Daily Brief - Monday, 16th November

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Hello, and welcome to another issue of the Bellular Daily Briefing - your companion in industry news.

A TimeSplitters 2 remake is not on the way.

An item description in THQ Nordic's recently released SpellForce 3: Fallen God refers to a potential TimeSplitters 2 remake - stating that “it’s finally coming! The iconic shooter, which has stood the test of time to join the era of modern games.”

- THQ Nordic, sadly, had this to say: The intention behind those easter eggs was pure fun. When Koch Media and Deep Silver are ready to talk about TimeSplitters, they will make sure to get heard,” - Any time now, please.

Yakuza series producer wants to make a Sonic the Hedgehog game

In a recent interview to mark Sega's 60th anniversary Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio producer Daisuke Sato has suggested that he'd "like to get involved" in a Sonic title "at least once" in his career.

- Sato says that he would like to make "a completely different Sonic" but didn't elaborate on what that might mean - though the prospect of a sharply-dressed Sonic the Hedgehog hitting people with bicycles is certainly an intriguing one.

XIII team apologise for the botched remake

The game released last week and quickly hit the lofty heights of the "overwhelmingly negative" user rating on Steam - now developer PlayMagic and publisher Microids have apologised for the launch state of the game, blaming the pandemic for development troubles.

- A joint statement admits that XIII does not meet quality standards in its "present state" and that the developer are working hard to turn things around. A Day One patch was supposed to fix the issues but it itself was delayed by remote-working difficulties - more updates are coming soon.

Phil Spencer apologises for next-gen stock shortages

Speaking at GlitchCon, the Xbox Boss commented on the fact that the launch of the Xbox Series X|S has gone very well for Microsoft - to the point where they "need more consoles" to satisfy incredibly high demand.

- The stock shortages were also acknowledged by Xbox platform head Liz Hamren, who wrote in a post on Xbox Wire that Microsoft are "working tirelessly" to get more consoles into stores around the world. It's a far cry from Xbox One launch day in 2013.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War balancing is coming soon

Following a weekend's worth of discussion as to how Cold War's MP5 is the most overpowered thing since sliced bread, developers Treyarch have confirmed that the game will get a full round of rebalancing during season one "if not sooner."

- Tony Flame, lead designer at Treyarch, took to Twitter to confirm that the developer are taking taking careful note of all feedback and are "already seeing some interesting trends in the analytics." Season 1 starts on December 10th, so players won't have long to wait for changes.

That's everything for today - catch us back here tomorrow for another dose of daily gaming news!