Daily Briefing: Friday 19th November

Cyberpunk 2077 could be headed to Xbox Game Pass?

A new official Xbox Game Pass promotional video seems to suggest that Microsoft are planning to add Cyberpunk 2077 to the popular subscription service. The video released earlier on this week to celebrate the arrival of Xbox Cloud Gaming on consoles, which is included as part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription tier. The video includes a short piece of Cyberpunk 2077 footage pulled from an official CD Projekt Red trailer for the game.

• CD Projekt Red don't seem convinced though. In a new statement addressing the rumours, a studio spokesperson said "there are no Game Pass plans for Cyberpunk 2077." It could just be that the studio aren't ready to make the announcement yet, as Cyberpunk 2077 would fit in quite nicely on Xbox Game Pass. There is still plenty of work being done to the game following its disastrous 2020 launch, and the low barrier to entry of Xbox Game Pass could get a lot of much-needed eyes on the game.

Phil Spencer isn't impressed with Activision Blizzard

The Xbox boss confirmed this week that he will be "evaluating all aspects" of Xbox's relationship with Activision Blizzard following the company's response the ongoing allegations against CEO Bobby Kotick. In an email sent to Xbox staff, Spencer outlined that he and his executive leadership team were "disturbed and deeply troubled by the horrific events and actions" over at Activision Blizzard.

• Spencer wrote in the email that "this time of behaviour has no place in our industry" before confirming that he is currently "evaluating all aspects of Xbox's relation with Activision Blizzard and making ongoing proactive adjustments." Phil Spencer's words come shortly after Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan sent a similar message to staff, expressing disgust and outrage at the goings-on at Activision Blizzard. What's the next step?

New World's first major update is pretty big

Amazon Games, no doubt hoping to capitalise on the popularity of their first real gaming success while also appealing to players whose interest may have waned, just dropped a massive update for New World which includes new weapons, enemies, and a whole stack of fixes. The fixes are probably the main focus of the update as there are a lot of them and some of them, like a 10% movement boost when travelling on roads, sound pretty good as far as quality of life changes go.

• Other changes include alterations to various weapons and tree masteries in order to better balance things across the board. There is also a new faction mission for PvP players and a few changes to how taxation affects player housing. No word yet on whether that will have any impact on New World's famously busted economy, but it's nice to see that some changes are being made.