Daily Briefing: Wednesday 22nd September

Overwatch 2 boss leaves Activision Blizzard

Chacko Sonny joined Blizzard back in 2016 and served first as executive producer on Overwatch and then as development head on Overwatch 2. Sonny announced his departure in a letter to staff last week in which he said that working at Blizzard "has been an absolute privilege and one of the best experiences of my career." His letter didn't make any mention of the ongoing state and federal investigations into Activision Blizzard, or the recent lawsuit.

• Sonny's is just the most recent high-profile departure from Activision Blizzard after chief legal officer Clair Hart announced her departure last week. Sonny will definitely be missed. He's been a valuable and respected figure at Blizzard these past five years, and many thought he would be the one to lead Overwatch into the future after Jeff Kaplan's surprise departure back in April. An Activision Blizzard spokesperson says that Sonny is leaving the company "to take some time off", which probably means that they need to reassess their annual leave policy.

Death Stranding's PS4 version costs £5 to upgrade

Death Stranding's PS5 Director's Cut is just around the corner and players on PS4 will be able to upgrade their copy for the relatively handy price of £5. Sony previously revealed that the cost of upgrading from the PS4 version to the PS5 Digital Deluxe Edition would be $10/€10 and folks in the UK assumed it would be the same for them. Sony's PlayStation UK Twitter feed confirmed the upgrade is a little bit cheaper in the UK, which is nice.

• The Director's Cut version has, as you can probably guess, quite a but of new stuff including enhanced visuals, new missions, new combat abilities, and a rather bizarre racing mode. A recent showcase video gave a bit of insight into these new features, which are sure to make an appealing baffling game even more appealing...and baffling.

Original Sonic the Hedgehog sells for $430K at auction, Yuji Naka is baffled

The recent boom in retro gaming prices is something we've talked about quite a bit, but it's not like the topic has gotten any less ridiculous now that Sonic the Hedgehog's creator is asking questions about the value of a recent auction sale. A copy of the original Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive (that's Genesis in the US) sold at an astounding $430,500 at auction recently and Yuji Naka took to Twitter to express a mixture of confusion and hope.

• Naka asked his Twitter followers whether the auction price was a scam, though also seemed quite positive about the whole thing in saying "I wondered if it was time for Sonic to reach a high." The reason for the skepticism is that the Sonic game in question was rated by grading and certification service Wata Games, who are currently embroiled in a bit of controversy due to allegations that they colluded with an auction site to artificially inflate retro game prices. Yikes.