Daily Briefing: Monday 15th November

The Grand Theft Auto Trilogy is finally back on PC

Last week's release of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - Definitive Edition was afflicted by quite a few issues across launch platforms. PlayStation players who had preordered the digital version of the game were able to access the game up to 24 hours early in some territories, promoting Rockstar to remove the game from sale until each region's official launch time. Next came an extended period of maintenance for the Rockstar Launcher on PC which rendered the game unplayable. The prevailing belief is that this maintenance (and the game being removed from sale on the Rockstar Store) was to deal the several unlicensed songs that were still present in the game files.

• That maintenance period actually lasted the entire weekend, with the Rockstar Launcher only just going live again recently following three days of inactivity. This means that the GTA Trilogy, and literally all of Rockstar's other games, are now playable again. In a statement confirming the Launcher return, Rockstar said that the team "are also working to improve and update overall improvement as we move forward" and, as several media outlets have made us very much aware, there is certainly work to be done on the GTA Trilogy to make it feel like a truly definitive edition of anything.

Call of Duty: Vanguard is the franchise's worst launch in 14 years

That's according to a number of different media reports from around the internet. GamesIndustry.biz, citing newly published digital and physical sales data from GSD, suggested that Call of Duty: Vanguard's opening week was down 40% against last year's premium entry, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Citing a separate set of sources, VGC outlined that Vanguard was actually the lowest-performing franchise launch in the last 14 years. VGC claim that only Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare sold fewer copies in its opening week, but it was its 2007 release that kickstarted the new era of modern Call of Duty dominance.

• Going up a bit in the overall Call of Duty sales rankings, Vanguard sold nearly 200% fewer copies than series leader Black Ops (2010). VGC point out that even Ghosts and Infinite Warfare had stronger launches, even though they're both popularly considered to be low points for the franchise. However, even though the franchise-low sales are likely to impress Activision Blizzard, Vanguard still had the second biggest game launch of the year here in the UK after FIFA 22. As for why sales are so low, industry commenters seem to think that Vanguard launching during an ongoing console transition with games like Halo Infinite on the horizon, while others believe players just stuck with the F2P Warzone.

Assassin's Creed narrative director returns to Ubisoft just seven months after leaving

Darby McDevitt left Ubisoft just seven months ago to embark o "a new adventure" which eventually turned out to be a stint working on the A Quiet Place game at the Montreal-based Illogika. Now, for whatever reason, he's back, confirming in a statement “yes, I have returned to Ubisoft! As I pondered my career over the past year, I focused on my desire to explore new ideas and unknown frontiers. Much to my delight, this is reflected in my return to Ubisoft to work on AC. I’m excited to continue my journey. Stay tuned!"

• We've discussed before how Ubisoft are kind of in the grips of serious talent falloff, with several senior creatives departing in recent times. McDevitt's return means that the studio have now reclaimed one of their most talented and experienced story-crafters, having worked on the Assassin's Creed franchise through Revelations, Black Flag, Unity, Origins, and Valhalla. McDevitt's return also after Ubisoft confirmed that their next major franchise project is Assassin's Creed Infinity: a large-scale online-oriented title that will "evolve over time." Infinity is a massive cross-studio collaboration between Ubisoft's Quebec and Montreal offices, so it will need a lot of backing.