2K Games confirms layoffs at Project Ethos shooter studio and hints at new design direction: ‘It’s become clear that changes need to be made’

2K Games studio 31st Union has confirmed the layoff of an undisclosed number of employees, first reported by GamesIndustry, as it continues to develop Project Ethos, the free-to-play hero shooter announced in 2024. In a memo sent to 31st Union employees and shared with PC Gamer, 31st Union studio head Ben Brinkman, who left Respawn…

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CCP changed its name rather than pick a fight with the Chinese Communist Party, which was probably wise

Crowd Control Productions (CCP Games) was founded in 1997 in Reykjavik, Iceland. It is best known for EVE Online, its anarchic space MMO from which stories of intricately-plotted depravity emerge on a disturbingly but entertainingly regular basis. It has over 150 employees. The Communist Party of China was founded in 1921 in Shanghai, China, by…

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Final Fantasy 14’s newest expansion name almost broke the series’ 12-year tradition as Yoshi-P ‘really wanted’ his original idea

The last few times Square Enix has unveiled the name of a new Final Fantasy 14 expansion, I’ve wondered whether the team plans to stick to its love for a good compound word. As it turns out, the answer is “yes” every time: Heavensward, Stormblood, Shadowbringers, Endwalker, Dawntrail, and now the upcoming Evercold. But as…

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Rockstar ransom hackers claim to have stolen the data of 280 million teachers, school staff, and students in Canvas attack

Instructure, the company behind cloud-based learning management system Canvas, has suffered a massive data breach. Ransomware group ShinyHunters has since claimed responsibility for the attack, alleging that it has exfiltrated data tied to 280 million teachers, school staff, and students. The data breach totals hundreds of gigabytes, potentially exposing Canvas users’ names, email addresses, and…

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Valve forming an orderly queue for the Steam Controller makes it clear we need the same for the Steam Machine, Frame, and perhaps a lot more in-demand tech too

The Steam Controller is out—kinda. If you were lucky enough to buy one in the days, hours, or minutes after they were made available, and before Steam crashed, then you’re laughing all the way to the sofa. If not, you’ve likely been staring blankly at the store page for whenever a restock takes place or…

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Chrome is installing a 4 GB local AI model on some of your PCs without asking for permission and will just download it again if you delete it

Google’s Chrome browser has been quietly downloading a 4 GB local AI model onto user’s devices without asking permission. What’s more, if you manually delete the model, Chrome will simply download it again. It was security researcher Alexander Hanff, who runs the ThatPrivacyGuy website, who discovered Chrome’s dubious behaviour. He found a weights.bin file measuring…

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Videogame ‘beta versions’ are anything but, says veteran RPG dev—real games are ‘sh***y, sh***y, sh***y, sh***y, slightly less sh***y, and it skyrockets’ at the end

I’ve never been one to get in on videogame betas—save the Diablo 4 one which I did purely to get the horse cosmetic (I then never played far enough to get a horse)—but they’re a pretty popular hype-generation mechanism these days. If you’ve got any sort of live-service thing gearing up for release, why not…

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