🎮 Sands of Time Remake, Valve Data Leak and Sudden Departure at Haven Studios...
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake Update, Valve Issues a Statement Regarding Data Leak, Sudden Departure at Haven Studios, Take-Two CEO on Potential Extra Delays for GTA 6 and more!
Hello friends,
Today is May 22nd 2025 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake Update
🎮 Valve Issues a Statement Regarding Data Leak
🎮 Sudden Departure at Haven Studios
🎮 Take-Two CEO on Potential Extra Delays for GTA 6
⚡ Lightning Round!
🫡 True Tribute!
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 Prince of Persia: Sands of Time Remake Update
Finally we’ve heard some news about an upcoming remake for a beloved games that’s been in and out of development at Ubisoft.
During the fiscal year earnings report, Ubisoft finally broke the silence on Prince of Persia Remake, mentioning that the game will be released somewhere between January and March 2026. In the same report, the company is saying that it will be delaying a bunch of “flagship” titles to focus on quality over quantity.
Sands of Time has a somewhat troubled history. This project has been on and off for years. Even last year, there was news about the games being restarted and remade from scratch. With that said, Insider Gaming reportedly was shown footage of the game under the condition that it wouldn’t be shared, and apparently the game will be making a more “authentic” approach to the game’s setting, with main character not being Yuri Lowenthal and instead he will be replaced by a Persian actor.
As a huge fan of Prince of Persia games, I can’t wait to see what they are making. I’m one of the few people who loved all the games, even that one standalone 2008 game that unfortunately will never get a sequel… I really hope that after restarting this game multiple times, this time will be the charm, and we will finally be able to relive this epic adventure. Hopefully, that could also mean that there are at least some talks about remaking the whole franchise 😅
🎮 Valve Issues a Statement Regarding Data Leak
Last week, there was a huge data leak at Valve that allegedly led to the data of millions of users (including passwords, payment information and personal data) slipping through the cracks. Finally, the company decided to issue an official statement after dealing with this whole situation.
In short, the company assured everyone that no actions are necessary and that the situation is contained.
If you want the long story, then yes, there indeed was a leak, as it was confirmed by Valve themselves that revolved around text messages that had previously been sent to Steam customers. But per their official statement, this was not a breach of their security system:
We’re still digging into the source of the leak, which is compounded by the fact that any SMS messages are unencrypted in transit, and routed through multiple providers on the way to your phone.
The leak consisted of older text messages that included one-time codes that were only valid for 15-minute time frames and the phone numbers they were sent to. The leaked data did not associate the phone numbers with a Steam account, password information, payment information or other personal data. Old text messages cannot be used to breach the security of your Steam account, and whenever a code is used to change your Steam email or password using SMS, you will receive a confirmation via email and/or Steam secure messages.
You do not need to change your passwords or phone numbers as a result of this event.
With all that being said, it’s a good reminder that no system is safe from outside influence. Almost every few months, we hear about a data leak or a breach in some big company, even though all of them are saying that their servers are rock solid and unpenetrable. What baffles me is that after all this time, companies are still amazed that people don’t stand in lines to use their systems to play games. Yes, Sony, EA, 2K and others with your 3rd party launchers and additional accounts we need to create to play a freaking game, I’m talking about you. I won’t be signing into your systems until you can guarantee that my data won’t end up in someone else’s hands.
What are your thoughts on this little accident?
🎮 Sudden Departure at Haven Studios
Among the other big layoffs that happened last week, there was one big one at one of Sony’s studios, Haven, that suffered a sudden departure of Jade Raymond, who founded this studio.
Haven Studio is a quite recent addition to the game development industry. I was founded by Raymond in 2021, with Sony investing in it to develop a new original IP for them. Later in 2022, Sony acquired Haven, making them a first-party developer for PlayStation Studios. And 2023, Haven unveiled their debut project called Fairgame$, which is an online multiplayer shooter.
Now, when we look into more recent events, the departure of the studio’s founder is covered by mystery. But according to Bloomberg, Jade Raymond exited the company several weeks after an external test of Fairgames:
PlayStation leadership didn’t give Haven staff a reason for her departure, but it came several weeks after an external test of Haven’s first game, the online shooter Fairgames, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Some developers at Haven were concerned about how the game was received and its progress, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to speak publicly.
Apparently, as executives like to put it, the project “didn’t meet expectations”, but to put the founder of the whole studio on the street sounds a bit extreme… Again, this is not confirmed, and we don’t really know what happened, but one might wonder if Raymond really decided to leave on her own or if she was pushed out the door. Either way, it looks like the whole “focus on live-service” stuff that Sony has been pushing for quite some time is not working at all. After the success of Arrowhead’s Helldivers, Sony are yet to produce another game that will be really something other than a waste of everyone’s time and talent…
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🎮 Take-Two CEO on Potential Extra Delays for GTA 6
With Rockstar recently announcing that their crown jewel will be delayed, fans of the series started to feel a little bit of unease, to put it mildly. A lot of speculations were thrown about more delays, and the Take-Two CEO decided to clear the air around it (at least to a degree).
According to a recent interview with IGN, Strauss Zelnick told the outlet that even though he “felt good” about the game hitting its original 2025 release window, the game just needed “more polish”:
As we get closer to completion of a title that’s seeking perfection, the needs or lack thereof, for continued polish become clear. In this case there was an opportunity with a small amount of incremental time, we thought, to make sure Rockstar Games achieves its creative vision with no limitations. And I supported of course that approach.
I feel really good about how Fiscal 26 looks sitting here today. And while of course, delays pain me — how could they not? — the most important thing to do is to support your teams in their search for perfection.
With that said, he also stated that 2K and Rockstar were “historically very good at setting a specific date and reaching it”, so that might mean that there is a lot more confidence in the 2026 date and it most likely won’t be shifted again.
Honestly, if I were a fan of the series, I would be totally fine with waiting just a little longer for the devs to make their magic. So many projects were destroyed just because some stakeholder decided not to let the devs cook. So, my kudos to the devs for confining their stakeholders to let them! Sometimes that’s not an easy feat, especially with a project of that magnitude.
⚡ Lightning Round!
1…2…3…Go!
🎮 Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra is Delayed
Speaking of delays, another upcoming project decided to suddenly break the silence and announce that it’s not going to be released in its original timeframe.
Skydance Games recently shared a post on X where they announced that an upcoming narrative-driven adventure featuring multiple Marvel heroes will be delayed to 2026, with the reason being the usual “add more polish to live up to expectations”.
Considering that they haven’t shared much except for this one trailer, not sure if it was that big of loss 😅
🎮 TLOU Part 2 Online Hate and How It Relates to Intergalactic
With the hype era evidently ending for The Last of Us series and both the TV show and the game getting a lot of bad reviews recently, Neil Druckmann started coaching the star of their upcoming game on how to deal with internet hate.
Tati Gabrielle, who’s been cast to play a protagonist for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet and who’s been a part of the TLOU TV show, shared with Entertainment Weekly how it feels to be a video game star:
Neil's been bootcamp-ing me. I know Troy's experience, I know Ashley's experience… I know Laura Bailey's experience.
I got a lot of love, but there was a lot of hate over me being a woman, me being a woman of color, me having my head shaved, all these things that I didn't even actually initially see — I'm out of the social media zeitgeist for that reason — but once I did, Neil was like, “Ignore it. No matter what, me and you, we're going to make something beautiful. We're going to make something that we're proud of.”
This is a world — video games — that I've never stepped into before. So I don't want to put one thing in my mind of expecting it's going to be this way and then it's not, and then I'm unprepared or take it too lightly.
I hope someone is giving the same BootCamp to Bella Ramsey 😅
🎬 Fallout TV Show is Here To Stay
While we are on the topic of TV shows that received universal praise in recent years, Amazon’s smashing hit is doing much better than The Last of Us, and that’s considering that they haven’t even released their season 2 yet.
In a recent interview at a Comic Con event in the UK, Aaron Moten (Maximus), spoke about the potential duration of the series:
When I signed on to do the series, we would have a starting point, and they gave me the endpoint. And that endpoint hasn’t changed, but it is a season five, six type of endpoint.
We’ve always known that we’re going to take our time with the development of the characters.
With that in mind, DiscussingFilm recently shared a post on X that the series has already been renewed for Season 3. That’s what I call confidence in their work 😅
Season 2 is scheduled to be released in December 2025.
🫡 True Tribute!
Today I wanted to salute
and !
A great post as usual, this time about probably the most controversial topic in our generation. AI, a means to replace or a tool to empower? A great take that focuses on the fact that you don’t need to replace people, as some things can’t be replaced. But you can wield it and use it to do something meaningful. Also, as I’m not following the AI topic too closely, I really enjoyed reading about a debate between Keanu and Elon. Though you are probably right, both sides clearly exagurated to prove their point 😅
😄 Personal Update
So, it looks like my journey in WoW has come to an end, at least for the time being.
I’ve tried everything that I wanted to try, and that includes some of the hardest end-game content there is, and I’m honestly is still impressed that this game managed to keep me that engaged for this long. I haven’t managed to get to a gold cap or anything like that, but I’ve had a great time for the past few months. Unfortunately, once the vanilla period ends, it’s still an MMORPG that requires a lot of time investment, and I’m already tired as hell of grinding the same dungeons and raids for a chance to get a piece of gear that I need to make my character just a tiny bit stronger.
Who knows, maybe once they introduce some new content, I’m going to jump right back in, but for now, I think it’s time to get back into single-player games and start going through my backlog 😅
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.
At this point we can expect GTA 6 on the Series X2 and PS6. And I am still going to play it of course.
I really hope the Sands of Time Remake turns out well, one of the greatest trilogies in gaming and Warriir Wothin especially deserves to get remade too.
The recasting and the more 'authentic' approach doesn't sit right with me though. Yuri Lowenthal's performance was iconic and when things like this happen, it almost always feels like an attempt to erase the original.