Kalakshar US

It appears Telltale Games, known for its popular The Wolf Among Us and excellent The Walking Dead episodic games, hasn’t been able to escape the financial pressures hitting video game studios as of late. In a post on X, Former Telltale Games employee Jonah Huang, shared that he and most of his colleagues were let go in September. The news follows a slew of recent layoffs in the gaming industry from companies such as Naughty Dog, Blizzard, Epic Games and Twitch. 

A statement from Telltale Games followed mere hours later, blaming “current market conditions” on the layoffs and that its “projects currently in development are still in production.” The layoffs come after a March announcement from Telltale Games that it was pushing the much-anticipated release of The Wolf Among Us 2 to 2024. Huang added that he was unable to comment on the status of The Wolf Among Us 2 due to an NDA. The Wolf Among Us sequel was first announced at The Game Awards back in 2019, with a release date scheduled for 2023. Telltale CEO Jamie Ottilie blamed the delay on needing additional time to shift from Unreal Engine 4 to 5. 

Telltale Games also claimed it is making efforts to support those laid off, though it didn’t elaborate further as to what those were. Notably, Telltale Games purchased UK-based studio Flavourworks only weeks before the layoffs. Huang included a call for the game industry to unionize in his initial tweet and subsequently called for gaming industry employees to complete a survey about their rates and conditions.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/telltale-games-confirms-layoffs-after-former-developer-says-most-of-its-team-are-gone-102043511.html?src=rss 

When Activision announced Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile in 2022, the developer said it was planning to release the game sometime this year, shortly after Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II became available. Now, Activision has published a trailer for the mobile title, with the revelation that it’s coming out sometime in the spring of 2024 instead. It has no specific launch date yet, but those interested can already pre-order from Google Play or the App Store. 

Warzone Mobile is a battle royale experience, which will put up to 120 players on a single map. The matches’ operators, weapons, locations and combat are supposed to be familiar to current Warzone fans. It will also share a Battle Pass, as well as feature cross-progression, with Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0. While the game won’t be widely available until 2024, fans in Australia, Chile, Norway and Sweden have been able to play it since earlier this year. This “limited release” version gives Activision a way to test the game with a wider audience than it can with its Closed Alpha, so it can find and fix more bugs, stress test matches and collect as much feedback as possible on gameplay and different elements of the title. 

In addition to announcing a new release date window for Warzone Mobile, Activision has also revealed that the game will come with access to Rebirth Island from day one. The fan favorite Resurgence mode map will be making its debut on mobile and has apparently been “painstakingly and specially built” for this game. 

As for those waiting for Modern Warfare III, Raven Software has confirmed at the COD Next event that players will be able to slide cancel in the game — a mechanic that was notably absent from Modern Warfare II. Take note, though, that while the mechanic is coming back, it will no longer reset Tactical Sprint.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/call-of-duty-warzone-wont-come-to-mobile-until-spring-2024-092513290.html?src=rss 

Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has warned around 6,800 current and former employees that their personal data was accessed via a data breach, according to a letter seen by Bleeping Computer. The nature of the personal information stolen by hackers was redacted, but the company stated that a file transfer app called MOVEit was the source of the breach. It’s the second report of an attack on Sony’s operations within the last two weeks.

A ransomware group called CL0P claimed credit for the attack on May 28th, and MOVEit’s vendor Progress Software notified Sony about the vulnerability on May 31st “On June 2, 2023, [we] discovered the unauthorized downloads, immediately took the platform offline, and remediated the vulnerability,” Sony states in the letter to employees. “An investigation was then launched with assistance from external cybersecurity experts. We also notified law enforcement.”

The hackers reportedly gained access to personally identifiable information about US employees, so Sony is providing credit monitoring services to those affected. 

Sony was victim of another breach first reported last week. In that case, the hackers accessed servers in Japan used for internal testing for its Entertainment, Technology and Services business, pilfering 3.14GB of data. A threat actor called Ransomed.vc took credit for the attack, but that was denied by another group calling itself MajorNelson, which posted a sampling of files as proof. Sony said it was investigating the attack, adding “there has been no adverse impact on Sony’s operations.” 

The company’s PlayStation network was attacked in 2011, and Sony Pictures was famously hacked in 2014, resulting in a massive leak of documents and content — including entire films. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sony-confirms-data-breach-affecting-nearly-7000-employees-075945888.html?src=rss