Daily Briefing: Thursday 28th October

Vicarious Visions to fully merge with Blizzard

Activision Blizzard informed employees this week that Vicarious Visions, which was previously assimilated into Blizzard, will officially lose its name as part of a full merger. The initial absorption happened back in January when Vicarious Visions had already been assisting Blizzard with Overwatch and World of Warcraft for some time, but at the time the studio were set to retain their independent identity. Now, though, Vicarious Visions' primary focus will be offering "long-term support" for Blizzard games.

• The news has been met with a mixed response from employees. Like many outside observers, Vicarious Vision workers were under the impression that the studio would continue to operate independently, even under the Blizzard banner. As of a town hall meeting this week, however, the Vicarious Visions name is no more. We don't know what it will be called, but employees are speculating Blizzard Albany. It's an odd move for a studio which has been consistently killing it with releases like THPS 1&2 Remastered to essentially up and vanish, especially when former studio head Jen Oneal is now co-president of Blizzard.

That weird Warner Bros. fighting game might actually be real

One of the weirdest pieces of gaming news in recent memory is the rumour the Warner Bros. Games are working on a Smash Bros-style fighting game using characters from across their massive IP portfolio. It's a bizarre rumour but, following a few leaked images from earlier this week, it may genuinely be real. The game, apparently called Multiversus, seeks to bring a truly baffling cast of characters together for a big ol' punch-up.

• So, these leaked images seem to show characters from Adventure Time, Stephen Universe, and Rick & Morty going to town on folks like Batman, Gandalf and [checks notes] Bugs Bunny. According to VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb, Multiversus will be a F2P title with future characters available as additional paid DLC. LeBron James will reportedly be one of those characters and, between him and Bugs Bunny, it's starting to sound like the new Space Jam movie is to blame for all of this. Ah well, bring it on, WB.

Amazon respond to complaints surrounding New World's player economy

Amazon's New World is still ticking along pretty solidly, even managing to bounce back from a suite of server connectivity issues at launch, but one issue that's yet to be dealt with is what many people believe is a broken economy. The game's subreddit is fun of complaints centred around the idea that there just isn't enough money in the game to support a stable in-game economy. This, in turn, has apparently caused widespread deflation and plummeting prices, and forced players to resort to bartering for resources.

• It's worth pointing out at this point that it is still a game we're talking about, but nevertheless it is a real issue that could cause some serious problems on down the line. Amazon don't seem to be too worried though, as a new post on the official New World forum states that the in-game economy is "performing within acceptable levels" and that all servers are producing more money than is being removed "by a good margin." Players still beg to differ, but it doesn't seem like Amazon are ready to listen just yet. Solid.