The Algorithm Age

Neil Druckmann will not have anything to do with season 3 of The Last Of Us TV show, as he returns to work at Naughty Dog full-time. Naughty Dog is one of the most respected video game developers in the world but they’re certainly not the most prolific. They haven’t made a completely new game since The Last Of Us Part 2 in 2020 and they only announced Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet as recently as last December. Despite very little of it having been shown, the fan response so far has been muted and so with another secret game also in development, studio head Neil Druckmann has announced he’s stepping away from The Last Of Us TV show at HBO and won’t be involved in the third season. Perhaps not coincidentally, he’s taking his leave after a less rapturous reception for the second season, which started to deviate considerably from the plot of the original game – which Druckmann himself co-wrote. ‘Now is the right time for me to transition my complete focus to N...

EA is allegedly spending a huge amount of money to ensure Battlefield 6 is as popular, if not more so, than Call Of Duty . While EA hasn’t officially shown much of its next Battlefield game, dubbed Battlefield 6 by fans, some people have been able to try early builds of it through private test sessions. Unsurprisingly, screenshots and videos from these sessions were shared online , against EA’s instructions, but they did generate positive buzz among fans; something the series desperately needed after the underwhelming Battlefield 2042 . The strong first impressions belie a tumultuous development, with reports suggesting that developers are worried EA is setting its expectations too high. In fact, it’s said the company hopes Battlefield 6 will attract at least 100 million players, over an undisclosed period of time. This comes from a report by Ars Technica , which spoke with current and former EA employees about Battlefield 6’s progress, with ‘very few people’ ...

Quick Links Edens Zero Wuchang: Fallen Feathers Lost Soul Aside Borderlands 4 Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Digimon Story: Time Stranger Pokemon Legends: Z-A The Outer Worlds 2 Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault Pathologic 3 The Witcher 4 The Elder Scrolls 6 Dragon Quest 12: The Flames Of Fate Role-playing games have been a staple of the gaming industry for more than three decades. Each month, the genre tends to welcom...

The Thursday letters page reacts badly to the Xbox layoffs, as one reader agrees that Rematch is not real competition for EA Sports FC. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@.co.uk Blame game I think these latest job cuts will be the final straw for many people when it comes to Microsoft . They have been failing so badly for so long it’s got to a point where I think they’re already irrelevant for a lot of folks, but this has got to be the final straw. Or at least it should be, because the final straw should be Phil Spencer, and all his horrible friends, leaving Xbox and brand new management coming in (or Microsoft just shutting it down, which is actually looking increasingly likely in the long term). I just do not understand why this man still has a job. When hundreds of other developers get dumped for the crime of simply existing why is Phil Spencer, who has overseen two failed generations of consoles, still in charge and appeari...

The future of The Last of Us is set to be very different after creator Neil Druckmann announced he will be stepping away from the series. Based on the video game series of the same name, The Last of Us stars Pedro Pascal as Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie in a post-apocalyptic world. The acclaimed series, which returned for a second season earlier this year , follows groups of survivors 20 years after fungal virus infects large swathes of humanity. While the show has a mixed reception among its biggest fans right now , critics still love the HBO series and the series is cited as an example of how to adapt video games into TV shows. This transition from game to screen was helped by Druckmann, 46, who wrote and directed both The Last of Us and The Last of Us Part II before creating the TV show. But whatever a third season looks like for the series, Druckmann won’t be involved after announcing his intention to step away from the hit zombie horror (via The Ank...

The next batch of Xbox layoffs could be the worst so far, with an industry insider predicting studio closures as well. It’s been reported for some time that Microsoft is planning another major wave of layoffs throughout the company and a couple of days ago it was claimed that the Xbox division would be amongst those impacted. These layoffs will supposedly happen by the end of June, but previously no exact figures were given for how many people would be affected. If a new rumour is to be believed though, Xbox could lose upwards of 2,000 employees – approximately 10% of its entire workforce. The prediction comes from respected game designer George Broussard, who previously co-founded Apogee Software, better known nowadays as 3D Realms, and was one of the creators behind the Duke Nukem games. In a Bluesky post from earlier this morning, Broussard claims to have heard ‘internal developer stuff’ from within Microsoft, with anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 people expect...