Vampire Survivors join forces once more with KONAMI, this time featuring their notable Castlevania franchise, in a new DLC which many have been anticipating!
The Vampire Survivors have come a long way in their honorable hunt, and after joining forces with the Belmont Family, they are the closest they've ever been!
This all-out celebration has over 20 new characters, 40+ weapons including more whips than you can count on one hand, 30+ music tracks, and the BIGGEST stage we've made yet! Even though we're literally at Dracula's Castle, there's still zero vampires?
And the cherry on top: a man.
Available on October 31st on Steam, Xbox X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation5, PlayStation4, Nintendo Switch, Android & iOS
Pretty Sizeable new Vampire Survivors DLC coming 31st October
In late 2022, Netflix wooed Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny from Blizzard to build its SoCal studio. (Sonny had stints on Call of Duty and Sony Santa Monica before that).
In spring 2023, Netflix's SoCal studio added Joesph Staten, a longtime creative lead on Microsoft's Halo franchise at Bungie and 343 Industries. Staten was exiting the Xbox camp for Netflix to work "as creative director for a brand-new AAA multiplatform game and original IP," he said at the time. That move was widely covered in the gaming press, a sign that Netflix was very serious about this gaming thing.
That same spring, Team Blue also recruited art director Rafael Grassetti, who had nearly a decade of experience at Sony Santa Monica where he'd most recently been the God of War studio's overall art director.
As of October 2024, however, all three are gone and Team Blue has been shuttered, a Netflix rep confirmed to Game File.
Netflix declined to say how many people overall have been impacted by the closure, but Team Blue had included other seasoned veterans, too.
Its director of technology, Jerry Edsall, had more than a decade of experience in senior roles at Microsoft's The Coalition before joining Netflix's studio in spring 2023.
Gavin Irby, design director on Team Blue until this month, had a decade of experience in lead roles at Blizzard, Bungie and Jagex.
I saw this, and I looked up Keyword. I didn't realize how big they'd gotten. $841m in revenue in 2023, and that's a lot of properties:Keywords Studios have acquired Halo co-developer Certain Affinity, no value disclosed as of yet
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Keywords acquires Halo co-developer Certain Affinity
Keywords Studios has acquired US developer Certain Affinity for an undisclosed sum.www.gamesindustry.biz
Its Keywords second acquisition in the last few months after Wushu Studio in August
Keywords Studios plc is an Irish video game industry services company based in Leopardstown. Founded in 1998...the company completed its initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange in 2013.![]()
Keywords Studios - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Keywords Studios has acquired several other companies, including Certain Affinity, Blindlight, Climax Studios, Forgotten Empires, GameSim, Heavy Iron Studios, High Voltage Software, Smoking Gun Interactive, Tantalus Media, and Wicked Workshop.
List of acquisitions by Keywords Studios (filtered: development studios)
Name Acquired Business GameSim May 2017 Development D3T October 2017 Development Sperasoft December 2017 Development Fire Without Smoke May 2018 Development Snowed In Studios July 2018 Development Studio Gobo August 2018 Development Wizcorp April 2019 Development Marching Cube January 2020 Development Coconut Lizard June 2020 Development Heavy Iron Studios September 2020 Development High Voltage Software December 2020 Development Tantalus Media March 2021 Development Climax Studios April 2021 Development Wicked Witch December 2021 Development Forgotten Empires June 2022 Development Mighty Games August 2022 Development Smoking Gun Interactive September 2022 Development Hardsuit Labs May 2023 Development The Multiplayer Group December 2023 Development Wushu Studios August 2024 Development Certain Affinity October 2024 Development
I saw this, and I looked up Keyword. I didn't realize how big they'd gotten. $841m in revenue in 2023, and that's a lot of properties:
Ahhhh...well, that greatly decreases the chances Microsoft will purchase them. Private equity would sooner chop up an asset to piece it off during an opportune market cycle than sell it wholesale outright at a fair price.Whilst being in the middle of a being taken over themselves too
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Keywords Studios agrees £2.1bn takeover in further blow to London market
Dublin-based Keywords, which is listed on London’s junior Aim market, has backed a cash bid worth £24.50 a share from Swedish private equity firm EQT.www.standard.co.uk
Ahhhh...well, that greatly decreases the chances Microsoft will purchase them. Private equity would sooner chop up an asset to piece it off during an opportune market cycle than sell it wholesale outright at a fair price.
I was thinking Microsoft might acquire Keyword Studios itself, but if they get taken over by a private equity outfit, I suspect the chance of that suddenly becomes effectively nil.I did think for a while though that Microsoft would probably acquire Certain Affinity due to the amount of work they do on Halo and there is a lot of ex Halo era Bungie people there too
Reminds me of I think BMW when they wanted to charge a subscription for Seat warmers on a car you purchased. Insane.From monitoring employee menstrual cycles to now getting physical biometric data of their players:
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Has Built-in Support for Better Audio Tech That Costs $20 for 5 Years - IGN
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has built-in support for a third-party audio tool that charges $20 for improved sound.www.ign.com
Activision/Blizzard just need to burn down to the ground at this rate.
New game unveiled called [REDACTED} set in the Prison from The Calisto Protocol