Diablo Immortal may be a game for tiny screens, but that doesn't mean it's a small feat of development. For precisely this reason, Activision Blizzard has delayed the release of Diablo Immortal to early 2022. 

The action RPG was originally supposed to hit iOS and Android devices this year, but developers need more time to fine-tune PvP content, improve PvE experiences and implement additional accessibility options, according to Blizzard. Here's how developers put it in their blog post:

Following feedback provided by test participants of the Closed Alpha, our team has been tuning core and endgame features. For example, we’re iterating on PvP content like the Cycle of Strife to make it more accessible, alongside late-game PvE content like the Helliquary to make it more engaging. We’re also working to provide controller support for those who want to play our game in a different way. However, these changes and additional opportunities to improve our gameplay experience will not be realized in the 2021 timeframe we had previously communicated. So, the game is now planned for release in the first half of 2022, which will allow us to add substantial improvements to the whole game.

Blizzard goes on to describe specific features it'll focus on, such as adding PvE Raids, adjusting Bounties and making Challenge Rifts more exciting. In terms of PvP adjustments, Blizzard will work on improving matchmaking, earning rankings, class balance, time to kill and other elements of the Battleground system, plus it'll spit-shine the Cycle of Strife endgame content. All of this joins a raft of changes to progression and XP caps.

It seems developers are still in the early stages when it comes to getting Diablo Immortal to play nice with gamepads.

"We're still working through the challenges of adapting the touch screen controls to a controller seamlessly," the blog reads. "Making our game more accessible is top of mind, and we’ll share more progress on this front as we approach the beta in the future."

Blizzard has other things on its plate right now, too. Activision Blizzard is facing a sexual harassment and gender discrimination lawsuit from the state of California, and Blizzard president J. Allen Brack left the company today amid allegations that he overlooked abuse in the workplace for years. Blizzard's head of HR, Jesse Meschuk, also left the studio this week. A second lawsuit was filed by shareholders today, claiming Activision Blizzard failed to disclose potential regulatory issues related to the company's discriminatory, frat-house-style culture.

How do you create DLC for a game whose very purpose is to offer a confined, looping world? Honestly, after watching the trailer for Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye, I still have no idea. Outer Wilds was one of our favorite games of 2019, building an enthralling mystery into a non-linear exploration game that effectively restarts every 22 minutes.

Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye, the game's first and final DLC, will build on the game with new narrative threads and locales. Not much is known beyond that, but based on the strength of the original, I'm down to play an expanded version. Hopefully, the expansion will persuade more people to try out this gem of a game, which, as Devindra Hardawar wrote in our Favorite games of 2019 article, "demands patience and an adventurous spirit," but "promises adventure like nothing else." Echoes of the Eye will be available September 28th for PS4, Xbox One and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store for $14.99

Annapurna Interactive is making lots of announcements today about its future, but the publisher hasn't forgotten its roots either. What Remains Of Edith Finch, the very first game AI released, is coming to iOS on August 16th.

The first-person mystery, which was developed by Giant Sparrow, debuted on PC and PS4 in April 2017. AI brought it to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch later. It's a well-reviewed game that encapsulates much of AI's ethos of releasing "personal, emotional and original" games. Perhaps the iOS release will help it find a whole new audience.

The worlds of fashion and gaming are cozying up to one another. From Gucci selling digital items in Roblox to Vogue's virtual fashion spread starring Gigi Hadid, the two industries are increasingly overlapping to capture a young, tech-savvy audience. Now, Louis Vuitton is jumping on the bandwagon by releasing a mobile video game to celebrate its founder's 200th birthday. Louis: The Game stars the fashion house's mascot Vivienne, a wooden doll embellished with the company's flower insignia, on a journey through the brand's history, reports Austrian newspaper Kurier.

The iOS and Android game reportedly tasks players with exploring a colorful world by completing various quests — all pretty generic so far. Whether it turns out to be more than just an unashamed bit of promotional fluff remains to be seen. The game drops on August 4th. If LV goes all-out psychedelic like it did with its recent UFO-style speaker, then it could be worth a look.

According to WWD, the game will also feature "embedded NFTs." Though, that hardly sounds promising. The one-of-a-kind digital collectibles have gone from multi-million dollar auctions to freebies designed to promote throwaway pop culture, like Warner Bros. recent Space Jam reboot.

Following nearly a week of internal unrest, Activision Blizzard has published a letter from CEO Bobby Kotick addressing the company’s original response to the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against it by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) on July 20th. “Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf,” Kotick says in the letter addressed to Activision Blizzard employees. “It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.”

Kotick claims Blizzard Activision is taking “swift action” to ensure a safe, respectful and inclusive working environment for women and other minority groups. The company has hired law firm WilmerHale to review its policies, and Kotick says Activision Blizzard will implement changes to its hiring practices. It also plans to make personnel tweaks and remove content from its games employees and players have said is “inappropriate” in light of the allegations against the company. On Tuesday, the World of Warcraft development team said it would remove specific references from the MMO. While the team didn’t elaborate, those references may involve items and non-playable characters named after Alex Afrasiabi, one of the former Blizzard employees singled out in the DFEH lawsuit for repeated inappropriate behavior.

Notably, the letter doesn’t make mention of forced arbitration, saying only the company “will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action,” nor does it promise greater transparency when it comes to employee compensation. Those are two issues Activision Blizzard employees who are staging a walkout to protest for better working conditions highlighted in a statement of intent they shared on Tuesday.

In its initial public response to the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard said the allegations from DFEH included “distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.” In a separate email to employees, Frances Townsend, executive vice president of corporate affairs at the company, claimed the lawsuit presents “a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories — some from more than a decade ago.”

After a series of setbacks, a small batch of beta testers will be among the first to play Halo Infinite. From tomorrow, July 29th, until August 1st, a bunch of Halo Insiders will get to try the sequel's multiplayer preview. The invite-only test will see players sample gameplay including bot slaying in four-player teams across three maps, with the action growing fraught as players wipe out more enemies. 

Bots aren't the only first in the new Halo. Beta testers will also sample the new Academy experience at a firing range, where they'll try out a dozen weapons on strafing bots. As a taster of the customization on offer, players will be get a set amount of in-game credits to spend on items. This is so they can get accustomed with the Battle Passes, check their Challenges, use the Store, and apply their changes in the Armor Hall. However, these items won't carry over into the full game. 

Finally, chosen Insiders will also go hands-on with the Halo Waypoint web and mobile app experiences on iOS and Android. Offering some more insight into the invite process, 343 Industries' Brian Jarrard said the developer is targeting a large number of testers across platforms (including Xbox One, Series X/S, and different PC configurations). 

To meet that goal, preference may also be given to Insiders with valid profiles, those opted in to comms and the DXDIAG diagnostics tool, he added. The developer is also looking at tenure, with preference for long-standing Insiders. You can still sign up to the Halo Insider program. Though it may be too late to jump on this test, more Halo previews are planned in the lead-up to the game's launch this fall.

Nintendo transformed its Mario Kart and Pokemon franchises into successful mobile spinoffs, but it looks like another title didn't fare as well. The company has announced that it's ending service of Dr. Mario World, a mobile version of its highly successful Dr. Mario NES game, on November 1st. It will also end sales of "diamonds" used to buy buy more time, pills and power-ups starting tomorrow, July 29th. 

Much like the original, Dr. Mario World is a Tetris-style game that lets you use pills to zap viruses of the same color. Unlike the original, however, everything moves upward so it's more natural to flick things around with one hand on a mobile screen. The mobile game also has a multiplayer mode so you can get friends involved. 

The game was developed by Nintendo in conjunction with Line, Japan's ultra-popular mobile messaging app. It launched on July 10th, 2019, just a hair over two years ago. Nintendo is keeping a vestige of the game on a web page called "Dr. Mario World Memories" that will allow players to look back on their history once the service ends. 

Nintendo launched another mobile, Mario Kart Tour, with multiplayer support in early 2020. That title has reportedly been downloaded 200 million times and seen relatively high earnings for the company. Its most successful mobile game by far, however, is Fire Emblem Heroes, which had reportedly netted up to $656 million as of February, 2020. Nintendo didn't say why it shut down Dr. Mario World, but it wasn't doing great compared to other titles shortly after launch, according to a SensorTower report from early 2020. 

Electronic Arts held its EA Play Live 2021 event today. During the approximately 40-minute presentation, we got a first look at Grid Legends, a new entry in Codemasters' ongoing racing franchise that will feature a single-player story with live-action performances. Lost in Random, the upcoming Tim Burton-inspired action-adventure game from Fe developer Zoink Games, also got a release date. It's coming out on September 10th on current and last-generation consoles, as well as PC. For Battlefield fans, EA offered a look at 2042's new Portal mode that will allow fans to create their own custom match types that they can share with the game's community.       

But EA saved the best news for last. In a short teaser, the publisher confirmed Motive Studios is working on a remake of Dead Space for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S. In addition to more modern graphics courtesy of Dice's Frostbite engine, EA promised gameplay improvements, as well as new story and character elements. 

There’s a moment in the 1986 Aliens film when Bill Paxton’s character, William Hudson, turns to his crewmates and says, "Man, it's a shooting gallery down there." After playing though the preview of Aliens: Fireteam Elite, I can say it feels like the developers really took this line to heart. Like, really.

Aliens: Fireteam Elite is an online, co-op, third-person survival shooter from Cold Iron Studios, and it’s been in development for the past six years. Cold Iron was actually bought and sold four times starting in 2018, bringing its mysterious Alien-based game along for the ride. In the end, Cold Iron has cut a deal with 20th Century Studios to self-publish Aliens: Fireteam Elite, and it’s due to hit Steam, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles on August 24th, priced at $40.

20th Century Studios

I had the chance to play a preview build of Fireteam Elite that included access to two of the four campaigns, and four of the five character classes: gunner, technician, demolisher and doc (the final class is recon). Each campaign consists of three missions filled with AI-powered Xenomorph hordes, with three difficulty levels unlocked from the start. Every mission requires three players, and empty team slots are filled by bots named Alpha and Beta, which honestly end up functioning more like mobile turrets than actual teammates.

So, after playing hours of the preview with friends and bots alike, here’s my conclusion: Aliens: Fireteam Elite is a generic survival shooter with old-school arcade DNA. Fireteam Elite feels like an online, updated version of light-gun games like Area 51 or House of the Dead, complete with repetitive environments and sloppy hit boxes. The game is competent, but not dynamic. To put it simply — man, it’s just a shooting gallery down there.

To be fair, that’s what survival shooters are all about. Enter a new area, prepare your defenses, kill the swarm, rinse and repeat. The thing is, Fireteam Elite deploys this formula in such a rigid structure that missions quickly become predictable, no matter how many bugs show up. What’s more, the generic sci-fi environments blend together after a few playthroughs, and tricks like falling ceiling panels and sudden bursts of steam lose their effectiveness well before the first mission is over.

Fireteam Elite fails to build tension. With such a transparent gameplay structure, any feeling of pressure or horror has to come from the xenomorphs themselves, and frankly, they’re often not smart enough to make this happen. The swarms rarely feel unmanageable and the specialized xenomorphs, like spitters or jumpers, routinely behave in non-threatening ways. This unpredictability ends up being more adorable than scary. Plus, I have to note that my game crashed three times in about seven hours of play.

That’s not to say the AI is trash altogether. Cold Iron says it’s already resolved some of the movement issues the xenomorphs were experiencing in the preview build, and it really is impressive to see dozens of inky black aliens bounding down the hallway, each on its own path but out for blood, and the game is built around these moments. The xenos stumble around corners like dogs on a tile floor, and details like this add much-needed personality to the waves.

20th Century Studios

The game’s most exciting moments come at the end of each mission, during the final swarm. These are long standoffs with waves of xenomorphs, including spitters, prowlers, bursters and giants that hunt down a single crew member at a time. I’ve found the technician and doc to be particularly useful in these moments — the technician has a turret that recharges after it’s been destroyed and shock grenades to keep the xenomorphs at bay, while the doc has an incredibly handy healing circle.

This is where the most strategizing takes place, even if it is mostly just turret talk. There are chests containing consumable weapons, health and on-demand ammo refills at each final battle, meaning your whole team will start off well-equipped and they’re free to spray and pray. This is good, considering the reticles on most of the weapons are generous, and crowd control is the name of the game, not accuracy. 

20th Century Studios

There are a few bright spots in Aliens: Fireteam Elite. The soundtrack is a James Horner-inspired orchestral situation and it’s a constant reminder of the game’s cinematic 1980s roots; it does a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to setting the mood. Plus, the game’s RPG elements — including character, loadout and weapon customization, and challenge cards — add a necessary layer of depth to otherwise straightforward missions.

I wasn’t expecting Fireteam Elite to be as narrative-driven as the films or as moody as Alien: Isolation, but I had hoped for something like Left 4 Dead meets Dead Space, and this ain’t that. Instead, Aliens: Fireteam Elite feels like a theme park ride in video game form. The monsters aren’t really threatening, but the crowds certainly are. And, of course, it’s more fun with friends.

District 9 director Neill Blomkamp never did get to make his Halo movie. However, Blomkamp still has a foothold in the video game world after directing an Anthem prequel short film. He's now helping a studio called Gunzilla Games with its first game, a multiplayer shooter.

Blomkamp — who also directed Elysium, Chappie and the upcoming Demonic — has joined Gunzilla as chief visionary officer, as IGN reports. He'll help guide the aesthetic of the game and provide input on aspects such as design, audio and the narrative from a film director's perspective. He admitted that he hasn't worked in game development before, so collaborating closely with other key creatives on the project will be crucial.

The studio was formed last year and employs developers who have experience at the likes of Crytek, Ubisoft and EA. The shooter, which is still largely under wraps, might not be a one-and-done deal for Oscar nominee Blomkamp.

"Games will [...] become what films were in the 20th century," he told IGN. "They'll just be the thing that is the dominant form of cultural entertainment and [I want] to be in that. Mixing my history in visual effects and interest in 3D graphics means I want to have a home base in the creation of games for a really long time. So if the game is a success and everything works out, hopefully I'm staying at Gunzilla for a long time."

Blomkamp is joining a long line of notable filmmakers and creatives from other mediums who've moved into games. Guillermo del Toro was set to direct the canceled Silent Hills alongside Hideo Kojima, while George R. R. Martin helped craft the world of Elden Ring. Steven Spielberg has credits on several games too. Along with his work on the Medal of Honor series, he was creative director on an EA puzzle game called Boom Blox.