Daily Briefing: Tuesday 16th February

Six Days in Fallujah (a game about the Iraq War) isn't intended to be political

That's according to the game's publisher Victure who outlined that the game, which aims to tell the story of the 2004 Second Battle of Fallujah, isn't attempting to make "a political commentary" of any kind. Victure CEO Peter Tamte says the game is instead about "helping players understand the complexity of urban combat."

• These statements have been met with harsh criticism from a community that already wasn't entirely thrilled that the game has returned after its cancellation in 2009. The prevailing argument is that war is an inherently political subject matter, and so any game that deals with it can't avoid making a political statement.

Microsoft reportedly testing in-browser xCloud streaming

A new report by The Verge contains a number of images purporting to be of the xCloud preview scheme currently being tested by Microsoft employees. The images suggests that players will be able to access all Xbox Game Pass Ultimate cloud releases via their browser and easily pick up suspended titles.

• Microsoft have previously stated that they will be holding a public preview of xCloud's browser support some time in the spring. Among other things, this preview will allow users to stream games on Apple devices for the first time following Apple's veto of the service.

Valheim shifts 2m units

The viking survival title is very much the new hotness on Steam, and developers Iron Gate AB announced in a community post that the game reached the impressive sales milestone after only 13 days on the market.

• Valheim looks very much like the fastest growing viral hit on Steam. It reached one million sales within its first week and boasted a concurrent player peak of 160K - which has since grown to around 392K at time of writing. Those are certainly some numbers. Video on this one soon - it's an awesome story!

Starbreeze losses shrink as company strengthens

The struggling publisher recently posted their financial results for 2020 and, while they reported a 20% decline on sales year-on-year, the Payday franchise recorded a 67% increase in annual sales. This contributed towards Starbreeze's annual losses for 2020 falling to $15.8m, compared to $54.7m in 2019.

• Starbreeze's restructuring has been a slow, painful process but it is definitely starting to show results - especially after managing to pay back a large portion of their debts to creditors during 2020. CEO Tobias Sjögren says new Starbreeze is " a much stronger company that it was one year ago" and he seems to be right.