Assassin's Creed Mirage was envisioned as an homage to its franchise—a celebration of how it began and what it accomplished between 2007's Assassin's Creed and 2023's Mirage. Beginning as an idea for a DLC expansion that would take Eivor to the Middle East, it grew into a standalone prequel starring Basim, the enigmatic Hidden One from Valhalla. Developed as a shorter experience by Ubisoft Bordeaux, the return-to-roots game presented a distinctive set of challenges, which are explored in the March 22 GDC talk "Between Legacy and Modernity: Creating an Homage Game to the 15-Year-Old Assassin's Creed Franchise."

During the talk, Creative Director Stéphane Boudon and Lead Producer Fabian Salomon discuss the game's beginnings, its growth into a "remoot"—that is, something between a remake and a reboot - and how a streamlined approach helped them make tough choices and focus the game on the Assassin experience. To find out more, we spoke with Boudon and Salomon about some of the early concepts behind the game, a few features that didn't make the cut, and how Mirage re-introduced and redefined stealth as a gameplay pillar.

2:21, a French development team is well versed in Unreal Engine 5-based games development—as of last year they were in the process of utilizing Epic's tech to remake Adeline Software's classic duo of Little Big Adventure (1994) and Little Big Adventure 2 (1997), as well as a now cancelled series reboot. Following on from recent-ish good news—regarding a new publication deal—CEO Ben Limare has announced that his team is moving away from UE5: "In June 2023, you experienced an initial prototype on Proxima Island, developed in a short time by a small team. Despite its imperfections, this prototype was a crucial springboard for engaging with you and understanding your expectations. This prototype was built using Unreal Engine 5, with an almost manual reconstruction of the island. Faced with the challenge of replicating this method for a larger world in a limited time, we opted for a complete overhaul of the game, based on new foundations."

Limare revealed to long-term fans that development of "Twinsen's Little Big Adventure" has already quietly transferred over to the Unity Engine—a strange choice given last year's fallout over "Runtime Fees." Unity Technologies is not winning any popularity contests in modern times—CEO John Riccitiello resigned last October, during payment plan upheavals. 2.21 developers did their very best to carry on with UE5, but legacy code demanded a pivot to a compatible foundation. Limare has roped in another Adeline Software veteran: "The answer lies in the work of Sébastien Viannay, a developer on the original games, as well as the mobile port. It was during the work on the latter that Seb developed a small tool to setup the pathfinding—that is, the ability to tap a point on the screen and have Twinsen follow that direction. This tool interprets the original game's data to reconstruct the level and identify obstacles."

Ben Limare, CEO at 2.21: "Dear friends and supporters, I'm tasked with sharing a disappointing update. Despite our earnest efforts, we were unsuccessful in securing a publisher for the reboot of Twinsen's Little Big Adventure.

What's the path forward? With a heavy heart, we've halted our work on the reboot and, for the moment, regard the project as canceled. This allows us to channel our focus and energy into the remastered version of Twinsen's Little Big Adventure (TLBA Remastered). We will explore whether we can reincorporate the reboot's ideas into the remaster, but that's a conversation for another time."

In the upcoming Alone in the Dark, players can choose between two protagonists to experience the haunting story: Emily Hartwood and Edward Carnby. To bring these two iconic characters to life, the developers partnered up with famous actors Jodie Comer (Killing Eve, Free Guy) and David Harbour (Stranger Things, Black Widow), who will lend their voices, their appearance, and their formidable acting skills to the protagonists. Depending on who you play, you will get a different take on the same story. You can see both of them in action in the new spotlight video, showcasing a ton of gameplay.

We hope you are not trembling with fear now, because we have more shocking news to share: Alone in the Dark is launching on October 25th, 2023 on PC, Xbox Series S/X, and PlayStation 5, and will be available at an SRP of €59.99 / $59.99 / £49.99. The digital pre-order kicks off today.

CD Projekt declared in an investor regulatory announcement (issued on May 11) that its troubled "Project Sirius" multiplayer game was back on track with a renewed development focus. Their briefing is titled: "New framework for Project Sirius, decision concerning partial reversal of the impairment allowance for 2022, and write-off of part of the development expenditures incurred in Q1 2023." As reported back in March, the Polish gaming group made the difficult choice to reboot its multiplayer focused Witcher title and write-off a significant chunk of the development budget. Last week's update seems to indicate that their North American studio, The Molasses Flood, is still involved in the making of Project Sirius and that a smaller chunk of project expenditure has been written off in the mean time.

The company's investor announcement coincided with emerging rumors of employee layoffs - gaming news outlets started to pick up on social media declarations last Friday (May 12). Yesterday CD Projekt confirmed that the refocused and restarted development process has resulted in a round of headcount cuts on both sides of the Atlantic. In a statement issued to PC Gamer, a company spokesperson says: "Because the project changed, so has the composition of the team that's working on it - mainly on The Molasses Flood's side. The concrete number of employees we parted ways with is 21 team members in the US and 8 in Poland (working on the project outside of the US)."

Last May, Electronic Arts confirmed that its licensing deal with FIFA would be coming to an end by the summer of 2023. This week it has revealed the new branding for the EA Sport FC franchise, which is set to succeed the soon-to-be discontinued EA + FIFA series. Last year EA announced that it would be bringing its 30-year partnership with FIFA to a close. The computer game publishing giant could not agree on a new licensing deal with the association football/soccer governing body. EA Sports has unveiled the new logo and visual language that will feature atop their new flagship football game. It is widely rumored that FIFA are in the process of creating a new and distinct football games franchise with a yet to be revealed development partner.

The sports division has provided a breakdown of the design process: "The new brand takes its design inspiration from triangles, an ever-present shape in the sport and football culture that represents the game in multiple dimensions. From passing techniques to set-plays to formation design, triangles are a constant in the beautiful game. The shape is also woven into the DNA of EA Sports football experiences - from the isometric viewing angles of EA Sports' first football games and triangular polygons that make up every frame, to the chemistry triangles that exist in Ultimate Team or the iconic player indicator symbol that appears above athletes in every match."

CD Projekt has admitted to writing off the development funds spent so far expended on Project Sirius - a codename for a satellite studio produced spin-off game in its best selling The Witcher series. The Polish development and publishing group is restarting Project Sirius from scratch, and it is not clear whether their East Coast USA-based outfit, Molasses Flood, will remain as part of the rebooted cycle. Within a recently released company financial report its reasoning was made clear: "The aforementioned decision is based on results of evaluation of the scope and commercial potential of the original concept of Project Sirius, and ongoing work on formulating a new framework for this project."

CD Projekt had spent over $7 million in 2022 on development costs for Project Sirius. More than $2.2 million has been spent in 2023, presumably right up until the decision to bin all currently completed work. Project Sirius was announced in the autumn of 2022, and at around that time Molasses Flood was undertaking a large scale recruitment drive. The game was in a pre-production phase by the end of the year, with over sixty members of staff confirmed to be working on it. Development was also being supported by members of CD Projekt RED's team at their Warsaw headquarters, and now it is very apparent that the overseers were not happy with what was going on in New England.

French developer 2:21 this week announced its intentions to produce remastered versions of its Twinsen's Little Big Adventure games. A planned third game has been delayed beyond 2024, the original intention was to release this sequel in time for the 30th Anniversary of the series, but development has only reached a prototype phase. The remasters will serve as an interim proof of potential to prospective publishers of the third game. These updated versions have been assembled by a small team, with the Unreal Engine 5 serving as the technological base.

The original Little Big Adventure was released and published by Electronic Arts in 1994, and the second in 1997. Activision dealt with the latter's distribution in North America. Certain territories received retitled versions - Relentless: Twinsen's Adventure (1) and Twinsen's Odyssey (2) - this inconsistent branding by market departments caused much confusion during the nascent days of gaming discussion online. The 2:21 team has sought to hybridize the different titles, but the 'Relentless' moniker is no longer part of its new naming system, thankfully.