Daily Briefing: Thursday 15th April

Oxenfree sequel releasing this year

The sequel to the supernatural mystery gem was announced during yesterday's Nintendo Indie World Showcase. A news release confirms that the sequel, titled Oxenfree 2: Lost Signals, is set five years after the original and sees the player investigating "mysterious radio frequency signals." It's due to release on Switch and PC later this year.

• The first Oxenfree was developer Night School Studio's debut title back in 2016, and they've certainly been busy in the years leading up to the sequel. They followed Oxenfree with a game based on Mr Robot before launching Afterparty in 2019 and Next Stop Nowhere in 2020. Afterparty is about beating Satan in a drinking contest to escape the afterlife, in case you were wondering.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla's first expansion has been delayed

Valhalla's first major expansion, Wrath of the Druids, was originally set to release on April 29th. It has instead been pushed back two weeks to May 13th in order to give the team a little extra time to "deliver a more refined experience." The expansion will see Eivor travel to Ireland to uncover some ancient druidic mysteries.

• Delays this short are a little confusing because it's unclear what exactly can be achieved in two weeks that couldn't be achieved previously. At any rate, Wrath of the Druids will be Valhalla's first major expansion and will be followed by The Siege of Paris sometime this Summer - although it may now be delayed a touch, also.

Xbox Live Gold will soon not be required to play F2P games online

Microsoft were previously testing the removal of the Xbox Live requirement for F2P games exclusively for Alpha and Alpha Skip Ahead members - Xbox Insider's invite-only tiers - but this week expanded testing to include the easiest to join tier.

• It's nice to see Microsoft finally taking the step to align themselves with Nintendo and Sony - who don't require their users to have active online subscriptions for F2P online games. The feature should be fully live soon and, while certain titles will apparently require an update to remove the Xbox Live requirement, Microsoft say they are working closely with devs to facilitate this.

Ubisoft launching UK-based online gaming channel

The channel, dubbed gTV, will go live today on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Twitch. Ubisoft say it will feature a variety of original programming such as documentaries and talk shows, as well as coverage of larger industry events.

• This is a pretty surprising announcement and could easily be viewed as Ubisoft attempting to drum up some positive PR for a change, but gTV is apparently meant to be a celebration of general gaming culture and as such will focus on the industry as a whole rather than specifically on Ubisoft. So there you go.