Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai is ending his acclaimed game design YouTube series this month

Online Betting…

Twitch staff are concerned a third round of layoffs could hit the streaming platform, following 500 job cuts earlier this year and 400 in 2023.

That’s according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, which states Amazon paid almost $1bn for Twitch but it’s now making less money and engagement has slowed.

The company is set to have an annual operational review this autumn and staff are concerned more job losses could follow. Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy has led a profitability review at Twitch and shown little tolerance for unprofitable business, the Journal reports.

PlayStation live-service Concord won’t sell you a battle pass – would it be better if it did?

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Coral Island developer Stairway Games has responded to the lack of Switch port, blaming the recent layoffs at Humble Games for leaving console versions “in a place of uncertainty”.

The cosy life-sim game received over $1.6m in Kickstarter funding. However, some backers who specifically backed the game for a Switch version are angry at the lack of news for a port. Other backers have claimed requests for PS4 keys have been automatically upgraded to PS5 without consent.

At present, the game is available on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S (plus Game Pass), but not Switch.

Coral Island 1.1 “Story Finale: Land & Sea”

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Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Horii believes modern advancements in game graphics make silent protagonists “look like an idiot”.

Horii recently discussed the topic of RPGs with Metaphor: ReFantazio director and producer Katsura Hashino, an excerpt of which was published by Denfaminicogamer (thanks Automaton).

One challenge Horii believes the Dragon Quest franchise is facing is how a protagonist should be depicted now that graphics have become more realistic – allowing for more detailed and expressive designs.

DRAGON QUEST III HD 2D Remake – Release Date Trailer – Nintendo Switch

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Concord, the upcoming 5v5 hero shooter from Sony’s Firewalk Studios, is bucking the battle pass trend, with its developer telling players, “You own Concord, Concord doesn’t own you.”

Firewalk Studios announced the news in a series of posts on social media, explaining Concord won’t have a battle pass because it “wanted to focus [its] attention on making Concord a rewarding and robust experience on day one, where just playing the game, levelling up your accounts and characters, and completing jobs yields meaningful rewards.”

In a seperate post, Concord gameplay animation director Mark DeRidder wrote, “No Battle Pass, folks. You own Concord, Concord doesn’t own you.”

It’s certainly an increasingly unusual, if not unwelcome, choice in a world where it feels like…

Netflix currently has over 80 games in development, with plans to release a game a month to its subscribers from this month onwards in its Netflix Stories section.

In its latest earnings call, Netflix’s co-CEO, president and director Gregory K Peters discussed the company’s plans for gaming and how it will achieve growth.

Where the company is moving quickest is with interactive narrative games, which Peters describes as “easier to build”. These are placed in the Netflix Stories narrative hub and it’s here the company will be launching a new game each month based on popular series like Emily in Paris and Selling Sunset.

Newscast: Does the loss of day one launches make Xbox Game Pass pointless?

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Mobile game Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is now available in early access on PC, following a successful closed beta.

The turn-based RPG from Electronic Arts was originally released in 2015 for mobile, but almost nine years later is making the hyper jump to PC.

Early access is available via the EA app, bringing options for higher resolutions, anti-aliasing support, mouse and keyboard controls, and a 60fps frame rate.

STAR WARS™: Galaxy of Heroes – Now on PC – Trailer

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Ahead of the launch of Suicide Squad’s second season, Rocksteady has detailed the playstyle of Mrs. Freeze.

We’ve known of her existence already thanks to a roadmap, but now her unique traversal abilities have been revealed in a new blog post for Season of Frozen Hearts, as well as more about the Frozen Elseworld environment.

If you’ve seen Frozone from Pixar’s The Incredibles film then you’ll have an idea of what to expect from Mrs. Freeze, who can use her Ice Path to glide over land and through the air with ease. She can also create loops and platforms to dash around battles and shoot enemies from above.

Let’s Play Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League – IS IT A QUINNER OR A SINNER?

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