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Total War: Warhammer 3 Announced for PC, Coming Late 2021

Total War Warhammer 3

The Creative Assembly has announced that Total War: Warhammer 3 is inbound. It will release in late 2021 for PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store. The story this time focuses on The Realm of Chaos and the Ruinous Powers – Nurgle, Slaanesh, Tzeentch and Khorne – that preside over it. Check out the trailer below.

Each entity is unique in their own ways, from Nurgle's plagues to Khorne representing blood and slaughter. However, watching over the boundary between the human realm and Realm of Chaos are the kingdoms of Kislev and the empire of Grand Cathy. How will they deal with the Chaos threat, especially when an "ancient figure" is seeking power?

There are hints of other joining with this figure to cause havoc or standing with the forces of good to fight it. Pre-orders are currently available and net the free "Race Pack" DLC. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months especially on whether the Mortal Empires campaign will cover the entire trilogy or not.

PS5 – 87 Percent of Users Subscribed to PlayStation Plus

PlayStation Plus

In its Q3 fiscal year 2020 results, Sony reported quite the number of successes. The PS4 had shipped 115 million units worldwide while the PS5 shipped 4.5 million units as of December 2020 end. In terms of services, PlayStation Plus has also been doing well with 47.4 million subscribers as of December 31st.

According to Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad on Twitter, 87 percent of PS5 users subscribe to PlayStation Plus. Total gameplay time for PlayStation users in December was also 30 percent higher year-on-year. As such, PlayStation Plus offered benefits like the PlayStation Plus Collection for PS5 players, which contains a number of big-name PS4 titles like Bloodborne, Persona 5 and so on.

The fact that PS5 versions of titles like Bugsnax and Maneater were offered for free also didn't hurt.  This month's free offerings include Destruction AllStars and Control Ultimate Edition so it should be interesting to see how the service performs by the end of the fiscal year. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Quantic Dream Opens New Studio in Montreal

Quantic Dream

Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream definitely has grand ambitions as it looks to build to the future. It was nearly two years ago that the developer announced that it would be shifting gears as it sought to become a global, multi-franchise, and multiplatform developer, with plans for self-publishing its games in place.

Now, the developer has announced that it has opened up a new studio, in Montreal, Canada. The studio is being led by industry veteran Stéphane D'Astous, who has previously worked as Director of Operations at Ubisoft and General Manager at Eidos Montreal, among several other places.

As per D'Astous, Quantic Dreams' Paris and Montreal studios will work hand-in-hand and will both contribute to the same projects, rather than each working on its own individual games, with the Montreal studio focusing on gameplay and mechanics.

"Our approach is definitely 'hand in hand; we all work on the same projects, which require a great deal of cohesion between the two studios," D'Astous says. "Here in Montreal, we're responsible for developing the game mechanics and all the gameplay. We can only succeed if we work as a team."

Quantic Dream Montreal has also recruited Yohan Cazaux as Gameplay Director. Cazaux leaves his previous position at Ubisoft, where he had been for nearly fourteen years, and was involved with the development of multiple Assassin's Creed titles, including Black Flag, Origins, and Valhalla.

As per Quantic Dreams' careers page, he Montreal studio is still looking to fill several other major positions, including Lead Programmer, Senior Level Designer, Senior Gameplay Animator, and more.

As for what games we can expect to see from Quantic Dream in the future, that's anyone's best guess right now. The developer has said in the past that it has some "exciting" things in the works, while founder David Cage has also said that he would like to experiment with shorter games. Read more on that through here.

64% of All EA Game Sales on PS4 and Xbox One Over the Last 12 Months Were Digital

EA Logo

Digital media has been capturing more and more of the marketshare in recent years, and its growth has been impressive to see. Over the last year in particular, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, digital sales of games in the industry have been overtaking physical sales by significant margins, and EA – a company that is one among several publishers that has been pushing digital sales – has seen impressive growth as well.

Recently, in its latest quarterly financial report, the company confirmed that over the period of the last twelve months, of all the games it sold on the PS4 and Xbox One, 64% were sold digitally instead of through retail. Over the preceding twelve month period, that number stood at 49%, to give you an idea of the significant jump that COVID-19 has brought about in digital sales.

During their quarterly fiscal report, EA also confirmed that their subscription service EA Play now has nearly 13 million active players, following its integration with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The company also talked about its future plans for the Star Wars IP, while also confirming that Battlefield 6 will be revealed this Spring.

EA Feels "Very, Very Good" About BioWare's New Leadership

bioware

The last few years haven't been the best for BioWare, and with the back-to-back critical and commercial failures of Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, the legendary developer's stock has certainly fallen lower than ever. With multiple major games in development and internal changes at the studio, however, it seems EA is confident in what the future holds for BioWare.

Speaking during their latest quarterly investors call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson acknowledged the fact that BioWare has had some blips in recent years, but that with a new Mass Effect and a new Dragon Age in development, EA feels "very, very confident about their future road map."

"That is an incredible studio filled with incredible people who do incredible work," Wilson said. "And I think that from the outside wall, there have been some blips in their delivery over the last couple of years, but that has come as a result of them pushing deeply into innovation and creativity. And we feel very, very confident about their future road map, and we've talked about games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect in their future."

Speaking about BioWare's recent internal leadership changes, with general manager Casey Hudson and Dragon Age series executive producer Mark Darrah having left the studio, EA feels "very, very good about the ongoing leadership" that's now in place.

"With respect to Casey and Mark leaving, again, both good friends of mine," Wilson said. "We have tremendous respect for both of them. But this happens in the natural course of creative organizations from time to time. And we feel very, very good about the ongoing leadership of that studio and the many people who come to work every day to deliver great innovation and creativity."

To conclude, Wilson spoke about the upcoming Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and the positive reception it has received from series fans, saying that EA is encouraged by what the studio is delivering and will continue to deliver.

"We look forward to sharing more about what's coming from BioWare in the near future," he said. "And you will have just seen our Mass Effect trilogy Legendary Edition announced, and that has been extraordinarily well received by BioWare fans. And so we're encouraged by what that studio will continue to deliver."

Other than the aforementioned projects, BioWare continues to work on an overhaul of Anthem. Read more on that through here.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition Won't Include Mass Effect 3's Multiplayer

Mass Effect Legendary Edition (1)

Despite the mixed reception to Mass Effect 3's ending, one of its more surprising successes was multiplayer. As a Horde-mode style mode where up to four players fought waves of AI foes, it offered numerous classes and races along with different objectives and weapons to earn. Sadly, despite Mass Effect: Legendary Edition remastering the original trilogy, it won't see the return of Mass Effect 3's multiplayer.

Speaking to Game Informer, environment and character director Kevin Meek said that, "I feel strongly that we've chosen the things that are what the majority of our fans were most passionate about. On the topic of multiplayer, it was just really hard. Getting all of the online systems working and functionality would have been another large chunk to do but at the same time, there are a lot of other logistics involved. The economy is built completely differently. Then questions came up like, 'Do we support it post-launch? What about people who are still playing multiplayer today? Do we try to find a way to somehow do crossplay between the PS3 and PS4?'"

It may not sound like a big deal but there are issues that can arise from trying to get two different game clients to work together (like with Warcraft 3: Reforged). Since the overall project would have faced set-backs, BioWare ultimately made the decision not to include multiplayer.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is out on May 14th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC with compatibility for Xbox Series X/S and PS5 (which will offer better visual fidelity). Along with visual improvements to all three games, it will also have 4K resolution, 60 FPS and HDR support. Mass Effect 1 has also been heavily "modernized" with improved controls and expanded locations while character creation has been "unified" across all the titles. For a better comparison of the remasters versus the older games, head here.

EA's Star Wars Titles Have Generated $3 Billion in Revenue

Star Wars Battlefront 2

Electronic Arts may no longer have exclusive rights to develop Star Wars titles but its output has still been impressive. CEO Andrew Wilson revealed during an earnings call with investors (transcript via Seeking Alpha) that the company's deal with Disney resulted in $3 billion revenue till date. The first title, Star Wars: Battlefront, launched in 2015.

It was followed by Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order with Star Wars: Squadrons being the most recent. Collectively, the publisher's Star Wars titles have sold 52 million copies till date across all platforms. If that wasn't enough, free to play mobile title Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes generated $1 billion on its own.

When asked about EA producing fewer Star Wars titles due to the loss of exclusivity, Wilson said, "I don't think you should imagine that the fact that some other people will build some Star Wars games is going to change our commitment to that IP or our ability to build the appropriate number of games." The publisher noted several weeks ago that there were a "number" of unannounced Star Wars games in the works so it should be interesting to see what's next.

In the meantime, Ubisoft Massive is working on an open world Star Wars title. Rumors also indicate that a new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic title is in development, though EA isn't handling it. Stay tuned for more details and announcements in the coming years.

EA Play Now Has Nearly 13 Million Active Players

EA Play

EA have made some big moves with their subscription service, EA Play, over the last year or so. The service is available across multiple platforms, from Xbox and PlayStation to Steam and their own client, and recently, was also made available to all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers on console for no additional cost (with PC integration coming soon as well).

And it seems they're reaping the fruits of those efforts, with a significant jump in their numbers. During their recent quarterly fiscal earnings release, EA confirmed that EA Play now has nearly 13 million active players across all the platforms that the service is currently available on.

Speaking about the service, EA CEO Andrew Wilson highlighted the growing value of subscription models.

"We're also expanding our lead in subscriptions," Wilson said. "The groundbreaking integration of our EA Play service with Microsoft Game Pass has accelerated our subscription business, with nearly 13 million players now active in our service across four platforms – Xbox, PlayStation, Steam and our EA client. With more players valuing the subscription model, and with our scale across platforms and content, we are building a strong, growing business with recurrent revenue."

As of just November 2020, EA Play had 6.5 million subscribers, which means the deal with Xbox and integration with Game Pass Ultimate has led to a massive jump in numbers.

FIFA 21 Comes to Stadia on March 17, EA Sports Renews UEFA License

fifa 21

Stadia might be shutting down its first party studios, but Google have every intention (at least for now) to keep supporting the platform and bringing in more third party releases. Last year, EA confirmed that they would be bringing FIFA over to Stadia, and now, we know exactly when that is going to happen.

In a press release, EA Sports has confirmed that FIFA 21 will be releasing for Stadia on March 17. In addition to that, the publisher also confirms that multiple "mobile offerings" are also in development for the purposes of "expanding football video game access."

EA also confirms that the FIFA franchise has now collectively sold 325 million units to date, and that more people are playing FIFA 21 right now as compared to FIFA 20 "at this point in their respective product cycles."

Last but not least, EA has also confirmed that it's signed an extension of its exclusive UEFA license, which means all UEFA competitions (including the likes of the Champions League and the Europa League) will continue to be represented in FIFA games in all their glory as part of the "multi-year" deal extension.

FIFA 21 is currently available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC, as well as a Legacy Edition release on Nintendo Switch.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Developer Explains Xbox Series X/S Console Exclusivity

Warhammer 40K Darktide

Fatshark have delivered two excellent first person action games back-to-back with Warhammer: End Times – Vermintide and Warhammer: Vermintide 2, and soon, they'll be following up on that with the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. When it launches though, Darktide won't be available on all platforms at once, and at launch, the game is going to be an Xbox console exclusive.

So what exactly is the reason for that? We recently got the chance to interview Fatshark, speaking with CEO Martin Wahlund, technical producer Mikael Hansson, and Darktide's game director Anders De Geer. When asked about why the game is launching as an Xbox console exclusive, the developers expressed their satisfaction with their partnership with Microsoft (Vermintide 2 launched on Xbox One a few months before PS4, and a few months after PC), before adding that a launch on Xbox Series X/S and PC only is easier to manage than a simultaneous launch on multiple platforms.

"We have worked with Microsoft for many years, and they are a great partner," the said. "We are very happy with what we've been doing together with them with Vermintide 2, so now we're building on that and will be doing more exciting things with them in the future. Also, it's no secret, releasing on multiple platforms takes time, and we are ensuring that we can do a simultaneous release to PC and Xbox this way."

In the same interview, the developers also spoke about the Xbox Series S, which they feel won't affect game development too much in spite of the gap in specs between it and the Xbox Series X. Read more on that through here.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is due out some time this year for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Our full interview with its developers will be going live soon, so stay tuned.