Daily Briefing: Monday 5th July

Doom Eternal's Invasion mode is no more, long live Horde mode instead

id Software's executive producer Marty Stratton confirmed over the weekend that Doom Eternal's Invasion mode, where players would sneakily invade other players' campaigns as demons, has been officially shelved. Instead, id will focus their efforts on a new Horde mode as well as giving Doom Eternal's existing Battlemode a bit of a revamp.

• Stratton attributes this change in direction to a combination of pandemic pressures affecting remote working and a rather lukewarm player response to recent updates. Horde mode will be a new singleplayer experience that offers a great amount of diversity and challenge, while the Battlemode "refresh" will adopt a more competitive, rank-based structure alongside balance changes.

PlayStation have officially axed Japan Studio from its studio portfolio

Sony began a restructuring of their historic Japan Studio back in April - with the vast majority of development staff being let go in aid of establishing this "new organisation." The reasoning at the time was that Japan Studio simply hadn't been profitable enough in recent years, and the studio's desire to create games specifically aimed at the Japanese audience clashed with Sony's more global ambitions.

• Now it looks like Sony's abandonment of Japan Studio is finally official - mention of the team has been removed from Sony's list of PlayStation studios. In their place is Team Asobi - the Astro's Playroom studio were recently acquired by Sony and appear to be being put to work creating games with a Japanese sensibility that also appear to a global market. Sony really aren't subtle, are they?

A lot of companies were apparently vying to buy Housemarque

The Returnal developers were recently acquired by Sony - finally making their decades-long development partnership official. However, there was apparently a decent amount of competition for the studio's signature - in a recent interview Housemarque's CEO confirmed that the studio had been approached by several "big players".

• When pressed for a bit more detail, Ilari Kuittinen said that their potential suitors were the "usual suspects: big players in the sector from China, Sweden and the US." That sounds very much like Tencent, Embracer Group, and maybe Epic Games? Though it's hard to say. Sony reportedly offered the kind of development freedom that resonated with Housemarque - though Kuittinen's suggestion that the studio turned down big players to slum it with Sony is hilarious.

NetherRealm moving onto new project following completion of Mortal Kombat 11 DLC

NetherRealm officially ended development support for Mortal Kombat 11 this past week, marking an end to over two years of new characters and content. The reason is that the studio are now entirely focused on their next big project - which is still unannounced. Mortal Kombat 11 has gotten a serious amount of content since it released back in March 2019 - including off-the-wall character packs like Spawn and the Terminator, as well as an entirely new singleplayer expansion in Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath.

• It'll be interesting to see what NetherRealm's next big project actually ends up being - though we have had a few rumours. With how much additional support Mortal Kombat 11 got it's unlikely the team will be launching headlong into another Mortal Kombat project right away, especially amid rumours that they're working on something Marvel-related. There's also the possibility of another Injustice sequel, so watch this space.