Daily Briefing: Monday 27th September

Naughty Dog say that Last of Us multiplayer thing is still coming

Things have been pretty quiet on the project since it was (sort of) announced a while back but, speaking in a new blog posted to the official Naughty Dog website, senior communications manager Rochelle Snyder says that work is still well underway and that the studio will show off the game "when it's ready." Snyder was writing in response to what must just be waves of fan questions as to what's going on with the game.

• Snyder didn't go into too much detail in the blog post, but did say that Naughty Dog "love what the team is developing and want to give them time to build out their ambitious project." The studio have been hiring pretty steadily since The Last of Us Part II released so we're bound to hear something soon. Snyder wrapped up by linking back to a Naughty Dog tweet from 2019 which said that players will "eventually experience the fruits of our team's online ambition, but not as part of The Last of Us Part II."

Spider-Man will have his own story and cutscenes when he (finally) hits Marvel's Avengers

The web-slinger looks set to make his long-awaited appearance in Marvel's Avengers later this year, and developers Crystal Dynamics have confirmed that he will "for sure" have his own story missions and cinematics when he does eventually join the roster. This is about as much detail as fans have had on Spider-Man's upcoming appearance beyond the fact that he would have an in-game event around launch.

• This confirmation comes courtesy of Crystal Dynamics' own Dan Matlack who, responding to a question on Discord, outlined that "Spider-Man is what we call an 'event' so he will have cutscenes and a story for sure." The character was supposed to release towards the start of this year but everything was delayed by...you know. Things were pretty quiet until a few weeks ago when the Spider-Man event surfaced in the game's latest developer roadmap.

GOG.com users have something to say about Hitman's DRM requirements

For whatever reason IO Interactive's World of Assassination Hitman Trilogy was never previously on GOG, but that looked to have changed when Hitman: Game of the Year Edition arrived on the platform last week. It even has a neat 70% discount to sweeten the pot. The thing is, it hasn't gone down so well, currently sitting at an overall rating of 1.4 stars out of 5. This makes it the lowest-rated Hitman game on GOG by a good bit.

• But why? A lot of the complaints all share the same reasoning, that "this game is not DRM free in any meaningful sense." Hitman requires an internet connection not only for the usual suite of online features, but also the game's main progression system. This is the means to unlock new gear, add new inventory slots, and generally...progress in the game. Users say this is a flagrant betrayal of GOG's own DRM-free stance and also their advertisement of Hitman - which the storefront currently notes is free from DRM. Yikes.