Gaming Briefs Wearing Boxers February 20th, 2026
Well it’s been a minute, or two, or
a month. So many things happened. SO MANY GODDAMN THINGS. HOLY HELL, AND HOLY
HELL EVEN DURING THE WRITING OF THIS, SO MANY THINGS KEPT HAPPENING.
As more and more keeps coming out about Ubisoft's current state, it's pretty clear they're on the type of fire comparable to the mines of
Centralia, Pennsylvania, Highguard came out, and then IMMEDIATELY died, then
had this weird conversation surrounding it about it was everyone else’s fault
the game died, as they fired most of the staff… two weeks after release. A BIG
Shakeup at X-box, Nintendo does something No one can complain about but will.
Meta does something EVERYONE will complain about.
That said, let’s go into some stuff
that caught my oh-so-limited attention.
On January 21st, 2026,
Ubisoft did a lot. In a press release they announced they were delaying 7
upcoming games, shuttering two studios (The Division’s Massive Entertainment
Stockholm and Halifax studios), and outright cancelling several games including
the Prince of Persia remake that looked… oh SO good when they last showed it. Absolutely
was what was going to save the company.
In the press release, they covered
how they will be changing how the company runs, with the creation of “Creative
Houses” so simplify organization and creative throughput, allowing teams, money, and
resources to be allocated to each different “Creative House” as needed.
I have no idea what any of this means in corporate terms, but I’m sure this will help put out the absolute dumpster fire that the company is going through, surely.
FFS, right as I’m in the process of
editing too: An interview with Yves Guillemot on Variety has him going into
more detail about some of these changes.
Speaking of cancelled things: Sony
has announced it is shuttering BluePoint Games in March. Bluepoint Games, who
have previously worked on fantastic remakes of both Shadow of the Colossus and Demon
Souls, and they were supposedly working on some sort of God of War game that
was cancelled last year when Sony shifted back from its overwhelming
amount of live service games. What they were currently working on is unknown but it is DEFINITELY cancelled now.
I feel bad now for making fun of
all the Bloodborne fans who were looking forward to continued rumors of the next
State of Play SURELY having its PC release announced. This includes me.
Meta (formerly Facebook) Closed
several game studios behind their push into VR. Armature Studio (Who ported
Resident Evil 4 to the Meta Quest 2), Twisted Pixel (Comic Jumper, ‘Splosion
Man, Marvel’s Deadpool VR) and Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath 1 and 2 for the
Meta Quest).
This news comes after how many
years of VR just not getting nearly as much adoption as Meta would have
probably liked, leading to them cutting over a Thousand jobs from Meta’s VR
management, Reality Labs.
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Sad as this may be for these
studio’s (I really liked Twisted Pixels previous games), it wasn’t to be
unexpected between the lackluster return on a push into “metaverse” adoption instead
of what VR was set to be from its inception: niche luxury entertainment.
The nail in the coffin for VR for
me, at least in terms with how insane the spending was on it, was when they
kept trying to force it into something that was meant for every day life. They tried to make a virtual Walmart Shopping experience a thing for (insert deity)'s sake. It
was never going to catch on, at least not anywhere near what Meta was trying to
justify such large investment into. While a tragedy, I don’t think these
shutdowns come unexpectedly.
Shutdowns I won’t feel bad about is
the Ill-fated Keiji Inafune run COMCEPT on January 28th. Hope
whoever was left there isn’t crying like an anime fan on prom night.
Am I still salty about Might No. 9
as a kickstarter backer? No, why do you ask?
Holy Hell the News just keeps on
Breaking: As of writing Microsoft games CEO Phil Spencer is retiring as of today
(If I get this article out today before EVEN MORE NEWS BREAKS). His successor
will be Microsoft’s Asha Sharma. This comes to a surprise as Sarah Bond was
rumored to be next in line, but she will be Leaving Xbox as well.
Asha did provide a statement (Via
Geoff Keighley) with her thoughts about X-box currently and ideals going forward
with the brand.
I am in no way an expert on these
things but from the outside, between both Spencer and Bond leaving X-Box and
Sharma coming in directly from Microsoft (An AI Division no less, make of that
what you will.) this doesn’t speak positively about Microsoft Games Studios position
right now in this humble jerks opinion.
Since Arc Raiders can’t stop winning, Patrick Söderlund has skyrocketed from JUST a Founder and CEO of Embark Studios, to Executive Chairman of Nexon. That’s how much this damn game won for everyone and proof the man just does well in EVERY company he works with.
Highguard is a game that will soon
be “was a game.” After the ill-fated announcement at the Game Awards in
December, it did not look good for Highguard when it dropped on January 26th.
That isn’t to say people didn’t show up, with
it reaching as high as 97k players in the first day, but it was pretty telling
what was going to happen as soon as second and third day only hit in the low
four digits, until three digits, until they announced a massive layoff not even
two weeks after release… and then had its creators seemingly blaming the
audience for its failure.
Oh, and this just in, Tencent was
the financial backer for the game this whole time, because this was an absolutely Indie game right?
Thanks to reporting by Stephen Totilo
As of writing the Highguard website
is currently down too. Make of that what you will for this episode of “Yet
another Concord.”
People are going to be looking back
and studying this event in games history for some time to come.
Retro company Epilogue, makers of
the GB Operator, which allowed you to use your REAL Gameboy cartridges to play
on your computer via USB (Absolutely not for backing them up illegally)
Announced the SN Operator, which does the same thing but for SNES Cartridges.
Very neat, especially if it’s time again for me to play Chrono Trigger.
Dear lord AGAIN WITH THE BREAKING
NEWS: Last night Nintendo dropped a trailer for Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green
coming to the E-Shop after people were finding the pre-orders in the store
itself.
This is honestly a great thing,
they keep gatekeeping games like this behind the live service, and I much
prefer being able to buy a classic game, even digitally, instead of having to
pay monthly for access to it.
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| This really shows up in the Official Square Enix video. |
Square Enix released a celebration
of Nier Automata video showcasing all its games, plays, live concerts, game
sale milestones and concluding with a statement that “NieR: Automata to be
continued…”
New Game? New multimedia? Just more
to make everyone happy and keep women dressing up like 2B? Well the last part is assured anyway.
Is… is that it? Can I finish this now? Nothing else happening while I’m editing right? Oh good, Now I can get started on my Sony State of Play piece. I’ll surely have that done in quick right?
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