It appears Telltale Games, known for its popular The Wolf Among Us and excellent The Walking Dead episodic games, hasn't been able to escape the financial pressures hitting video game studios as of late. In a post on X, Former Telltale Games employee Jonah Huang, shared that he and most of his colleagues were let go in September. The news follows a slew of recent layoffs in the gaming industry from companies such as Naughty Dog, Blizzard, Epic Games and Twitch. 

A statement from Telltale Games followed mere hours later, blaming "current market conditions" on the layoffs and that its "projects currently in development are still in production." The layoffs come after a March announcement from Telltale Games that it was pushing the much-anticipated release of The Wolf Among Us 2 to 2024. Huang added that he was unable to comment on the status of The Wolf Among Us 2 due to an NDA. The Wolf Among Us sequel was first announced at The Game Awards back in 2019, with a release date scheduled for 2023. Telltale CEO Jamie Ottilie blamed the delay on needing additional time to shift from Unreal Engine 4 to 5. 

Telltale Games also claimed it is making efforts to support those laid off, though it didn't elaborate further as to what those were. Notably, Telltale Games purchased UK-based studio Flavourworks only weeks before the layoffs. Huang included a call for the game industry to unionize in his initial tweet and subsequently called for gaming industry employees to complete a survey about their rates and conditions.

When Activision announced Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile in 2022, the developer said it was planning to release the game sometime this year, shortly after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II became available. Now, Activision has published a trailer for the mobile title, with the revelation that it's coming out sometime in the spring of 2024 instead. It has no specific launch date yet, but those interested can already pre-order from Google Play or the App Store. 

Warzone Mobile is a battle royale experience, which will put up to 120 players on a single map. The matches' operators, weapons, locations and combat are supposed to be familiar to current Warzone fans. It will also share a Battle Pass, as well as feature cross-progression, with Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0. While the game won't be widely available until 2024, fans in Australia, Chile, Norway and Sweden have been able to play it since earlier this year. This "limited release" version gives Activision a way to test the game with a wider audience than it can with its Closed Alpha, so it can find and fix more bugs, stress test matches and collect as much feedback as possible on gameplay and different elements of the title. 

In addition to announcing a new release date window for Warzone Mobile, Activision has also revealed that the game will come with access to Rebirth Island from day one. The fan favorite Resurgence mode map will be making its debut on mobile and has apparently been "painstakingly and specially built" for this game. 

As for those waiting for Modern Warfare III, Raven Software has confirmed at the COD Next event that players will be able to slide cancel in the game — a mechanic that was notably absent from Modern Warfare II. Take note, though, that while the mechanic is coming back, it will no longer reset Tactical Sprint.

Developer CD Projekt Red just announced it is in the early stages of developing a live-action TV show or movie based on the once-hated and now-beloved Cyberpunk 2077 game. Details are scant, as we don’t even know if it’ll be a film or ongoing series, but the game developer has teamed up with production company Anonymous Content to bring Night City to glorious live-action life.

You probably don’t know Anonymous Content by name, but the company’s behind a slew of high-profile and critically-acclaimed TV shows, like True Detective and Mr. Robot. It’s also helped produce recent films like The Revenant and Spotlight, but also classics like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. This is a serious production company, so we could be in for something special.

While CD Projekt Red hasn’t announced whether this will be a show or movie, there are some hints indicating it’ll be a TV series. The developer went out of its way to note that it’s working closely with certain members of the Anonymous Content team, all of which are heavily involved in the TV side of things. For instance, the dev called out the company’s Head of Television Garret Kemble and noted Chief Creative Officer David Levine’s decade-long tenure at HBO. Levine was heavily involved with getting Game of Thrones and Westworld on the network, in addition to other hit shows.

This situation here looks slightly different from Netflix’s The Witcher show, as that’s adapted from the source books and not the video game series. Cyberpunk 2077 is a wholly original IP, giving CD Projekt Red a good amount of creative control over how the story plays out. To that end, the developer hasn’t indicated this would be a one-to-one adaptation of the game, rather stating its “set in the world” of Cyberpunk 2077.

This looks to be in the extreme early stages of development, so it could be years before we see the lawless Badlands or the slums of Dogtown in live action. This series or movie will join the Netflix cartoon Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.

When you think about it, it’s pretty nuts that the Cyberpunk IP is flourishing in this way. The game launched as a buggy mess, forcing Sony to actually pull it from its online store and both CD Projekt Red and Microsoft to issue refunds to unhappy customers. Since that disastrous launch, the developer has slowly and steadily improved just about every aspect of the game, transforming whole gameplay mechanics in the process. The end result? Cyberpunk 2077 is now considered to be a truly special video game, with 25 million sales to prove it. Even the recently-released Phantom Liberty DLC has already racked up 3 million downloads. There’s also a pseudo-sequel on the way.

Blizzard’s hit dungeon-romping sequel Diablo IV is officially coming to Steam on October 17. This is a boon for PC gamers, as it was previously only available on Blizzard’s proprietary sales platform Battle.net, and Steam is a more widely-used service. The news should be of particular interest for Steam Deck owners. It was already possible to jump through the hoops required to get the game running on the portable console, but this will radically streamline the process.

Valve hasn’t rated the game for Steam Deck compatibility, but that’ll likely happen closer to launch. Additionally, you’ll still need a Battle.net account to get started, so have those login credentials ready. Just like the Battle.net release, standalone PCs require at least an Intel Core i5 or AMD FX-8350 CPU and 8 GB of RAM, though 16 GB is preferred, to get this running.

The Steam release joins a new DLC called Season of Blood, also launching on October 17. The content drop brings a new questline, updated vampire powers, five new endgame bosses and much more, like the addition of actress Gemma Chan as a vampire hunter.

There’s also a big-time patch coming out on the same day. Patch 1.2.0 brings all kinds of quality of life improvements, like faster XP gain, better navigation around Nightmare Dungeons, streamlined character rewards, more durable NPC companions, reduced backtracking and an increase in world boss spawns for loot gathering purposes. That’s just scratching the surface. For a full list of improvements, check out the patch notes.

We were impressed by many aspects of Diablo IV at launch, praising the world design for having the “most detailed and creative assets Blizzard has ever produced.” We also said that it’s basically the Diablo game we’ve been “dreaming of ever since” the original title launched back in the hazy Clinton-infused days of 1997.

Blizzard has been protective of its IP with regard to allowing them to flourish on other sales platforms than Battle.net. However, Diablo IV isn’t the first high-profile game to migrate to Steam. Back in August, the hit multiplayer shooter Overwatch 2 launched on Valve’s storefront. At that time, Blizzard said that several titles would be making their way to Steam, but it didn’t say which ones. Obviously, Diablo IV is one, but we’re still waiting on more releases.

Netflix’s game studio is slowly but surely dropping new titles, adding around 40 mobile releases in 2023. One such game is the universally-acclaimed Metroidvania/roguelike action gem Dead Cells, which was just announced as part of the streamer’s “Netflix & Thrill” promotion for Halloween. I wouldn’t exactly call this a horror game, but you do play as a headless blob-infused ghost and it's heavily inspired by the Castlevania series, so sure why not.

Dead Cells: Netflix Edition looks to include the full original game along with all kinds of DLC, including the recently-released crossover with the aforementioned genre stalwart Castlevania. A traditional Netflix subscription gives you access to the game on both iOS and Android devices. It remains to be seen if you can use the official game controller app to play the game on a supported television.

If you’ve been living underneath a rock that changes location each day, Dead Cells is a sidescrolling roguelike with procedurally generated maps that reset each run. The world is vast and filled with secrets and power ups. Many of these upgrades stick around from run to run, making this more of a “roguelite” like the equally stunning Hades. The Metroidvania aspect kicks in because there are parts of the map unavailable to you when you first play, requiring traversal mechanics (like the double jump) that you pick up as you play. It’s an addictive formula with one heck of a gameplay loop. There’s a reason it’s sold more than 10 million copies across platforms.

In addition to Dead Cells, Netflix also announced the forthcoming release of an enhanced version of horror puzzler Slayaway Camp. This game has you controlling a cute lil psychotic slasher called Skullface. The heartwarming tale tasks you with solving isometric puzzles and killing annoying camp counselors. Slayaway Camp: Netflix & Kill likely includes DLC from Slayaway Camp: Butcher's Cut - Deluxe Edition, among other goodies.

Both of these spook-adjacent games are coming soon, though Netflix hasn’t dropped actual release dates. They’ll come out before Halloween, however, or else what’s the point. Just like all Netflix games, they won’t have ads or in-app purchases, just sweet, sweet gameplay.

There’s also a Dead Cells animated series in the works. Interestingly, there’s no home for it yet, but this move certainly hints that it could premiere on Netflix, particularly with the platform’s recent push into animated game adaptations. A recent Netflix animation event teased shows based on Sonic the Hedgehog, Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry. The streamer has also released a couple of well-regarded cartoons based on the Castlevania franchise. 

Posts on X might look quite different, especially if you mainly follow news and media publications. The website formerly known as Twitter has started removing headlines and snippets from posted links, implementing a change Fortune reported in August. Back then, website owner Elon Musk said that the idea came from him directly and that it will "greatly improve the [platform's] esthetics." We tested it out by posting one of our stories, and only the article's image with an overlay of its URL show up when it's viewed on iOS. On the web, we still see the article snippet and a truncated version of its headline. 

Advertisers reportedly didn't like the new format when they were shown a preview of it, but the change is clearly still pushing through. X's main reason for the format switch is apparently to make posts look more compact by fitting more of them in the portion of the timeline that appears on screen. In addition, Musk reportedly thinks that it could help lessen instances of clickbait, which rely on headlines with shock value, on the website. 

While Musk publicly claims that the primary driving force for the change in format is the website's aesthetic, it's no secret that he's been trying to encourage more people to post long-form pieces directly on X. The website expanded Blue subscribers' post limit to 25,000 characters under his leadership, and he previously tweeted that journalists who want "more freedom to write and a higher income" should "publish directly" on the platform. More recently, he encouraged "more citizen journalism" on X and said that people can do "live video easily" from their phone. 

Amazon is shutting down its short-lived audio app known as Amp, which previously offered a music library for users to create and broadcast custom DJ sets, according to reports by Bloomberg. Amazon’s Amp was available on Android and iOS and has only been live since March of 2022. While a pandemic bubble might have given it some attention, it never really took off. The tool was designed to allow creators to make custom content as modern DJ hosts. On this mobile-forward app, users could overlap conversations and chit-chat with live music, similar to what you would hear on a traditional radio station.

But as we all know, radio is dying as it is. And it's no question that competition in the streaming space is hot. A lot of creators in the niche subset of online DJing might have already been on mainstream platforms like YouTube and TikTok or on more music-focused platforms like Stationhead or Tidal. The app was even initially reported as “something of a Clubhouse competitor.” Yet, Amazon did not explicitly cite why they made the decision to kill Amp altogether, or how far off it was from saving. In a memo to Bloomberg, Steve Boom, who led Amp at Amazon said that the decision was “not made quickly or easily.”

It may have something to do with the fact that it just never picked up in the mainstream as Amazon would have liked it to. When our very own James Trew put it to the test, he said he had trouble getting listeners. The mobile-first platform had some unusual limitations for how content could be created and listened to — all in all, probably playing to its downfall. For example, you could only play two songs from the same album within a three-hour period, which is a considerable amount of time to block off a DJ from being able to create a truly custom set.

The axing of Amp follows a series of cuts from the big box retailer, namely its Halo division which it dissolved back in April and Amazon Scout, a robot delivery service it killed before it could even start, around this time last year. This could signal some internal restructuring is still well underway at Amazon.

Patreon announced a rebranding of its platform through a series of updates on Wednesday. New features give creators more personalization and control while offering supporters more ways to follow their favorites. In addition, the platform is integrating more free content, allowing every creator to host communities non-paying members can access. Patreon also tweaked its branding with a new logo, color themes, photography and fonts.

Perhaps the most notable update for creators is the ability to bolster their communities for free members. Creators can now let people join for free, offering content and updates for non-paying members while (optionally) hiding things like early access to podcasts or videos behind a paywall. They can also use a new commerce tool to sell individual pieces of content like recordings, videos and downloadable files. It makes the platform more of an all-in-one social hub for fans who aren’t ready to pay but may decide to later.

Patreon frames its changes as moving creators away from being prisoners to algorithms and back to connecting directly with their most eager and loyal fans. The company says those with early access to the program attracted over 160,000 new fans to their communities.

Patreon

Creators now have greater customization over their pages, including their layout, colors and how posts display. “Whether you’re highlighting your most popular posts, organizing your podcast episodes into seasons, or putting together a video series, you have the creative freedom to arrange and present your work in a way that helps your members dive into exactly what they’re looking for and discover new posts to love,” the company wrote in a blog post. Patreon says early testing shows increased discovery and engagement (especially on older posts) when featured in one of the new collections.

Patreon is also adding chats and member profiles. “Chats are led and managed by creators, which means they can shape the culture and set the right tone for their communities,” the company wrote in a post announcing the features. Members can report problematic messages, and creators will have a hub to review them.

Finally, the Patreon app is getting a redesign. The company says the updated app is crafted for the most hardcore fans, prioritizing their experience. Fans’ homepages will now display content as creators arranged it instead of chronologically. “Instead of dropping into a content overload, members log in and instantly see everything they want at a glance,” the company wrote about the new app. “Their homepage is organized by creator, not by post, which means fans can see a creator’s latest work next to their community conversations and anything else going on in their world. It’s creativity in context, the way creators intended.”

With Roku facing increased competition from rivals, especially Google, the company has just unveiled its latest OS 12.5 update with a raft of new features. Those include expanded sports content with favoriting and highlights, enhancements to the live TV channel guide, music playlists, expert picture settings and more. 

A feature that'll be high on the list for videophiles is "Expert Picture Setting." That lets users customize key pictures settings like color temperature, color space, gamma correction and noise reduction, adding to the current, more basic picture settings already available. This feature is already available on the mobile app, but it's now debuting for TVs. 

Roku is also expanding what you can do with sports. It'll offer expanded content including motorsports coming in early 2024 and new content from Max "in the coming weeks." It's also introducing favoriting, letting users track live and upcoming events by adding teams to a curated "My Favorites" row by clicking the favorite button on the game page. It's also launching highlights, letting users catch key moments they may have missed or want to relive. 

Roku

The OS update is making it easier to find live TV shows among the 400+ channels as well, letting you personalize the order of channels in the Guide and remove channel numbers. It's also introducing "What to Watch Categories" that let you browse by TV Shows, Movies, New & Popular, Free and more, along with "Experiences" related to a genre or topic like food or home. The update will also bring Visual Search to the Roku mobile app, "in a more visual and immersive way." The company is also launching Music Playlists, adding more than 250 video playlists from partners including Stingray, Vevo and Warner Music Group.

Away from the entertainment side, Roku is also introduce smart home features, including "Event History" that shows Camera subscription users a history of who was at their front door, along with Notifications that will tell you if a package has arrived, for example. Finally, the new app now supports Google Photos, making it easier to do slideshows for friends more easily. Roku OS 12.5 will roll out to customers in the coming weeks, but some of the features may take awhile to arrive after that. 

Spotify has added a new feature for Premium subscribers meant for bookworms. Starting on October 4, subscribers in the UK and Australia will get access to a selection of more than 150,000 audiobooks without having to pay extra. US subscribers will also be able to enjoy the new perk sometime later this year. While they're getting access to a wide range of books and can choose to listen to as many as they want, the offering comes with a catch: Subscribers will only get 15 hours of free audiobook listening every month. The streaming giant told us that users can top up their listening hours to the tune of $11 for another 10 hours after the allocation.

That makes Spotify's service a lot more expensive than Audible's, which costs $8 a month and has no listening limit. The company first made audiobooks available on its platform back in September last year. It launched with 300,000 titles in its library, and users could purchase any of them from within the service. Spotify could have added audiobooks to Premium subscriptions as a way to get users hooked to consuming different types of media in one place. It's just a question of whether users would be willing to pay $11 for every 10 hours of listening after the first 15. That may sound lengthy to some, but for voracious readers (or audiobook listeners), that's nowhere near enough.

"We believe that offering personalized music, podcasts, and audiobooks on a single platform gives you a superior way to connect with your favorite artists, podcasters, creators, and authors — all in one spot," Spotify explained in its announcement.

That said, users can still purchase any title they want from Spotify's audiobook library, so there's no need to pay for additional hours if they have specific books in mind. The feature also comes with auto-bookmarking, preventing users from having to repeat pages and lose precious minutes of listening. Plus, if they activate Spotify Sleep Timer, they can fall asleep while listening to their books without having to rewind when they wake up. It's also worth noting that subscribers can download audiobooks for offline listening. 

At the moment, the new perk is only available for individual Premium subscribers and to plan managers of Family or Duo accounts, but Spotify says it plans to expand its availability in the future.