Alright, so Dune
(00:21):
Awakening has a patch which was released this week to
remove the ability to damage other players in PvP by ramming them
with their vehicles. Especially specific was the orithopters they called
the Goomba Stomp which was just stomp on you until you died. There's nothing
you could do because there's really no weapons that can actually kill the thing.
So it was a very annoying thing. This changes effects a popular
(00:44):
tactic used by players in the Deep desert. That's the end game. Prior to the
patch players could be knocked down into a revive state by being hit by an
ornithopter leading to repeated attacks while they self revived.
And then one of the creative director acknowledged this issue on Reddit
and indicated that the team was working on a fix. Community reaction to the
patch has been generally positive, which yes, because if you can't really
(01:06):
knock down ornithopter but it can basically knock you
down, it's it's not really fun.
Now some players express a desire for further changes such as vehicle taking damage from
significant impact. I would agree with this. I think that needs to be
something at least for the ornithopter. I think the
(01:27):
land bike I don't think it needs that much because those treads
decay pretty quick. But I think the ornithopter needs some type
of damage taken for that.
If you're going to keep on ramming somebody with it and you're going to be
doing a hard ram, yeah, you should be able
to do that. The article mentions that a large group of ornithopter players will still
(01:49):
pose a threat despite the change. Then there was an
AMA on Reddit about it and the deep desert will remain a PvP
area, but additional PvE content is being developed.
The executive producer stated that the game does not want to exclude solo
casuals or small players and the senior game director confirmed
that players do not have to engage in
(02:10):
PvP but may encounter hostile players
and there are no plans to change the PvP name. Nature
of the Deep Desert Currently the player base is in
the game disappear. If so if your player
base if you haven't really been logging back
in for 25 days then
(02:32):
it it's gone. Your base is gone. So please log
into your game and make sure that your base does not disappear
because if it disappears you're in trouble.
The game is described as a survival MMO PvP and
the community manager mentioned that a roadmap for future
plans will be published after the launch period. So we're still in the
(02:55):
launch period because it's still relatively new and so they're trying to fix issues
instead of actually making newer interesting things. I'm pretty sure they have a
lot of plans in place for things to come out, but this is
where we're at now. I'm glad that they're fixing the issue. I do think there
needs to be a small damage taken if you're going to keep on ramming people
like that to kind of signify that it will eventually just kill your
(03:17):
ornithopter. And that's usually a late game thing to
get anyways. I'm still kind of in the early ish game
where I have to be wary of
quicksand. Almost died four times to quicksand.
Easy fix is to get is to get out, get your
tool that you can pick up your land bike and run away from the quicksand
(03:39):
and don't die from it. But all in all, it's a
pretty fun game. I think the sword play is a little boring, and I think
the combat probably is the least interesting thing of the game.
I think everything else is very interesting except for the combat. It kind of
gets a little stale, a little dry.
But hey, all right. Moving on to
(04:01):
Battlefield 2042 is receiving a Mass Effect bundle
that includes the N7 themed skin for Specialists
and Weapons. The citadel bundle cost 3,000. Battlefield currency
approximately $25, requiring separate purchases of
2400 or 1-1100
VFC. Now
(04:24):
it looks interesting. I just don't play Battlefield
2042 anymore because what is the point anymore?
Because they aren't really updating it anymore. It doesn't really matter to me. So
if you like Mass Effect and you like Battlefield, this is probably the Match Made
in Heaven bundle for you. But for me there really is
no point to it. But that's just my opinion.
(04:48):
All right. Warner Brothers has restructured its leadership team to refocus
on major technical properties including Mortal Kombat,
Harry Potter, D.C. and Game of Thrones. Three studio
heads were promoted to senior vice president position. Sean
Hemrick, Steven Fori, and
(05:08):
yeah, I'm not even say his name. But another guy.
I'm terrible at names. I'm sorry. And if they're hard to pronounce is
Yves La La. I don't.
That's a big butcher right there. But Hemrick will
oversee Mortal Kombat. DC Games Last will
manage Harry Potter and Game of Thrones and Fenor will
(05:32):
handle game of publishing technology, technology customer
service, quality insurance and user research.
New leadership will report to the CEO of games and global streaming at Warner Brothers
Discovery and all teams under Warner Brothers will direct report directly to
the new vice presidents. No layoffs have associated with
a leadership change. Warner Brother Games recently closed three studios
(05:55):
Model Player First Games and Warner Brothers Games San
Diego citing a strategic change in direction.
A sequel to Hogwarts Legacy is confirmed. A new game
titled Game of Thrones War of Westeros was announced to set to launch
next year as a real time strategy game.
So another restructuring going to be interesting to see
(06:18):
if it's actually going to do anything, if it's actually going
to help. But right now the
biggest problem with this is
that they just have no games. They're like making games but they have
no games coming out in the foreseeable future.
They're making the Game of Thrones RTS. They already came out with Mortal
(06:41):
Kombat 1 and that's probably going to be updated for a little bit longer.
And they came out a few years ago with Harry Potter game
Hogwarts Legacy, which was a great game. They did have
a DC game called and Suicide Squad did not do
very, very well. They were going to do Wonder Woman
game. Excuse me, a Wonder Woman game. But
(07:05):
that did not do that didn't even come out at all.
Apparently it was so bad that they didn't even do it. They just basically
shuttered Monolith, which I think
the biggest problem right now is they already had a really great game that
they probably should have finished and let Monolith actually finish that one, which was
the Lord of the Rings game with
(07:28):
Talion. But yeah, that's never gonna see the light of day it seems like because
they're gonna focus on these instead of Lord of the Rings, which is another
really great franchise and they already had a really great franchise game that they could
have actually kept on doing, but they didn't do it for whatever
reason. And they came out with the Nemesis
system through the Shadows of War and
(07:50):
the Shadows of Mordor series game.
So we could have seen like them
using their patent on that technology. But yeah,
we're not going to see that at all. It just is.
All right, so the developer
of Splitgate 2 has announced announced layoffs, undisclosed number of
(08:12):
employees. The company announced the layoffs via a LinkedIn post. Stated
they parted ways with a small group of team members and the studio
is redirecting resources to improve the Split Gate 2 gameplay experience.
Based on community feedback early June Yeah, he made the Make
FPS games great again at the summer fest, which caused
controversy. No, it didn't. It caused controversy for like five people.
(08:36):
There was really no controversy. I
saw it. I'm like, okay, that's cool. I agree with the statement.
If you have a problem with that statement, you're either an idiot
or you need help because there is nothing wrong with that
statement. Don't you want things to be great? I do. A lot of
people do. So having a a
(08:59):
concern because it may be aligned with
Trump is the funniest crap I've ever seen. It
basically displays Trump derangement syndromes to the
max. And it's the funniest thing. You cannot get over it.
You hate a person so much that anybody else that uses a phrase that
makes something great again cannot use it because it will
(09:23):
invoke isms like
racism, xeno. Well, and. And BS too.
Xenophobia. All these things
that make no sense. But no, we can't say make something
great again because that would entail
Trump. It's the dumbest thing.
(09:46):
All right. Embracer Group has reduced its workforce by over 1800 people in the
past year. The company and annual release report was released detailing
internal headcounts. The PC console games
segment decreased from 6,404 employees to
4,901 18, a reduction of
1,486, just over a quarter. So that's three
(10:08):
months. That's a pretty heavy reduction.
The mobile Segment reduced from 1,081 to
743 employees. Entertainment Service segment
decreased from 771 to 738 employees. Total
workforce reduction amount to 1,857
people. Embracer turnover rate was 20%
(10:30):
with 560 voluntary departures and 517
dismissals. The restructuring program began in June
2023 as a proposed 2 billion partnership collapsed
with Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Fund. The
previous report indicated a headcount reduction of
4532 people and the cancellation of 80
(10:53):
in development projects. The female workforce decreased from 30
to 27% because that's the most important thing.
The organizational changes related to
Asmondi spinoff. Embracer CEO
Lars is stepping down but will become the executive chair of the
board. Embracer has 464 IP
(11:16):
rights and is working on 108 game development projects.
The company plans to release 76 different games in the
financial year of 2025-2026, including
new IPs, sequels and remasters. GOG has implemented a new
system. Oh, never mind it's the next story.
So yeah, it's just battle round for
(11:40):
Embracer Group. Remember when they kept on like buying a bunch of studios and stuff
and it's like, oh, this is going to be cool. It's going to be new
games and stuff. And then, well, their
first few games out the door were just not good. And everybody's like, what is
this? And there were some that were okay, but for the most part they were
not good. And then you see the partnership fail with Saudi Arabia's
(12:00):
savvy games fund, which I don't know why they were banking on something like that.
That's why they had a huge spending spree. Because they're like, look, we'll get money
from the Arabs. And it's like, nope, you will not. Because you actually
have to make good games and you have to stop doing this
woke BS to actually make good games. So
good luck to you. I'll be interested to see. I'm still
(12:24):
really wanting to play Titanfall 2. Titanfall 2? No, Titan Quest.
There was Titan in there somewhere. Titan Quest 2. Titanfall
2 came out years ago. My bad. Titan Quest
2 I'm interested in. I'm still interested in Titanfall 2. To be honest with you,
I'm more interested in Titanfall 3. But that will never happen. EA.
(12:45):
But anyways, we'll see what
Racer Group does if there's actually a turnaround or there's going to be more layoffs
and there probably will be more unless they get their
act together.
All right, moving on to. GOG has implemented a new system that allows
users to donate when purchasing games. The donation system
(13:07):
offers users the option to contribute
preset amounts of any amount they choose. Donations are linked to
GOG's preservation program, which aims to keep older
games running on new hardware. The donation option applies to both new
and old games. So if
you want another reason why we hate tipping so much, here's another
(13:29):
reason why we hate tipping so much. I get it. And it's.
It's a valiant effort to keep games, especially old games, from
running on new systems. But we're inundated with
here's a donation, here's a tip, here's something or other
and nobody wants it anymore. I'm just gonna say nobody
wants this. The only people that want this are the businesses
(13:51):
and, or maybe some creators. But
I mean, we're buying the game, we're buying
games from your store that should be good enough for it. But I mean, at
least it's voluntary now. How pushy the voluntary is,
is Another question, But at least it's voluntary. That's the best thing I got
for that. All right. Xbox is reportedly collaborating with
(14:15):
Xena Canary development team. The collaboration
aims to create a classic program to bring original Xbox and
Xbox360 games to current consoles PC
and Game Pass. The program is expected to include visual and performance
enhancements for games. The launch of this program is anticipated to
coincide with Xbox 25th anniversary.
(14:39):
The information was shared by a known Xbox Game Pass leaker.
So this might be a good thing if they're done. Well,
no, Microsoft has done a pretty good job with their remasters. I mean, the
Halo Master Chief collection was pretty good. The Age of the Empire 2 kind
of thing where they did was pretty good. Their Age of Mythology remake
(15:01):
was good, and even the remaster, I think they did a Remaster two was
pretty good. So they have a pretty good track record doing it. I'm not quite
sure about the game Gears of War,
but we'll see. We'll see what they actually do with this. Oh, and
Skyrim. No, Oblivion. Sorry. Oblivion remake
was pretty, pretty good. Body
(15:24):
type A and body type B was stupid, but beyond that it was good
all right. New updates for Battlefield
6 so a new update of Battlefield Labs released on June 19,
2025. This includes support for Nvidia DLSS4 and the option to
disable the border around the capture zone. Interesting.
The watermark in the game has changed from pre alpha to
(15:47):
Alpha, so they've moved on and files related to the
Battle royale mode have been added in this update. There is an
expectation of news regarding the class system coming soon. The
next entry in the Battlefield series is scheduled for an official announcement this
summer. The game will feature a single player mode developed by
Motive Studios, influenced by TV shows and movies such as
(16:09):
Lioness and Civil War. Some footage from
Battlefield Labs have been shared online despite it not being intended for public
viewing. A short clip from the single player campaign of the Battlefield game
has been leaked, discovered by Dana Minor Temporal
Temporal Data Minor. The
footage is identified as a work in progress and is not gameplay
(16:31):
for a play for a playtest lacking traditional watermarks
from such tests. The clip reportedly shows a mission to destroy a
dam and tarish
a country that is far away. The campaign
is said to consist of eight missions plus a prologue set
(16:52):
in locations such as the one I Tried, I Butchered, Egypt,
the US and Gibraltar. There is currently no official release
date or title for the next Battlefield game. EA has announced a summer
reveal for the game, but the exact timing is unspecified.
And then so that this is what you have. We actually
may have a single player campaign that
(17:15):
it's going to be closely linked to Lioness and Civil War.
So it could be good, could be bad, could be gay and good game bad
because Lioness season two was all about that for some odd reason.
Not really quite sure why it was, but it was
anyways. Moving on to Kristal Theater of Idols is
(17:36):
a first person shooter game influenced by Bioshock and cult horror elements
from Resident Evil 4. The game requires players to
sacrifice their own blood to reload their guns, which affects their
health. Crystal is developed by Vermillion
Studios, which was acquired by embracer group in 2020 and is
published by Blumhouse Games. The game protagonist
(17:58):
is Gabriel, the captain of the Tess Del Sol,
who is sent to an island with a sea of
with a sea religion called
Tormentosa
to confront living Idol ST statues.
The game features a gothic nautical
(18:21):
setting, includes mechanics such as
harvesting blood from dead animals and finding health restoring
syringes. The game art development consists of around 20
people have worked on it for 5 years.
Looks interesting, looks good. I'm quite interested to see what they're going to
do with that with you have to reload using your
(18:43):
own blood. I think that brings an interesting dynamic that we haven't really seen in
first person shooter games. So this could be good.
All right, so the downfall of Bungie and or Marathon so Bungie
Marathon reboot has been delayed from its original release date
of September 2023 to an unspecified featured date. The
(19:04):
delay is attributed to feedback received from alpha
playtests that conclude in early May.
No release date has been announced, but Bungie plans to provide an update
later this fall fall regarding the game's progress and new release
date. Bungie aims to enhance the game by improving
survival elements, AI encounters and loot
(19:26):
rewards and combat strategy. The development team is
also focused on enhancing visual fidelity, narrative storytelling and
social experiences, including the addition of proximity chat.
Despite challenges, PlayStation previously reported strong early engagement with
Marathon. All right, what what we're seeing here is that this game was
just awful. No one was talking about this in a good way.
(19:49):
Everybody was like this game is okay. The AIM botting
is a little overhanded, the art direction
is weird and it's just an
okay arc. Raiders was talked about in a way more positive light
and played more than this game. This game
has have had issues.
(20:11):
It has a ton of issues of stolen
assets of stolen art, stuff from players with
with no monetary or even a hey
we got this ID visual idea from this person type of the thing
these stole assets and they tried to like make
it off as their own. Did not work very well. And this
(20:33):
is why where we're at the game is just not
appealing at all. They really just need to
redo the whole game, redo the whole art direction and just
make a good game. But they don't know how to do it
anymore. Seems
like Destiny 2 was kind of the last hurrah of Bungie
(20:56):
cuz they don't know what they're doing besides stealing stuff,
passing off on their own work. Big no, no.
We need to figure it out again. Probably should just drop all the woke
and look, look how good we are because every time a development team does that,
you know they've bled talent, you know they can't really make a game and
you know it's going to be awful when everything's about
(21:19):
image and not about the substance of the game. There
are problems with the game and we see seen it in real time
time and time again. Happened with Dragon Age, Veil Guard,
happened with Assassin's Creed Shadows. Now it's happening with this game, happened
with Concord and so on and so forth until
they figure out that hiring talent is better than
(21:41):
hiring for their black, Asian women or
whatever. Hire for hire the best person you can
to do the job, not higher whatever it is for
the diversity report that makes no sense
and it actually does not add any value to your bottom line.
Let's get back to common sense. The common sense is
(22:06):
care more about making a great game. You care more about look how much
statistics we have on who's working at our office and our
development team because it's stupid and nobody cares.
All I care about is you make a great game. Don't care how many women
are working there, don't care how many black people are working here, don't care about
how many white people, gay people, lesbians, non
(22:27):
existent, non binary people because you don't exist.
Just make a good game. That's all you have to do.
All right. Anyways, if you agree or disagree,
let me know with the comments below. But thank you once again for joining Digital
Coffee Gaming Brew. I really do appreciate it and join me next week as to
(22:48):
talk about what's going on in the gaming industry. All right guys, stay safe, get
to playing the games you want to play that actually are fun and see you
next week later.
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