🎮 More Layoffs at Xbox, The Success of Rematch and Concept Art from Cancelled Batman Game...
More Layoffs at Xbox, The Success of Rematch, Concept Art from Cancelled Batman Game Leaked Online, Square Enix Wants to Make More Turn-Based Games and more!
Hello friends,
Today is July 3rd 2025 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 More Layoffs at Xbox
🎮 The Success of Rematch
🎮 Concept Art from Cancelled Batman Game Leaked Online
🎮 Square Enix Wants to Make More Turn-Based Games
⚡ Lightning Round!
🫡 True Tribute!
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 More Layoffs at Xbox
Just a few days after announcing a major wave of layoffs in their sales department, Microsoft announced another one, this time targeting Xbox.
According to Jason Schreier from Bloomberg, the new report shares that due to a global restructuring, Microsoft will be cutting an unspecified number of people across various Xbox divisions, with managers expecting “substantial cuts across the entire group”.
So far, Microsoft has refused to comment on that and has not disclosed any information about this round of layoffs.
Well, that figures. It’s very unfortunate and sad, but there’s nothing we can do about it. I hope that everybody laid off will find themselves a safe harbour in these troubled times…
🎮 The Success of Rematch
This one caught me by surprise, but apparently, Rematch, a newly released football simulator game with a unique perspective, is getting a lot of traction and shortly after release, already reporting more than 1 million copies sold.
For those of you who don’t know, this is a game developed by Sloclap (devs behind Sifu and Absolver) and co-published by Kepler Interactive is a multiplayer football game where instead of controlling the whole team, you control only one individual player in various competitive modes with an arcade twist.
The game has already received a lot of praise from both fans and critics alike, and it is currently sitting on “Mostly Positive” reviews. Some even say that this is the best sports game that’s been released in quite a while. Here’s just one of the examples from Insider Gaming:
At $30, Rematch sits in that awkward middle tier of pricing: not a premium AAA title, but not quite impulse-buy territory either. For some, that price might be a sticking point depending on the depth you’re looking for. But if you’re looking for a fresh, competitive soccer experience that breaks the mold, Rematch is worth your time and money.
It’s not perfect. But the foundation is incredibly strong, the fun far outweighs the flaws, and Sloclap has proven that it’s listening and iterating quickly. If this is Rematch at launch, I’m excited to see what it becomes.
As I don’t play sports simulators very often, it’s no wonder I missed this game, but after looking at the gameplay footage and a pricetag, I’m quite intrigued and curious to try it myself! At least they didn’t follow in FIFA’s footsteps 😅
Have you played Rematch? What do you think about sports games in general?
🎮 Concept Art from Cancelled Batman Game Leaked Online
WB Montreal was developing a new Batman game as a follow-up to 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight, a few years ago (now cancelled), and recently, one of the fans got their hands on some of the interesting art shared by character artist Rodrigue Pralier.
Originally dubbed Project Sabbath, the game was planned to be the fifth entry in the Arkham universe and set 10 years after Batman: Arkham Knight in a Batman Beyond-inspired near-future. Unfortunatelly, it was eventually scrapped and the game files were repurposed to be a part of Gotham Knights, but according to a fan page, an artist who was working on the game recently shared some of the concept art and we can see a glimpse of what could be.
Of course, it was promptly taken down (probably on WB’s request), but some of the attached images could still be found of Damian, an older Bruce, Killer Croc, and Huntress.
Honestly, looking back at how Gotham Knights turned out, I wonder if Warner Bros. regrets scrapping this project and opting for a follow-up that was received so poorly. Unfortunately, we’ll never know what could have been with this one…
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🎮 Square Enix Wants to Make More Turn-Based Games
The success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is on everyone’s mind, and Square Enix is not an exception. In fact, one of the company’s investors is reportedly pushing for Square Enix to shift gears back to turn-based games, using Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest as examples.
According to Insider Gaming, at the shareholder meeting, some of the investors would love to see the return of turn-based Final Fantasy:
At the Square Enix shareholders meeting, one investor said they would like the new Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games to be turn-based and highlighted Expedition 33’s success as an example.
Square Enix responded that they are aware of Expedition 33 and believe that command-based RPGs are the origin of Square Enix. They value the genre of command-based RPGs, and plan to continue delivering such games in the future.
I’m not sure how I feel about it yet. Square Enix had some major successes with remakes of Final Fantasy, and I think the fact that those games were action as opposed to turn-based is a big contributing factor. Sure, getting back to the original formula would definitely be great for the hardcore fans, but would it be better for all the gamers? I think that a company like this could pursue both directions; they’d just have to pick and choose which franchises to dedicate to which genre.
How do you feel about Square Enix and turn-based games?
⚡ Lightning Round!
1…2…3…Go!
🎮 Netflix Delisting A Lot of Games
Unexpectedly, starting this month, Netflix is delisting some of the biggest games on its roster, such as Hades, Monument Valley and Braid.
Originally spotted by Engadget, the company plans to delist more than 20 titles from its gaming service. Which leaves many people wondering, what’s going to happen with the game development ambitions of this streaming giant?
This news comes almost a year after the closure of Netflix’s AAA game studio, a complete overhaul of the gaming department and a report that their “reach” has tripled after they added a GTA trilogy to the platform.
I can’t even imagine what it feels like to be a part of such a rollercoaster 😅
🎮 Build A Rocket Boy Started Laying Off People
It has begun. According to IGN, after a very poor launch, Build a Rocket Boy recently announced that they have started a process of letting an undisclosed number of people go.
We can confirm that we have had to make the painful decision to notify our hardworking team of some internal changes at Build A Rocket Boy. While we are working to reassign roles for as many of those impacted by these changes as possible, sadly we are initiating a formal consultation process that may result in redundancies. This decision has not been made lightly, and we are committed to handling this process with transparency, fairness, and respect for all employees. We will provide further details to the team over the coming weeks.
The launch of MindsEye has been a significant milestone for Build A Rocket Boy, but we know that we still have a lot more to do to grow our community in the coming years. The challenges we’ve faced have only strengthened our resolve and, while we are deeply saddened by today’s decision and thankful to our incredible team, this shift allows us to focus on delivering ongoing updates and performance optimization for MindsEye, while also ensuring the long-term success of Build A Rocket Boy’s future ambitions.
Unfortunately, the studio still hasn’t been able to fully deal with the consequences of a launch that most definitely shouldn’t have happened. With gamers reporting that even though the gameplay and the plot looks promising, the game is being held back drastically by performance, terrible AI and numerous bugs across the board.
Whether this will be the end of the studio remains to be seen, but this is already not a great sign.
🎮 Remedy Promises To Fix FBC: Firebreak After “Mixed” Reception
At the same time, Remedy Entertainment, which had not a great start of their own, promised recently to improve FBC: Firebreak in the coming weeks.
The company acknowledged that they heard the fans “loud and clear” and that there are certain aspects of the game that should (and will) be improved while the game sits at “Mixed” Steam reviews a few weeks after the initial release.
It’s been exciting (and nerve-wracking) to see our first multiplayer game out in the wild. Launching FBC: Firebreak is a significant milestone for us, not just because it’s our first online co-op game, but because we’ve self-published it as well. Several things have gone well. Clearly, not everything has.
We’ve been reading all the reviews, comments, and feedback from the community across social platforms, Discord, and our Steam forums, as well as the analytics we are getting. It’s clear there are features that need to improve. And they will improve. Thank you for the feedback. We hear you loudly and clearly. Please keep the feedback coming.
We are improving some features starting now. While we can improve some features today and in the near term, some others will take longer and require more thinking from us. We will keep you informed every step of the way.
Have you played FBC: Firebreak? What do you think about the game?
🫡 Wanna Get Featured in a True Tribute?
I want to expand my recommendation section a bit, so I'd like to explain how you can get featured in this section regularly.
If you want to become a part of my regular Tribute rotation, start Recommending
and I’ll do the same.Let’s grow together! 🎉
😄 Personal Update
Today is the day! Angry Birds Bounce will be LIVE in just a few hours!
I know that many of you will probably never play it, but I can’t express how excited I am! This is the first project that I did as a Game Producer from (almost) start to finish, and I have been involved in so many things with so many amazing people at Rovio.
Of course, I’m also very nervous, as I assume any producer is when their project is releasing, but I hope that someone somewhere will appreciate all the efforts, love and dedication that we put into it and that we will continue to put in the future!
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
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Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
Microsoft is laying off people.
Telling lies that they're doubling down to be more efficient.
Tell the truth, Microsoft!
You just failed to be a good employer!
And for the last couple of years, you have behaved like a rich, obese kid in a candy store!
I'm genuinely gutted about Perfect Dark i was really looking forward to it! From someone who grew up on the N64 it really is a sad time. Yet we get Black Ops 7 instead go figure