Month: August 2019

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 took the “go big or go home” approach to sequel design. Despite all of its bombastic, over-the-top action and world-ending stakes, however, the one scene that stuck with most people, and drummed up plenty of media coverage in the process, was the now infamous No Russian mission.

In the early campaign level, players control undercover CIA agent Joseph Allen as he attempts to infiltrate a Russian terrorist cell. Unfortunately, part of blending in with the villainous group means joining them as they shoot up an airport full of innocent civilians. You can choose to gun down the fleeing crowds of people yourself, or sit back and watch it unfold. Either way, playing through the scene is unsettling and uncomfortable, especially considering the sheer number of mass shootings that occur every year. Fans and critics alike have always questioned whether the scene was necessary to tell Modern Warfare 2’s story, and this division existed within developer Infinity Ward, too.

“No Russian polarized this studio,” art lead Joel Emslie says in an interview with Game Informer. “There was a side of the studio that felt that it should be played from the perspective of a security guard that got caught up in it, then there was the other side that liked the way it was going. I remember doing all the civilians for No Russian, and I just wouldn’t … there was a point in time where we were discussing how gory we would get with the people who were getting hit. I pulled back, and I said, ‘You don’t need it. People are getting tagged and their squibs are going off; it’s all good.'”

Emslie showed his wife and she was adamant the scene needed more gore, so he went back and changed it. “My wife looked at it and she’s all like, ‘Where’s all the blood and guts?’ and I’m like, ‘We didn’t need to do it,'” he explains. “She called me out. She calls me on my bulls***. It’s pretty funny. She looks at things in a different lens. She’s a lawyer. She doesn’t mess around, but she’s a good gut check on stuff.”

Based on what we know about the upcoming reimagining of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, the next game in the series could feature similarly unsettling and controversial moments. Campaign gameplay director Jacob Minkoff, and studio narrative director Taylor Kurosaki, don’t think this will be restricted to one or two particular scenes, though. “People ask us that internally over and over. They’re like, ‘Where’s your blankety blank scene?'” Minkoff says. “There are so many of those at this point that people have stopped asking that question.”

“The answer is it’s the whole game,” Kurosaki adds. “I could come up with a list of like eight different things that it could be. Who knows what it will be.”

“I suspect there will be a number of different moments and people will call out their different favorite moments,” Minkoff says. “In the same way that in [Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare], people called out the nuke and the aftermath sequence where you crawl out of the helicopter, or they called out the AC-130, or Crew Expendable, or All Ghillied Up. There were a bunch of those, and I feel very confident that we have a bunch of those.”

We’ll know for sure when Call of Duty: Modern Warfare launches for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on October 25.

Gears 5 is coming soon, and that means support for the previous game, Gears of War 4, is coming to a close. In a blog post, developer The Coalition said it is a “bitter-sweet” moment to say goodbye to some features of Gears of War 4. As fans may recall, Gears of War 4 was the first brand-new Gears game that The Coalition developed after taking over the series from Epic.

“We’re incredibly proud of what Gears 4 achieved, and how our time together with the community over the past three years has shaped what Gears 5 has become. Thank you truly, deeply, for all your support since October 2016. It’s meant the world to us,” the studio said.

Looking ahead, Gears of War 4’s Ranked Season will come to an end in January 2020. “With the vast majority of the game’s population moving to Gears 5, we will be removing all aspects of Ranked play from Gears 4,” The Coalition said.

Taking the place of Ranked play in Gears of War 4 will be new playlists for the Core and Competitive modes. Given the player population will likely be relatively low given people may shift to Gears 5, The Coalition is expanding the latency and skill rating rules. Additionally, there will no longer be quit penalties when Ranked is finally removed.

Additionally, The Coalition will no longer add new Events to Gears of War 4. “Our focus is on Gears 5 to our maximum capabilities,” the studio said. The achievements “Better Than Bacon” and “I Like Em Crispy” seemingly require Events, so after January 2020 the studio will update the game so the Midnight Omen and Flaming Weapon skins can be crafted.

What’s more, The Coalition said it plans to look into the possibility of adding a permanent XP boost for all of Gears of War 4. However, “At this point we are unable to promise this change,” The Coalition said.

Gears of War 4’s servers will remain online for the foreseeable future, so those who want to keep playing still can.

Gears 5 launches on September 10, but the game unlocks four days early for people who buy the game’s Ultimate edition or subscribe to Xbox Game Pass. The game is available to pre-load right now, and you can see GameSpot’s rundown of the Gears 5 server start times, launch maps, and more.

Yakuza 7 has officially been revealed, bringing with it new protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, and a turn-based combat system. The game is due to be released in 2020 for Western markets.

Sega has officially taken the wraps off the next Yakuza game–and it contains a major change for the action series. During a press conference today series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi unveiled the new game as Yakuza 7. It aims to be a “watershed” moment for the Yakuza series, Nagoshi said.

The game, which is set in Yokohama, features Ichiban Kasuga as the main character. Kasuga apparently is a big fan of Square Enix’s Dragon Quest series, and Sega was able to work out a deal to be able to talk about the Dragon Quest franchise in Yakuza 7.

In a big change for the Yakuza series, it appears the combat now plays out in a turn-based system. You can see this in action in the video below. Interestingly, the developers, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, released an April Fools video this year that joked that the Yakuza combat would change to turn-based. As it turns out, it really is.

Nagoshi said during the press conference that he hopes fans will welcome the change to the combat system, and if they don’t, the developers will consider switching back with the next release.

Yakuza 7 will release on January 16, 2020 in Japan for PlayStation 4. The game will be released in the West later in 2020. You can check out the first trailer in the embed above.

The newly launched Yakuza 7 website contains numerous new images for the game. Click through the images in the gallery bellow to see them full size.

We’ll have more details on Yakuza 7 in the time ahead, so keep checking back for more.

Industry veteran John Carmack, who founded Doom and Wolfenstein studio id Software, has spoken up to share his thoughts on the video game industry’s long-standing practice of long working hours.

Appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Carmack started off by saying the video game industry is unlike other big technology businesses where employees are taken care of “incredibly well” with good wages and lots of benefits. The video game industry offers a generally worse employment package, and not only that, but the hours are longer, Carmack said.

“You look at the game industry; it doesn’t pay as well, there is less job security, and they work you a lot harder,” he said. “There is the problem of the fact that when you have an industry–and this has been the way for artists forever–where if you’ve got something that people are passionate about and want to be involved in, supply and demand works its way and you wind up in a situation where they don’t have to be paid as much.”

On the subject of long working hours in game development, Carmack said this level of passion and enthusiasm–while controversial–can lead to phenomenal results.

“The other side of that is it allows products that otherwise couldn’t exist to exist by people working at that level in a way that maybe couldn’t be sustained in other industries,” he said. “Probably many of the greatest things that were ever made in gaming were only possible by people throwing themselves at that level at it.”

“You look at the game industry; it doesn’t pay as well, there is less job security, and they work you a lot harder” — John Carmack

Carmack went on to acknowledge the debate and discussion surrounding over-working. For years now, there have been calls for game developers to unionize, but largely it has never happened. For his part, Carmack said he doesn’t agree with those who want to see laws enacted to prevent people from working “that hard.” Carmack acknowledged that his perspective is privileged and different because he co-founded a company, id Software, that would go on to make incredibly popular, seminal games. Still, he said he maintains that he believes it’s a good thing when people commit to a project and work more than what other people might think is reasonable.

“There is some serious debate about it. Some people despise that about the industry, that nobody should work that hard. There are people that think there literally should be laws that should prevent people from working that hard,” Carmack said. “I always have to argue against that. There is a power to obsession where being able to absolutely obsess over something … Instead of work/life balance, it’s your life’s work. Everybody will point back [to me] and say, ‘Well that worked great for you; you’re the founder of a company; you were in a position where you got to make your own decisions.’ But is that OK to say for the 19-year-old out of a game dev program that’s being overworked? I have to always be aware that my view into the industry is obviously very colored by my experiences. I never actually worked inside of one of the big EA or Activision studios.”

He continued: “It’s possible they have some valid criticisms, but I still still come down on–I think it’s great when people throw themselves at [their work] beyond what other people think is reasonable. They have free will; they’ve chosen to do that. If that’s what they think is going to help them get close to their goals, I’m not going to try to make that impossible for them.”

If people want to work long hours, that’s their decision, Carmack said. The common response to this is that even if an employer doesn’t require hours beyond what’s normal, there is an expectation to. Carmack doesn’t buy into this, however; he said people who work long hours–at least at the companies he’s been involved in–are largely choosing to do so on their own volition.

“I think it’s great when people throw themselves at [their work] beyond what other people think is reasonable” — John Carmack

“I’m not involved in the HR departments of all of these companies, but the ones that I have been familiar with or that I’ve known people doing that, largely they come back and say, ‘These people are choosing to do this.’ The rejoinder is, ‘Oh it’s a toxic culture that makes people want to choose to do that,’ but I definitely don’t buy into that sort of social engineering level of things. If they’re doing it, they’ve agreed that they’ll wave the flag and say I’m doing this because I care so much about this. I don’t think that’s a problem.”

Looking back in time, Carmack said he remembers that id Software programmer Michael Abrash–who had a family–would work “reasonable” hours when he was there in the ’90s working on Quake. Carmack and other higher-ups at id Software worked longer hours, often past midnight, but no one gave Abrash grief because they were aware of his contribution and value to the team and project. He said he sees the same being true today at game companies. If employees demonstrate their value during work hours, then there is no reason they should feel compelled to stay longer, Carmack said.

Carmack said he still works around 13 hours per day in his role at CTO of Oculus, which is owned by Facebook. He said he sees diminishing returns when he works longer than this, and he added that he needs eight hours of sleep per night to function at his best.