🎮 Wild Rift AI Backlash, Why New Silent Hill is Combat Heavy and What Really Happened to Anthem...
Wild Rift AI Backlash, Why New Silent Hill is Combat Heavy, What Really Happened to Anthem, Revival of a Rhythm Game Genre and more!
Hello friends,
Today is August 12th 2025 and I hope you’ve had a great week 🙌
In today’s news:
🎮 Wild Rift AI Backlash
🎮 Why New Silent Hill is Combat Heavy
🎮 What Really Happened to Anthem
🎮 Revival of a Rhythm Game Genre
⚡ Lightning Round!
🫡 True Tribute!
😄 Personal Update
All of this is brought to you in a 5 min format ⏲️
Let’s dig in!
🎮 Wild Rift AI Backlash
Last week, Riot Games and Tencent released a new anniversary video for Wild Rift, a mobile version of League of Legends, and boy did that go well 😅
Almost immediately after the release, it spread like a wildfire, but not because it was good, but because it was clearly made by AI. Here’s the video itself on Reddit. Riot allegedly published the footage on Chinese social media website Weibo before removing it following uproar from players, but decided to leave a few copies on websites like Reddit, presumably for posterity.
As you can imagine, in an era when AI-generated media and content are being distrusted at best, social media exploded and started relentlessly bashing the company and the video.
Following this outrage, Wild Rift Executive Producer David Xu reached out to the players via X with an official comment from the company, but IMO this doesn’t sound like either an apology that all the fans deserve after seeing this or the acknowledgement of a poor usage of AI:
Hey folks, yesterday we posted a creator-made video on our official Weibo channel that, frankly, did not hit the mark. When we post content on our official channels, it's on us to maintain a high quality bar and be clear about where it came from. Thank you for all the feedback, we can and will do better.
Wow, this is bad. I’m honestly still amazed how something like this got through the approval process of multiple people in charge of Wild Rift. These AI-generated videos are getting better, I admit, but they’re still a long way from the real thing. And honestly, it’s one thing to do this for some random promotional stuff or ads, but to dedicate it to the anniversary celebration feels just wrong to me as a Game Producer. Then again, maybe it was a clever PR stunt to make people talk about Wild Rift, and the context doesn’t matter? But for me, as a fan, it’s a bit insulting.
What do you think about this “work of art”?
🎮 Why New Silent Hill is Combat Heavy
If you are a fan of Silent Hill, you probably already know that the upcoming Silent Hill f is a lot more combat-oriented than any other Silent Hill out there. And according to IGN, Silent Hill series Producer Motoi Okamoto and Silent Hill f director Al Yang recently shared why.
Inserting more entertaining and thrilling action into Silent Hill f was an idea I had ever since the early phases of the development. And, since NeoBards is a company that’s tremendously good at making action games, this is also one of the reasons why we decided to choose them as the developers.
The Silent Hill series isn’t considered a game that has entertaining action per se, but as we’re opening our doors to new players, we began to wonder what it would be like if we added more of those elements into the game.
Challenging action games are gaining popularity among younger players nowadays, so I believed that if we implemented such elements into the game, it would resonate well even with people who are new to the series.
We didn’t want to end up recreating Silent Hill 2 over and over again, and we were aware that there was no reason to keep making clones of it. So, in order to avoid repeating what previous major titles did, we decided to make the action stand out more.
I agree, the action games are becoming more and more popular with the younger audience, but at the end of the day, this is now what should be driving the direction of the game in my humble opinion. You have to think about the game and the setting first, rather than focusing on what’s the most popular thing right now. Regardless, we are yet to see the full reaction of the fans on this new direction and who knows, maybe it’s the next big chapter in the history of Silent Hill.
What do you think about Silent Hill going action mode?
🎮 What Really Happened to Anthem
With Anthem at the brink of shutting the servers down, a former Executive Producer at Bioware recently came forward and shared part one of the story of what really happned with the project.
Mark Darrah, Executive Producer of the game, shared an hour-long video with more info on the way. He discusses the development of the game as he understands it from 2011 through the moment he took over as Executive Producer in 2017.
Some of this video is going to look like I'm trying to shift blame around, but ultimately the responsibility for this game does mostly rest on me. I have a list of people that I won't share that I also feel share blame on this project. Almost everyone on that list is more senior than me. The team worked really hard on this game, the team put a lot of excellent work on this game, and there are things that are amazing in this game even now.
If you are a fan of either Bioware or Anthem, I definitely recommend checking out the whole story, as there are so many aspects of it that I simply won’t be able to cover as much as I want to.
Essentially, as with any big project, it all boiled down to corporate greed. As Mark put it: “What if BioWare game, but it could do FIFA numbers?” It’s an admirable idea, but because the company kept pushing and pushing the team for some unrealistic results, they received a mediocre project that only harmed them. Granted, this is not the complete picture, but with everything that’s been going on with the industry, I feel like it’s not that far from the truth…
If you haven’t subscribed yet, this button is just for you ⤵️
🎮 Revival of a Rhythm Game Genre
Does anybody still remember Guitar Hero? If you loved it and miss it, you are in luck, as recently formed RedOctane Games decided that it’s high time to revive this genre.
Welcome, a new era of rhythm gaming begins here.
Founded by veterans, developers, and passionate players from across the rhythm gaming scene, our mission is simple: to bring rhythm gaming back with more power, more precision, and a deeper connection than ever before. We’re not just making games, we’re creating connected rhythm experiences that unite cutting-edge controllers, genre-defining titles, and a thriving community, all moving to the same beat. From day one, this is a journey we take together.
The next great rhythm game is in the works. Let’s make history.
It looks like the people involved in this new studio include Simon Ebejer, the Production Director on several Guitar Hero titles during his time at Neversoft, who then became Studio Head and Vicarious Visions and VP of Operations at Blizzard Entertainment. And also other creators and developers from Guitar Hero and DJ Hero.
It’s yet unclear what exactly they are planning to do in this genre, at least until they show us some gameplay or screenshots, but I personally wish them all the luck in the world. I think that those games were and are wonderful, and we definitely could benefit from more titles like this!
What do you think about these types of games?
⚡ Lightning Round!
1…2…3…Go!
🎮 Enter the New Game Publisher: Lyrical Games
New studios are not the only ones that are being formed. A new publisher recently surfaced, and their name is Lyrical Games!
As they put it in their first big post on X, their goal is not to build a billion-dollar empire or chase quarterly earnings; their goal is to back exceptional games:
Everyone who cares about games, from the people who make them to the people who play them, has been affected by an increasingly risk-averse industry.
A founding team of key people from Private Division, Humble Games, and Devolver Digital, we are already working with multiple studios and will be signing more soon.
We definitely need more publishers like this, provided that they stand by this statement as time goes on 😅
🎮 New Nvidia Cards Rumoured for Winter
According to Insider Gaming, a trillion-dollar giant is gearing up to release the next batch of even more powerful graphics cards, GeForce RTX 50 Super, sometime in Q4 2025.
Per a source report, when it comes to comparison to the base 5070 Ti and 5080, the 5080 and 5070 Ti Super will have 8GB more VRAM and the same CUDA Cores. For the 5070 Super, it has 256 more CUDA cores and 6GB more VRAM. Regarding TGP, power requirements for the new cards will be an increase ranging from 25W-55W.
I’m kind of afraid to see the price tags on these bad boys now 😅
🎮 A Game Discovery Tool Inspired by Dating Apps
I have to admit, I have spent some time in the past on dating apps, but I have never seen this kind of interpretation.
If you are someone like me who is constantly struggling with picking the next game to play, this new tool might be just for you. Ludoscene is a dating-app-inspired tool that helps you find new games based on what you already like. If a game comes up and you don't like it, swipe it away. If you love it, swipe it towards you, and the app will start to recommend games based on that choice, removing and adding more suggestions as you refine what you do and don't like.
With a Kickstarter completed, this might be a small, but handy tool IMO!
🫡 True Tribute!
Today I wanted to salute
and !
As usual,
is always there with a great selection of games you can check out if you are tired of those big AAA projects. This time it’s about an interesting match of deck-builder and turn-based strategy. It’s not out yet, but the demo is very impressive. Great find, as usual!😄 Personal Update
My main job still keeps me pretty busy these days, but I’m starting to free up from time to time. I’m trying to dedicate some of this time to write some things in advance, but I have to be honest with you, I’m getting so drained lately that I don’t have a lot of strength for anything else.
But I slowly continue working on all the side projects that I have in store. Hopefully, in the next few weeks, I can take some time off from work and do some concentrated writing.
Also, I continue to struggle with picking up a game to play, even with a huge backlog. But hey, what else is new, right? 😅
This is all the news I have for you folks today.
Thanks for making it this far! 🙌
If you feel like supporting me and my work, consider Powering-Up GameDev Relay 🎮
Have a great week!
Alex from Gamedev Relay.
Even disregarding the controversy surrounding AI, that Wild Rift video is just straight up bad. I couldn't believe that they shared it on an official account. You can easily tell that this was inspired by the success of Kpop Demon Hunters, but it feel like a bootleg version of it lol. I'm disappointed because we KNOW that Riot can do so much better. Don't they remember K/DA? Or like, literally any of their other music videos? I just don't get what led them to do this. And they topped it off with such a non-apology lol