Here at Goonhammer, we know that it’s hard to keep track of all the news happening all the time in the games industry. So much is always going on with games of all sorts, and their related media, it can be a real blink-and-you’ll miss it situation.
That’s why every week, we round up five of the biggest stories in the gaming sphere from the past week in the Games Industry News Roundup. Our trusty news boy, Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson, is here with the scoop.
Steamforged Games Reveals Next Godtear Champion
Steamforged Games revealed their next release for their champion-centered wargame Godtear: Durthax, Branchlord of the Weald.
According to a press release from Steamforged, Durthax is a champion with a strong defensive game plan, whose main focus is on controlling the battlefield by manipulating objectives in the arena and denying enemy placements.
Fans of Godtear can anticipate Durthax bringing a major shift to the current metagame. “The release of Durthax, Branchlord of the Weald, represents a shift in the current meta, as Durthax provides a great counter for some of the currently dominating champions,” Steamforged writes in the release. “This release also brings a new utility to other champions who may excel at overcoming Durthax’s strengths.”
Godtear is played with two players on a hex-based board, and each player assembles a team of three champions from the game’s roster in any combination. Once each team is assembled, players duke it out over the tears of fallen gods in tactical skirmish battles.
Current Godtear players of anyone curious about the game can pre-order Durthax now at the Steamforged Games website, and the kit will be released on October 22nd to retailers and the Steamforged Online store.
Upcoming PlayStation 5 Pro Comes with Staggering Price Tag
Last week, Sony unveiled the hot new iteration of the PlayStation 5 coming to homes near you this upcoming holiday season, the PlayStation 5 Pro. Despite its lengthy list of tech upgrades, the main talking point of the Ps5 Pro is the eye-watering price tag.
According to the blog post on the PlayStation website, the new PS5 Pro is a massive leap forward for PlayStation fans. The PS5 Pro graphical upgrades look to boost console performance on even high end games, touting “even higher fidelity graphics with smoother frame rates at 60FPS.” Keynote features of the console to reach these highs include a new upgraded GPU, advanced ray tracing compatibility, and AI-driven graphic upscaling. Non-visual upgrades to the console include the PS5 Pro game boost, aimed at upgrading performance and adding compatibility to older PS4 games, and Wi-Fi 7 technology built in.
Yet all these new features aren’t what’s catching the public’s attention. Even with all these fancy new bells and whistles, the discourse around the console has been focused squarely on its hefty price tag of $699, with an additional $80 for a physical disc drive. Compared to the current base PS5, the Pro is a nearly 40% price increase, with many questioning if the graphical improvements of the PS5 Pro are worth the jump in price.
As a bonus to this story, while veritable army of posters have scrambled to take their turn to dunk on Sony for their latest attempt to fly too close to the sun, MandaloreGaming’s post is the clear winner and too good not to share.
Warlord Games Honors Paul Sawyer with Charity Miniature
Following the tragic news of wargaming legend Paul Sawyer’s cancer diagnosis, the company he helped co-found has announced the release of a special charity miniature designed in Paul’s likeness.
Warlord Games posted the Sergeant Sawyer charity figure for pre-order on its online store last week, turning Paul’s likeness into a World War 2 historical model for the company’s flagship game, Bolt Action.
Warlord Games writes on the product page for the model that “This new model represents our illustrious and beloved co-founder, Paul Sawyer. Paul has sadly been forced to step away from Warlord Games due to a serious illness, but we wanted to commemorate and celebrate his incredible career and passion for our hobby with a special figure. Shown in British Airborne uniform, a nod to the many, many Red Devils he’s painted over the years, Sergeant Sawyer is our tribute to a man without whom Warlord Games would simply not exist, and our lives be far the poorer.”
Warlord Games partnered with Sawyer to ensure that money raised by the model went to helping those who needed it, and gave Sawyer the choice of charity to partner with. With Sawyer’s approval, all proceeds from the Sergeant Sawyer model will go to The Brain Tumor Charity to help those in need.
Entire Staff of Annapurna Interactive Resigns
A bombshell revelation from Annapurna Interactive last week as Bloomberg broke the news that the entire staff has resigned.
According to Bloomberg, the resignation follows failed negotiations with Annapurna owner Megan Ellison to spin off the Annapurna studio into it’s own entity separate from the Annapurna media family. After parties failed to reach an agreement and Ellison pulled out from further negotiations, the top executives of Annapurna Interactive resigned from the company, and was soon followed by the two dozen staffers underneath them.
As Annapurna Interactive seems to go up in smoke, those companies and developers with ongoing projects with Annapurna are left entirely in the dark as to what this means for them. But one company this will likely not affect is Remedy Entertainment, who signed a big-money deal with Annapurna Interactive’s parent company, Annapurna Pictures, for the co-development of Control 2 and licensing rights for future projects to bring Remedy Entertainment IPs to television and film. According to Remedy’s communications director Thomas Puha, this deal remains intact.
Kill Team: Hivestorm has a Secret Mission with a Big Prize
With Games Workshop announcing the upcoming pre-order of the new Hivestorm box set for Kill Team earlier this week, Warhammer Community has given fans eager to play the new edition a new top secret scenario to get excited about.
According to the blog post on the Warhammer Community website, a special “top secret” scenario for Kill Team will be made available online. Details about the scenario are limited, aside from the fact it will pit the two factions from the Hivestorm box, the Tempestus Aquilons and the Vespid Stingwings, against one another.
Those who participate in the scenario will receive details on the mission via the Warhammer Community Newsletter on October 11th, and will have one day to play and record their results online on October 12th.
With this secret mission comes the possibility of a big prize. Five participants will win a free copy of every Kill Team release through 2025, including the big box sets regularly released for the game. Fans of Kill Team should note that this prize pool does not include re-releases of previously released Kill Teams.
And that wraps it up for our Games Industry News Roundup this week! Join us again next week for more news about the tabletop games industry and related media.
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