Daily Briefing: Monday 14th March

Square Enix Seek Feedback On Babylon’s Fall

Square Enix have launched a survey to gather feedback on making a “better game experience” for Babylon’s Fall, specifically asking about the visual aspects of the game.

• This seems completely tone-deaf. Your live service action game launches to a PS5 Metacritic score of 42 and you ask about its graphical style after already revamping it entirely before launch? What about the fact it’s a full price game jammed full of cosmetic microtransactions, the embarrassingly bad content and mediocre version of PlatinumGames’ combat?

Konami Do Something Good? A Free Indie Convention In Japan

Konami have announced Indie Games Connect 2022 in Ginza, Tokyo, and it will be completely free for all exhibitors and attendees. They’ve said “We hope that everyone who comes to the event, and all creators who wish to exhibit, will be able to make as big a ‘connection’ as possible, so there will be no exhibition or entrance fees.”, and in addition to holding consultations for creators, they’ve invited industry professionals to speak, including Shuhei Yoshida, current head of Sony’s Indie Dev Initiative.

• A surprisingly altruistic move from the otherwise villainous Konami. Given their recent focus on publishing indies, it seems like someone with sway actually does have a lot of love for the scene in Japan and wishes to see it grow. Or for a more cynical take, perhaps they’re trying to get their hands on indie projects early this way and snap them all up.

Perfect Dark Has Lost Its Game Director

Daniel Neuburger, director of Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Perfect Dark, has left Xbox’s The Initiative studio during the latter’s development. That marks two major departures from the quadruple-A studio, with the game’s design director leaving last year.

• It’s always concerning to have a project lose a director, especially when there’s been so much silence around the game otherwise. Hopefully, it’s in good shape and he has a successor who can see the game through to its release.

System Shock 3 Is Implied To Be Dead

Warren Spector, the producer of System Shock and director of Deus Ex, has implied that System Shock 3 is dead - OtherSide Entertainment only worked on it in 2018 and 2019. In 2020, OtherSide faced numerous layoffs, announced that System Shock would be taken forward by Tencent, and now Spector is working on a new immersive sim under a new IP.

• It’s unfortunate that many titles are announced and never see the light of day, but it especially stings when big names are detached from projects, and even more so when they’re titles like System Shock.