🎮 New Live-Service Game From WB, 2 Unannounced Titles at Xbox and The Fate of Dead Space...
New Live-Service Game From WB, 2 Unannounced Titles at Xbox, The Fate of Dead Space, Sony Is Suing Tencent Over Horizon-like Game and more!
Hello friends,
Today is August 5th 2025 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 New Live-Service Game From WB
🎮 2 Unannounced Titles at Xbox
🎮 The Fate of Dead Space
🎮 Sony Is Suing Tencent Over Horizon-like Game
⚡ Lightning Round!
🫡 True Tribute!
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 New Live-Service Game From WB
There have been a lot of reports that despite the failures of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, WB still believes that Live-Service games are the way to go. That is confirmed by a recent job post from WB Montreal, which appears to be working on a new Live-Service title.
According to Tech4Gamers, which spotted the post, the studio is currently looking for an Executive Producer to “ lead the development of a high-quality AAA game based on one of the iconic IPs from the vast Warner Bros. and DC Comics catalog”.
The interesting part is a little buried under all the other responsibilities. Among other things, the job posting states multiple times that this person should have a lot of experience with live-service:
Execution and Market Readiness:
Drive pre-launch activities including marketing, community engagement, and beta testing.
Oversee post-launch content and live service strategy, ensuring ongoing player engagement.
Stay informed on industry trends and player expectations to keep the game competitive and relevant.
Qualifications & Experience…
Proven experience as an Executive Producer or Director of Production on at least one shipped AAA title.
12+ years of experience in game development, including 5+ years in a senior production leadership role.
Deep understanding of the full game development lifecycle, including live services.
All in all, I understand the impulse. Everybody wants a steady stream of revenue, and if we compare a successful single-player title vs a live-service, I’m sure that the latter one will win by a mile. But there is a point to be made that only a limited number of games make it to the top. And considering the track record of WB, let’s just say this, I’m a bit skeptical. That being said, I’m sure they’ve learned a lot from their previous experience, so let’s see what they have in mind this time.
Are you looking forward to the new DC game?
🎮 2 Unannounced Titles at Xbox
Speaking of unannounced projects and job descriptions, another rumour surfaced recently regarding Xbox and their plans to release two new multi-platform titles in 2026.
This time it comes from LinkedIn and the profile of iAsia Brown, who works as a Senior Game Producer at Xbox Game Studios. And in the experience section of her current title she states that:
My role centers on production strategy, milestone management, risk mitigation, and studio relations—bridging the vision of our developers with the strategic goals of the Xbox brand. I currently support the publishing efforts behind multiple upcoming titles, partnering closely with internal stakeholders and external studios to deliver genre-defining games at global scale.
Key contributions include:
• Leading development pipelines for two unannounced cross-platform titles set for release in 2026.
Of course, there are no extra details as to what those projects will be.
It’s been a confusing couple of weeks for Xbox, at least for me. First, they did multiple rounds of layoffs, but now multiple reports are surfacing that the company, apparently, is thriving, and new projects are being developed, and everything is sunshine and rainbows. I get that we are talking about a multi-trillion-dollar company and they have a lot of things going for them, but I have a hard time understanding why it all has to be this way…
What do you think Xbox is working on?
🎮 The Fate of Dead Space
Do you still remember this little gem? If yes, and you liked it a lot, prepare to be a little disappointed, as according to a recent post from Glen Schofield shared by IGN, we might’ve seen the last of it.
In a somewhat heartbreaking but true post on LinkedIn, the co-creator of Dead Space and Sledgehammer Games shared the reality of the game industry these days:
Over the past eight months, I’ve been quietly working with my daughter, Nicole, on a new game idea. She came to me with it, and I immediately loved the idea. Something I hadn’t seen before. We’ve been calling it a new sub-genre of horror—not just horror, but something more.
Some of you know this already, but I named Isaac’s girlfriend in Dead Space after Nicole. She’s been making games for around eight years now. Besides being a great artist, she’s got real ideas. And she’s been playing games since she could wrap her hands around a controller.
We pulled the budget down to $17 million, built a prototype with a small, talented crew, and started taking meetings. People loved the concept. We got a lot of 2nd and 3rd meetings. But early feedback was “get it to $10M.” Lately, that number’s dropped to $2–5M.
So last month, we decided to walk away. Some ideas are better left untouched than done cheap. We had a team of six here in the States and a full crew in the UK. Now, everyone’s looking for work. They’re all talented folks—if you’re hiring, let me know.
As for me—I’ve worked on games of every size. From 2 of us to over 300 devs. Spent the last 15–20 years making big AAA titles with great teams. That’s what I do. That’s what I love. But with the industry on pause, AAA feels like it’s a long ways away.
So I’m back to my art. I miss it all; the team, the chaos, the joy of building something for fans. I’m still around, making art, writing stories and ideas and still cheering the industry on. But maybe I’ve directed my last game. Who knows? If so thank you playing my games.
And Nicole—well, she got laid off from Striking Distance Studios, a studio I founded and a CEO I put in place. She’s one of the strongest artists I know. She built some of our best levels on Callisto Protocol. She plays everything. She’s got the talent. Somebody’s gonna be lucky to have her.
I’ll let you judge the situation yourself, but every sentence hurts more and more for me. Of course, it’s hard to judge what kind of idea they had, but this situation is just one drop in a limitless, chaotic ocean that is game development right now. Among other things, it might’ve been the last game from a very talented creator who brought us Dead Space. Such a pity…
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🎮 Sony Is Suing Tencent Over Horizon-like Game
Some time ago, we talked about an upcoming title from Polaris Quest called Light of Motiram and how closely it resembles Horizon Zero Dawn. Well, it looks like Sony was paying attention as well, as they recently sued the parent company Tencent for their game being too similar.
The complaint filed in California court aimed to block Tencent from releasing the game that allegedly violates Sony Interactive Entertainment’s intellectual property, while also seeking $150,000 in statutory damages for each separate work in the Horizon series infringed.
Meanwhile, the game still has a Steam page, but no official release date at the time of writing.
If you saw any piece of media related to Light of Motiram, you know what we are talking about. The games are disgustingly similar. Even more similar than Pokémon and Palworld, from the setting to the characters and tools that are used in the game. But then again, where do we draw the line?
I don’t think that Sony has a patent for anything when it comes to Horizon, and technically, nothing prevents any other studio in the world from developing an exact replica of this game, provided they have a really good team of lawyers who could argue that these products are different. But then again, I’m no expert in trademark infringement. What I am is curious about how this whole thing shakes out 😅
Who do you think will win in this clash of titans?
⚡ Lightning Round!
1…2…3…Go!
🎬 Details About God Of War Series
While I was taking my pause, at Comic-Con Ronald D. Moore, showrunner of the upcoming God of War series from Amazon, shared a bunch of interesting details that surround this somewhat rocky project.
In an interview with Colider, here are some key takeaways, but I highly recommend reading the entire thing if you are interested in this series, as I am:
The series is currently in the scripts phase
The first season is going to have 10 episodes, and the creators already have a clear vision of what they would look like
TV show won’t be a complete reenactment of the 2018 game, but it will be very close
The show was allegedly greenlit for at least 2 seasons
It’s a pity that they are not starting from the beginning of the story with Kratos 😅
🎮 CDPR Devs Not Sure How To Surpass The Witcher 3
And while some creators know how their project is going to look like, some are still unsure about the results. According to GamesRadar, Narrative Director of the Witcher 4, Philipp Weber, is concerned about how the next game is going to top the results of the previous one.
The Witcher 3 was one of the best games ever made, “how are they going to top it?” I’m like “yeah, how are we going to do that?”
I think the way we want to do justice to the legacy of The Witcher 3 is to take the philosophy we had during The Witcher 3 - how to make a game, how to really care about these things, how to tell stories - and keep that philosophy. At the same time, there are new questions we want to answer, because this is supposed to feel like a true sequel, not just redoing what we did before. And I think it's really trying to have that healthy mix of really moving forward and also trying out some new things, but doing justice to what was there, not trying to beat it.
What is great is that their goal is:
Just make sure that some people will really love The Witcher 4, and hopefully those should be the people that love The Witcher 3, because the philosophy we had - how we make games, how we make quests, what The Witcher means to us - it's the same one
🤞 for yet another great game!
🫡 True Tribute!
Today I wanted to salute
and !
As usual,
shares and interesting perspective and since AI is at the top of the food chain for news, that’s what he talks about. Specifically around the question that we started asking ourselves whenever we encounter any content these days: “Is this AI generated?”. For a lot of people, that’s becoming a determining factor as to whether this content is going to be “consumed” or not. Personally, I kind of agree with the prediction. As much as I’m cautiously optimistic about AI, I’m honestly furious when Google or Atlassian, or any other company, tries to force AI down my throat. So, I’m actually hoping for some sort of an “AI blocker” app 😅😄 Personal Update
Long time, no see, folks 😅
It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? So, I’m back. I can’t say I’m well rested, just because of all the stuff going on at work, as our team is extremely busy with our upcoming update to Bounce, and we’ve been dealing with a few hotfixes after our release, but I’m ready to get back to writing!
Among other things, I’ve recently been invited to a podcast dedicated to game development, and I’m very excited! I’ve never been to a podcast before, so it’s kind of a big deal for me. We are currently discussing the topics and the timeline for this, and I’ll be happy to share more once I have the info.
Damn, it’s good to be back 😁
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.
Welcome back man!
It's really hard to see those comments about Nicole. Corporate greed > good ideas in today's gaming industry unfortunately.
They're making a GoW TV series??? Love the games (the newer ones, haven't played the older ones)
Sad about Dead Space crew that the creators might not make another game. I really like the dead space game it was a new take on RE4 style gameplay, set in space. Going to miss what they were planning next.
God Of War TV based on 2018 game would be cool, I like the Norse setting and Father Son story good to see adpatations, since not everyone will be able to play the game but watch it on tv similar to Last of Us. I did wish it came to netflix as well and not just Prime. I can only hope and wish there could be some of the greek portions too included some of the older backstory would be nice to add in.