Video Games Weekly: Censorship, shrinkage and a Subnautica scandal
Please enjoy — and I'll see you next week.
This week, I'm fried. Maybe it's the plodding and ever-present crumbling of society and human decency, or maybe it's because Love Island USA just ended so I'm feeling extra listless. It's a familiar summer sensation, but this year everything is exaggerated and extra tense, the stakes of every action seem higher, and instead of melting into the warmth of the season with a popsicle and a smile, I often find myself frozen and numb. I am the popsicle, coo coo ca choo.
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I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to convey here, but I think it's clear that I shouldn't be writing anything too serious at the moment. I'm working on a few reports and trying to keep my composure amid the chaos, and all the while, the video game headlines keep rolling on. I've included a few more than usual this week, as penance for my popsicle state.
The news
UK studio The Chinese Room, creator of Still Wakes the Deep and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, is independent once again. The Chinese Room leaders completed a management buyout with help from VC firm Hiro Capital to fully split the studio from Tencent subsidiary Sumo Digital, which acquired it in 2018. A number of people were laid off as part of the transition and the studio is left with a total of 55 employees. The Chinese Room is still working on Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2 for Paradox Interactive, and it also has original projects in development.
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Still Wakes the Deep was one of my absolute favorite games of 2024. Whether you're a fan of beautiful paranormal horror or you're just really into oil rigs, give it a go.
Vice's owner, Savage Ventures, doesn't want you to read this story . Or this one .
Vice removed two articles about Steam's new ban on certain 'adult-only' content and the organization that pushed for the change, Collective Shout, which has the support of prominent anti-pornography groups with conservative religious foundations. The stories were written by contributor Ana Valens, who said the removals were 'due to concerns about the controversial subject matter — not journalistic complaints.' Valens has vowed to never write for Vice again and a handful of reporters there have resigned in solidarity .
Censoring stories about censorship is certainly a choice, Vice.
The home of Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology, Supermassive Games, is laying off 36 people, restructuring its team and delaying one of its projects into 2026. A statement from the studio says the decisions were in response to the video game industry's 'challenging and ever-evolving environment.' It's estimated that Supermassive had more than 300 employees before the layoffs.
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Directive 8020, the fifth installment in the Dark Pictures Anthology, is now due to come out in the first half of 2026, rather than this fall. Honestly, I'm not surprised to hear Supermassive needs more time to work on Directive 8020. I watched Engadget UK bureau chief Mat Smith play the demo at Summer Game Fest in June, and while it looked great, we were both surprised by how short and non-interactive the segment was. He summed up this feeling in his preview with the line, 'Finally, I got to play (but only for a few minutes).'
Supermassive is also working on Little Nightmares III, a series that it took over from Tarsier Studios. Tarsier created Little Nightmares and its sequel, but lost the rights to the IP when the team was acquired by a subsidiary of Embracer Group in 2019. Series publisher Bandai Namco kept the Little Nightmares brand and commissioned Supermassive to build the third game, while Tarsier is working on its own project, Reanimal .
It makes sense that Supermassive would prioritize Little Nightmares III in order to fulfill its obligations with Bandai. The game has already been delayed once, and it's set to hit PC and consoles on October 10.
I still have high hopes for FBC: Firebreak to be the Left 4 Dead revival we've always wanted, but fact is, it's not quite there yet . Remedy Entertainment is aware of this hard truth and has a plan to fix it. The studio laid out its pipeline for making FBC: Firebreak easier to jump into, more fun to play and less confusing overall, with most major changes coming in an update this winter.
PCGamesN published an interview with Counter-Strike co-creator Minh Le, who left Valve years ago to try out independent development. One sentiment stuck out to me.
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'They didn't force me out or anything,' Le told PCGamesN. 'But a part of me kind of regrets it. Looking back, my decision to leave Valve was, financially, kind of a poor decision. If I had stayed with Valve, I would have been able to retire by now.'
It's not presented as an indictment of Valve, but I find it notable that Le describes the studio as a place to retire, rather than a space to innovate and create the next generation of video games. At this rate, Valve will never outrun its reputation as the studio where talented game developers go to die (professionally speaking).
But, hey, at least they're not getting laid off en masse. Which, unfortunately, brings us to the next headline.
Cyberpunk 2077, Sea of Thieves and Dune: Awakening support studio Virtuos is laying off 270 developers, which is about seven percent of its staff. Virtuos is currently best known as the studio behind The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered alongside Bethesda, and it has more than 4,000 employees across Asia, Europe and North America. The cuts affect developers in Asia and Europe, with 'fewer than 10' in France, where work on Oblivion Remastered was headquartered.
Make sure to pin this one on your calendar. Saber Interactive is making Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival, a first-person, action-survival horror game that features actor Doug Bradley as Pinhead for the first time in nearly 20 years. Barker himself provided input on the story, too. It's coming to PlayStation 5, PC and Xbox Series X/S, with no release date yet.
"The Hellraiser universe is defined by its unflinching exploration of pain, pleasure, and the thin and terrifying line that separates the two," a description from Saber Interactive reads. "That essence is at the heart of our game."
Game Developer reporter Chris Kerr spoke with a number of employees at Zenimax who are still reeling from the layoffs that Microsoft enacted in early July . The vibes there sound pretty terrible.
'This carcass of workers that remains is somehow supposed to keep shipping award-winning games," one senior QA tester told Kerr. The developer continued, 'Microsoft just took everything that could have been great about the culture and collaboration and decimated it. Morale is terrible. It's grotesque. People are stressed. They're crying.'
When Xbox isn't firing thousands of employees in one blow, it's quietly laying the groundwork for the future of video game distribution. An update for Xbox Insiders this week introduces cross-platform cloud support, bringing your cloud library and play history to the Xbox PC app. This means you can access cloud activity on an Xbox console, PC or Windows handheld, and seamlessly play cloud games across devices. This is just how video games are going to work in the coming decades, and it's interesting to watch our future slowly roll out in blog posts and software updates.
Did you miss all of the mess around Subnautica 2 last week? Or, more accurately, this past month? To quickly summarize, Subnautica publisher Krafton is being sued by the series creators after it fired them and then delayed their game, allegedly sabotaging a $250 million bonus payout due to developers. To not-quickly summarize, see my complete breakdown of the drama .
I don't know who else needs a little levity in their life right now, but I certainly do. Thankfully, the stop-motion show My Melody & Kuromi is coming to Netflix on July 24, and there's already an adorable tie-in music video by LE SSERAFIM to enjoy. Zen out, watch all of the Sanrio sweetness and finally settle the debate: Are you more of a Kuromi or a My Melody?
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Have a tip for Jessica? You can reach her by email, Bluesky or send a message to @jesscon.96 to chat confidentially on Signal.
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