Daily Briefing: Friday 17th December

Epic Games Store adds a shopping cart after three years

The Epic Games Store's annual holiday sale kicked off this week and the surge in traffic is kind of wreaking havoc with a marketplace platform that is honestly pretty unstable at the best of times. The various promotions and sales went together to create essentially the perfect storm of server congestion. Epic are currently running a "15 days of free games" promotion wit the most recent one being Shenmue III while Fortnite had a free Christmas-themed cosmetic that needed to be accessed through the Epic Games Launcher. Add in the store's new shopping cart function and Epic apparently have more than they can handle.

• It feels like it's been a while since we really thought about the Epic Games Store but things have been changing over there. The shopping cart functionality is welcome even if it did take three entire years, and it plays well with another holiday promotion whereby any game costing at least $15 (even after existing sale discounts) gets an automatic $10 reduction at the checkout. This offer stacks, as well, so if you buy three $15 games you get two of them for free, and it can all be done in the same transaction. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. Also this means you can get Death's Door for $5 and you should probably go get Death's Door for $5.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 devs walk back NFT plans following backlash

More NFT talk now. Earlier this week GSC Game World, the developers of the upcoming Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl, announced that the game would have a special kind of NFT-integration that would allow paying players to insert themselves into the game as an NPC or "metahuman." The bizarre scheme was all in aid of GSC Game World's wider goal of establishing a "metaverse" surrounding Stalker 2. As you can probably guess, folks weren't impressed.

• What's less surprising is the fact that GSC Game World actually listened to the overwhelming backlash to their absurd idea, releasing a statement which reads "we hear you. Based on the feedback we received, we've made a decision to cancel anything NFT-related in Stalker 2". The statement goes on to say, "the interests of our fans and players are the top priority for the team," it continued. "We're making this game for you to enjoy - whatever the cost is. If you care, we care too." So that's one small step forward after an enormous leap backwards.

Ubisoft announce incoming Splinter Cell remake

Ubisoft, who are fresh off their own NFT-related scandal with Ubisoft Quartz and a Ghost Recon Breakpoint helmet that takes 600 hours to unlock, attempted to claw back some positive press this week with the announcement that a remake of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell is on the way. The game is being developed by Ubisoft Toronto, the team behind Far Cry Six, and will be made using the Snowdrop Engine - which is currently being used for Ubisoft's upcoming Star Wars title as well as Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

• We don't really know much about the remake beyond that, but it's still pretty early in development even though fans have been clamouring for a full return of Sam Fisher for years now. Ubisoft actually posted a retrospective on the entire Splinter Cell series alongside a hefty interview with three key members of the remake team. Producer Matt West outlined "to me, a remake takes what you’d do in a remaster and goes a little bit further with it. Although we're still in the very earliest stages of development, what we're trying to do is make sure the spirit of the early games remains intact, in all of the ways that gave early Splinter Cell its identity." Watch this space.