Beamable has raised $13.5 million in funding to develop its decentralized backend infrastructure for online games.The Beamable Network represents a disruptive shift in the way live games are supported, breaking free from the traditional dependence on centralized hyperscale data centers owned by tech giants, said Jon Radoff, CEO of Beamable, in an interview with GamesBeat.One of the ways it is doing that is launching blockchain tokens through its Beamable Foundation in the future and open sourcing its technology so that game developers dont have to worry about whether to entrust their games backends to Beamable.Bitkraft Ventures led the round for the Boston-based company. The funding will support the development and scaling of the Beamable Network, a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) poised to redefine how backend infrastructure for games is built and operated. It works with any online game supported by Unity or Unreal across platforms including PC, console and mobile. Beamable Inc. is a software company that is kind of the lab that builds the tech and operates Beamable.com. The Beamable Foundation is independent, without owners. The foundation has a mission to take a license of the Beamable technology, open source it, and make it sustainable from now on, Radoff said. He said he could not discuss specifics of the token launch, which the foundation will share in the future. Other investors include Arca, Advancit Capital, 2Punks, P2 Ventures, Solana Foundation, Scytale Digital, Defy.vc, GrandBanks Capital and Permit Ventures.At launch, the network is projected to rank as a top-10 DePIN project by revenue, thanks to the existing demand for its infrastructure among games already running on Beamables technology. With millions of users and billions of API calls served to date, the Beamable Network brings unparalleled scalability, cost efficiency, and resilience to the gaming industry.Bitkraft has been a leader in identifying transformative opportunities at the intersection of gaming and Web3, and this funding validates the enormous potential of the Beamable Network to revolutionize videogame infrastructure, said Radoff. By leveraging the proven success of our existing platform and integrating decentralized principles, were unlocking a new era of scalability and inclusivity for developers.Decentralized innovation and a hyperscaler alternativeBeamable is decentralizing backend infrastructure for games.The Beamable Network will be managed by the Beamable Foundation, a new entity recently announced to open-source Beamables infrastructure technology and create a tokenized protocol that challenges the centralized dominance of hyperscalers. By decentralizing resourcescomputing power, storage, and network bandwidththe network enables a more cost-effective and robust alternative to traditional server platforms. This is achieved through tokenized incentives that align contributors and users, creating a community-driven infrastructure model.The network will also enable the inclusion of third-party developers who may launch their own custom software modules and services on the network, giving them access to interoperable infrastructure and mechanisms to earn royalties and license fees from their creations.A Top-10 DePIN Project at LaunchThe Beamable Foundation will open source Beamables software.Unlike many emerging DePIN projects, the Beamable Network expects to enter the market with established demand. Games already leveraging Beamables backend infrastructure will transition to the decentralized model, driving significant network utilization from day one. This positions the network as a top-10 DePIN project globally. We believe Beamable is uniquely positioned to set a new standard for decentralized infrastructure in gaming, said Carlos Pereira, general partner at Bitkraft Ventures, in a statement. Its proven technology and built-in demand, combined with the disruptive potential of DePIN, represents an unparalleled opportunity to enable game developers across Web2 and Web3 to build, grow, and thrive at scale.Bitkraft Ventures is the global early-stage investment platform for gaming, AI, Web3, and immersive technology, with assets under management totaling over $1 billion. The Beamable Foundation is an independent organization dedicated to advancing gaming technology through open-source initiatives and decentralized infrastructure. By leveraging Beamables backend technology, the foundation empowers developers and transforms the gaming industry into a more collaborative, inclusive, and sustainable ecosystem. OriginsBeamable started as a way to make live ops for games.Radoff previously ran Disruptor Beam, which made live-service games like Star Trek: Timelines and Game of Thrones: Ascent. Then he sold off the Star Trek game and pivoted the company to Beamable in 2020 to be like the Unity for the backend infrastructure for games. Back then, Radoff said this idea was a kind of myth, promised but not really delivered. Radoff wanted to enable game developers to easily create social technology, payment technology, and data persistence all the things that you need to operate game servers at scale, basically, he said.And that has never changed. Weve kept doing it, Radoff said.But he noted that GameSparks shut down and took about 2,000 games with them. And ever since then, game developers have become really cautious about how they place bets on using backend technology that they havent created themselves.There was a clear realization that even the biggest companies could shut these things down and you might be left with a dependency that means you cant keep operating your game, Radoff said.Developers could of course run their own backend infrastructure. But Beamable wanted to offload that task. It specialized in live operations services that can keep an online game going, and Radoff wanted to offload this task from game developers who should focus their own energy on making a game fun.Going open sourceBeamable is going open source to build trust with devs.To give some assurance that it will still be around for the long term, Radoff said Beamable is open sourcing its technology so developers can get that reassurance. It forced us to think about whether theres a completely different approach to business than being a typical game. Weve got now have around 80 games that have launched on top of Beamable. Theres another 150 or so that are actively building more games, and theres thousands of developers who are deciding whether to build a game on this platform, he said.By open sourcing the tech, developers could be more comfortable that there will always be source code out there that they can use. On top of that, Radoff said Beamble had to figure out how to enable developers to scale out their games to lots of servers potentially millions of them.You have to solve for that whole scalability process on the back end. And a way to do that around open source technology is to build a network where that software runs automatically and easily and everybody gets paid. Thats where this new market of decentralized physical infrastructure networks, or DePIN, comes in because it uses blockchain to become the settlement layer, Radoff said.Its basically doing what blockchain is good at, which is to function as a public accounting system of records and you can use it to trade for compute, Radoff said. The DePIN capital formation modelBeamable is using the DePIN capital formation model.At the beginning of Bitcoin, miners provided computing power and were paid in the form of tokens. They solved cryptographic puzzles in order to earn Bitcoin. In this case, the company is running game servers another very compute intensive workload and thats how youll be able to earn tokens on the DePIN network, Radoff said. It removes a lot of risk from the equation because youve got to aggregate to different service providers all sharing the same source code base, he said.Beamable Foundation will likely issue tokens, and those tokens can be given to the third-party companies who operate the servers and provide them to the game developers, Radoff said. Those third-party companies can be rewarded for their services with the tokens. Game developers can acquire the tokens and then use them to acquire server capacity from the server owners. The demand can rise and fall, and the game companies only pay for the servers that they use.This kind of DePIN model is a blockchain-based way for capital formation around hardware-intensive networks. A lot of DePIN is about finding where the hardware already exists, as underutilized capacity, so that they can fulfill those demands. But you have to create a incentive mechanism where people want to participate. If you did it with typical capital formation, youd still need billions of dollars of capital. With a tokenized economy, you can incentivize people to get involved early and then with games coming to the network those games will have the token as a payment instrument in addition to the mechanism, Radoff said.This DePIN business is similar to the business of Aethir, which uses tokens to acquire unused graphics processing units (GPUs) to provide AI processing and cloud streaming on the fly for those who need it. By contrast, Beamable provides game servers to help live-service games scale as they become more popular. Aethir is a partner with Beamable, as they support different parts of the service network. Both are examples of the usefulness of blockchain where people are generating revenue with a structure to harness compute resources and bring more hardware online and orchestrate hardware.Scaling online gamesWhile GPUs are increasingly rare, CPU-based servers are more plentiful and theyre needed for games. There are a number of data center companies that would like their servers to be more fully utilized. Game companies have some of these servers but they dont have the scale that the biggest companies do.If you aggregate them together, and then youve got effectively a virtual hyperscaler. So we want to be that virtual hyperscaler for the game industry to build out, Radoff said. In game development, there is really no true ecosystem for all of the complexity of the backend of games.He added, In the front end, one of the huge advantages of Unity and Unreal are that youre not just buying great game engines. Youre buying into all of the plugins and software that has been built around Unity. When you go to their asset store, or Unreal has a marketplace that does a similar thing. Choosing those engines gets you into an ecosystem. That has never happened for the backends because its too siloed. Its lots of game companies building the same thing over and over again, or using it to run into a normal silo. The opportunity here for Beamable, because were open sourcing this tech, is to really encourage third parties to start contributing things like a matchmaking algorithm to the ecosystem.And he said, Theres countless back-end things that you need to build a live services game, and we would like to become that ecosystem. The reason why its hard and it hasnt really happened to date is because the backend is different than the frontend. The back-end has to scale, right? You cant just ship people software and then leave it to themselves to scale it. You have to service the scaling part, which means you arent just selling software. You are deploying that software on a network, which is what were doing with our DePIN. And because DePIN has a payment mechanism built into it, you are also making it possible for anyone who invents software.Radoff hopes that Beamable will become a competitive ecosystem as well. But developers dont have to be making Web3 games to use the network. Those who operate nodes can be rewarded with tokens but the games can simply use Beamables live services software to make traditional online and mobile games.Beamable is chain agnostic in that its games can be built to run on a wide variety of blockchains. We dont tell people which chain to build their game on if theyre building a Web3 game, he said.With Beamable, the function of the chain is simply to be an accounting system to make sure that when a game server is provisioned to provide a service in a game, someone will be paid for it, he said.We make sure that they are getting paid based on the real level of utilization for the workloads, Radoff said. Radoff said Bitkraft has been good to work with because of its knowledge of both the gaming and blockchain markets, as well as its wide network.A more sustainable businessThe business is structured to deliver lower cost for developers, more sustainability and an ecosystem of developers adding to it over time and those three things can accelerate the velocity of game development and allow people to put more of their capital into building a fun game, Radoff said.We want to invite everybody to come and participate in it whether you want to head towards the core source code or whether you doing plug-ins of your own that add capabilities, Radoff said. Last year, the company launched its preliminary version of this by creating a marketplace where others could contribute third-party software plugins for Beamable. The DePIN network allows developers to be paid for the plugins that the developers use. The biggest analogy for this is the Salesforce Cloud, built around the CRM software. Salesforce has built exactly what Ive described, but around their CRM, Radoff said. For example, you as a third-party software developer can build plugins to their CRM, run it in the cloud, scale it up. It can either be for yourself or you could get paid as a third party for adding new tech to Salesforce Cloud.He added, But of course, Salesforce had to invest billions into making that possible. So DePIN is this new capital formation mechanism that allows you to create incentives for people to add compute so that you can effectively crowdsource or use the community to build the network as opposed to relying on a big company to come up with billions of dollars to do it for you.Daily insights on business use cases with VB DailyIf you want to impress your boss, VB Daily has you covered. We give you the inside scoop on what companies are doing with generative AI, from regulatory shifts to practical deployments, so you can share insights for maximum ROI.Read our Privacy PolicyThanks for subscribing. Check out more VB newsletters here.An error occured.

Return-to-office mandates are emerging as one of the most contentious of the post-pandemic work trends that U.S. employees have faced.Last year, Gartner data identified that 63% of HR leaders reported an increase in expectations for employees to return to the office. That was even from those organizations which had made a firm commitment to remote working during the COVID-19 crisis.Hybrid policies were initially seen as a good measure, providing flexibility to workers. But this turns out to have been just an interim approach as companies began to row back on flexibility.That is in part because many companies have seen low compliance, according to Gartners data, and as a result many are resorting to full RTO mandates.Over the past few months, Amazon, JPMorgan and AT&T are just three of the companies which have been under the spotlight for their insistence that staff come back into the office a full five days per week.More recently, President Trump announced his plans to shrink the government, via the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). One of its mandates is to get federal workers back into the office. Those who dont want to do that are eligible for a buyout worth seven months of salary.It may just be an effective way to achieve another of President Trumps goals: a reformed federal workforce.In doing so, the President has effectively said the quiet part out loud. We think a very substantial number of people will not show up to work, and therefore our government will get smaller and more efficient, he has said.But tech and finance institutions have so far mostly dressed up return-to-office mandates under the guise of improving productivity and fostering collaboration.However, many companies calculate that a percentage of workers wont want to come back, and will therefore quit. Its a soft way to conduct layoffs, and manages to sidestep the organizational shock around traditional layoffs.Unsurprisingly, according to Gartners study, 74% of HR leaders cite these mandates as a source of conflict.Another unintended consequence of RTO is that while companies hope underperforming people will leave, some of the best talent in a business or organization will go too.A new research paper from S&P Global Market Intelligence puts extra detail on this. The paper, titled Return to Office Mandates and Brain Drain, tracked over three million tech and finance workers employment histories via LinkedIn. It was able to analyze the effect of return-to-office (RTO) mandates on employee turnover and hiring.We find that these firms experience abnormally high employee turnover following RTO mandates. The increase in turnover rates is more pronounced for female employees, more senior employees and more skilled employees. the reports authors state.And the paper also finds that getting rid of swathes of workers isnt necessarily the panacea leaders may think it is.It takes a significantly longer time for these firms to fill their job vacancies after the mandates, the report has found. Their hire rates also significantly decrease. These results are consistent with firms losing their best talent and female employees and facing greater difficulties with talent attraction after RTO mandates.Some of those highly-skilled, highly-paid employees are leaving for remote working opportunities. This is borne out by figures from Ladders, a career site for six-figure positions. It recently found that 10.4% of jobs offering salaries of $250,000 or more were advertised as remote in the third quarter of 2024. That was up from 8.8% in the second quarter of the year.If youre experiencing the demands of a return-to-office mandate at your current employer, then looking for a new job may be your next step. Discover thousands of open roles, many of them remote, on the VentureBeat Job Board now.

Sumo Group to refocus business on "development services for partners"Firm says this "transition will have an impact on our studios and people," unknown how many workers will be affectedImage credit: Sumo Group News by Sophie McEvoy Staff Writer Published on Feb. 4, 2025 Sumo Group has announced it will be refocusing its business to cater "exclusively on development services for partners", resulting in a restructure and potential layoffs.Following an internal announcement, the firm said the change will "provide a better platform for us to focus on our core strengths and return to a thriving business.""Unavoidably this transition will have an impact on our studios and people," it said. "We are committed to minimising the impact as much as possible, exploring all options to retain talent and supporting those affected with transparency, care, and compassion."It clarified that the change will have "no impact on existing or future commitments with partners."Sumo is known for its work as a partner developer on titles including Team Sonic Racing, Snake Pass, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure.Last June, Sumo announced cuts to its business of up to 15% resulting in nearly 250 employees being made redundant.

Ive been having a great time with Infinity Nikki. I do my dailies, grind for materials, and desperately search for an outfit that works with the single ugliest piece of clothing in the game: a red vest. But as Ive progressed, the game has given me a gacha newbie an unfortunate crash-course education on how these games really work and what not to do if you want to keep your sanity and your wallet intact.The trouble began right before the current Lunar New Year event, when I started obtaining every piece of a special outfit called Wings of Wishes. In Infinity Nikki, special outfits like Wings of Wishes are gated behind whats called Resonance Events, which are essentially slot machines available for a limited time. When you spend currency in the game, youre not buying outfits outright; youre paying to pull the lever on that slot machine in hopes that itll spit out the pieces you want. This is the best I can do styling this hideous red vest. Throughout the month Wings of Wishes was available, I managed to earn eight of its nine pieces, even though I wasnt really trying to get it. And as the event wound down, I was confident that even if I ran out of currency, Id simply earn enough back for the final piece. But once I exhausted all the story and event quests, I learned that the game does not reward currency at a pace that can keep up with even casual, intermittent pulling. I went from earning enough to pull 10 or 20 times a week down to four or five times. It was like that paycheck meme, where, in the first week after you get paid, youre eating steak and caviar for dinner, but by the second, youre having ice soup. It got so dire that, by the end of the event, I started spending money hoping Id pull the last piece, but I never did. I was crushed, not only for obvious reasons but also because playing this game wasnt supposed to change my spending habits. And I learned through consulting with my gacha veteran friends and the Infinity Nikki subreddit that I made the rookiest of mistakes in thinking I could outsmart a game engineered to part me from my money in ways I wouldnt really notice or feel. Gacha games have a poor reputation because of the way they can exploit players to extract their money. I got got because I thought I was above that, not realizing the game had already tapped into my FOMO and my wallet. Nothing, not even Wings of Wishes, was ever so desirable that it was worth focusing on. It only became a focus when I realized I needed one more piece right before the event ended. On top of that, I never noticed my spending. I wasnt concerned because I wasnt dropping $30$50, but I was spending two dollars, three dollars, 99 cents, two and three times a day, because again, all I needed was one more piece. I spent so much money I didnt intend trying to complete this Wings of Wishes outfit that I dont even like!True blue gacha veterans will tell you that if theres something you want, be prepared to either pay for it or plan for it. Players who dont want to spend money for outfits skip two and three events in a row, hoarding their currency, waiting for the right outfit to spend their entire warchest on all for free. On the other hand, if a player wants to pay for an outfit, they know to be prepared to spend bill money for it. Pulling is the same as working a slot machine: youre not guaranteed to hit. But Infinity Nikki guarantees a high-value piece every 10 pulls. With the currency used for pulls going for a dollar apiece, a nine-piece outfit like Wings of Wishes will run you at least $90. That amount goes up dramatically because the guarantee is for any high-value piece, and Resonance Events often contain multiple high-value outfits that have anywhere between eight and 10 pieces.I understand that my problems likely dont extend to the majority of other players. From perusing the games subreddit, I get the feeling most people either already understand the level of preparation required to obtain coveted clothing effectively, dont mind spending eye-watering sums, or are content to either engage with the system casually or ignore it altogether. I planned on being the latter, someone who tossed the developers a few bucks here and there to obtain the occasional outfit I fancied.Anyway, these are much better outfits.And in my naivete, I assumed thats how gacha games worked. You could either grind out the resources you needed or spend money only when you chose to for items you wanted. Yes, I understood there were elements of random chance to compete against, but I genuinely thought that I could guarantee myself the desired outfits through a mix of casual play and light spending. I will not make that mistake again. Thankfully, the current Lunar New Year event doesnt have any premium outfits I want. Plus, the ones being given away for free are more than cute enough to soothe my sartorial spirit. The real tragedy of all this is that I dont even like how Wings of Wishes looks. I only wanted it for its special ability to make Nikkis floating animation look like shes gliding on a magical paper crane. I have multiple substitutes for the white stockings Im missing, so I can easily complete the look. But without that final piece, the outfits ability wont trigger, and I dont like it enough to wear it casually. So itll sit, incomplete and unworn, in my wardrobe, possibly forever.See More:

Apple seems to have accidentally confirmed its rumored events planning feature ahead of an official announcement. An update to its iCloud page lists Invites as one of the key features of its iCloud Plus subscription, even though the feature is not yet available. The branding was spotted earlier by MacRumors.Upgrade to iCloud+ to get more storage, plan events with Apple Invites, and have peace of mind with privacy features like iCloud Private Relay, Hide My Email, and HomeKit Secure Video, the site reads. Apple doesnt say much else about what Invites will do, and whether it will be a standalone app or built into an existing one like Calendar.Last month, code spotted in an iOS 18.3 beta by 9to5Mac suggested that Apple is working on an Invites app to help users plan in-person events and manage invites. iCloud Plus is currently available starting at 99 cents per month. The Verge reached out to Apple for more information but didnt immediately hear back.

There is a double decker of game development news in one post today. First, we have a new Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, the Game Programming Books by Pearson bundle, a collection of e-books on game design, programming and more. This joins yesterdays excellent Ovani Game Audio bundle.Second, you can get a copy of RPG Maker VX Ace completely for free on Steam right now in celebration of RPG Maker Festival 2025. The direct Steam link is available here if you want to pick up your own copy of RPG Maker VX Ace for free. Be careful there is also (oddly) an option to buy it on the same page, so be sure to select the right option. This offer is only available until February 10th at 10AM PST!Details of the RPG Maker Festival 2025:RPG Maker Festival 2025 A festival full of anniversaries, with all GAMES coming together!Maker Day (Tsukuru no Hi, February 15th) is the day for recognizing and spreading the joy of making games!To celebrate this day, we are holding the online event RPG Maker Festival again this year!The RPG Maker Festival is a grand event with the theme of Creators and players, everyone is the star!Therell be new releases and lots of discounts for RPG Maker products, DLCs, and a large number of games created with RPG Maker.This year, the number of participating titles is1074 games a record for the event! Dont miss your chance to discover new masterpieces and make some great purchases.Additionally, were pleased to inform you that RPG Maker VX Ace will be made free for a limited time! Please download it from the link at the bottom of the page.Using bundle links on this page helps support GFS (and thanks so much if you do!). You can learn more about both the new Game Programming Book bundle and the free release of RPG Maker VX Ace in the video below.

Superman has been around for nearly 90 years at this point. The prospect of trying to narrow down his thousands of appearances to the ten greatest Superman stories of all time is a daunting one (it was hard enough for us to limit the list to 25). But that's exactly what The Folio Society has set out to do with the release of the deluxe hardcover set DC: Superman.Unsurprisingly, one of the stories featured in this new collection is the first chapter of Alan Moore and Curt Swan's seminal 1986 tale "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?". IGN can exclusively debut a new preview of this issue, showing how faithfully the original comic has been reproduced in the hardcover. Check it out in the slideshow gallery below:The Folio Society's DC: Superman - Exclusive Preview GalleryThe stories included in DC: Superman have been scanned from DC's archives and are intended to recreate the original artwork as faithfully as possible, coloring and all. The artwork is presented in a 7" x 10" slipcase hardcover format.The full lineup of stories in DC: Superman includes:Action Comics #36 (May 1941) Fifth Columnists by writer Jerry Siegel, artists Wayne Boring and Joe Shuster, and cover artist Fred Ray.Superman #30 (October 1944) The Mysterious Mr. Mxyztplk! by writer Jerry Siegel, artist Ira Yarbrough and Stan Kaye, and cover artist Jack Burnley.Superman #96 (March 1955) The Girl Who Didn't Believe in Superman! by writer Bill Finger, artists Wayne Boring and Stan Kaye, and cover artist Al Plastino.Superman #149 (November 1961) The Death of Superman by writer Jerry Siegel, artists Curt Swan and George Klein, and cover artists Curt Swan and George Klein.Superman #400 (October 1984) The Living Legends of Superman Chapter Four by writer Elliot S. Maggin, artist Marshall Rodgers and Terry Austin, and cover artists Howard Chaykin and Frank Miller.Action Comics # 583 (September 1986) Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by writer Alan Moore, artists Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson, and cover artists Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson, and Anthony Tollin.Superman Vol. 2 #2 (February 1987) The Secret Revealed by writer John Byrne, artists John Byrne, Terry Austin and Keith Williams, and cover artist John Byrne.Superman Annual #2 (August 1988) Loves Labors by writer Roger Stern, artists Ron Frenz and Brett Breeding, and cover artist Ron Frenz.The Adventures of Superman #462 (January 1990) Homeless for the Holidays by writer Roger Stern, artists Dan Jurgens and Art Thibert, and cover artists Dan Jurgens, Brett Breeding, and Tom Ziuko. Superman #75 (January 1993) Doomsday! by writer Dan Jurgens, artists Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding, and cover artists Dan Jurgens and Brett Breeding.Peace on Earth (January 1999) by writer Paul Dini and artist Alex Ross. Symbolizing 'Truth, Justice and a Better Tomorrow,' Superman has been a feature of comics and Western culture for almost ninety years, and where other characters have changed their allegiances and desires Superman has always stood for one thing: Hope. And we could all do with a little hope now and again, said James Rose, Head of Editorial for the Folio Society, in a statement.PlayDC: Superman is priced at $100 and is available now exclusively on The Folio Society's website.For more on what's coming up in the comic book world, see what to expect from DC in 2025 and IGN's most anticipated new comics of 2025.Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket byfollowing @jschedeen on BlueSky.

Destiny 2's next Episode, Heresy, is just around the corner. The "final epilogue entry" for the Light and Darkness Saga will have some unvoiced lines of dialogue though, due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.In the recent This Week In Destiny update, Bungie said its teams have taken care to deliver the narrative and story content, but warned that certain voice lines will be silent due to the ongoing Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strike.Subtitles will be enabled by default so players don't miss any story, and Bungie outlined a number of accessibility and visibility options for said subtitles. Heresy activities that have missing voice acting will display a warning before launch.The SAG-AFTRA strike started last July after the union confirmed it had failed to reach an agreement with video companies following a series of negotiations. SAG-AFTRA cited a lack of agreement over regulating generative artificial intelligence (or GenAI) in projects.Even games not subject to the strike have been affected. Activision, for example, recast several Zombies characters in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 after the voice actors reportedly chose not to sign new contracts in solidarity with striking union members. Some projects and teams have since struck an interim agreement, permitting members to work on those games.The extent of Destiny 2: Heresy's lack of voice-acting is unclear, though some fans have noted that it appears Sloane will be one of the silent characters. There's no note on whether these voice lines could be added in a future update, if the studio and publisher reach a deal with the striking actors.For more on how the strike has, and will continue to, affect the games you play, check out our feature from last year, What the SAG-AFTRA Video Game Actors Strike Means for Gamers. Destiny 2: Heresy goes live on February 4, 2025.Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

SummaryDiscover the bone-clad chapels and natural wonders that await you in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II.Learn how Warhorse made use of historical records to build an authentic 15th century world.Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is available today for Xbox Series X|S.The task of authentically recreating 15th century Bohemia for Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is one thats part careful forensic work, and part respectful artistic interpretation. To learn more, we sat down with senior game designer Ondej Bittner to find out how the team at Warhorse Studios went about crafting an authentically immersive world in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, available today.Bittner explains that the team starts with the geographical data, because not a lot has changed when it comes to the formation of hills, valleys and rivers. Then, there are the military maps created in the mid-19th century. They usually have the layout of fairly static villages, Bittner says. This was quite a common thing to do in European military history. When you build an army that has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, you need really good maps with individual buildings, logistical points, roads and so on.Once the top-level geography, settlements and architecture of 15th century Bohemia have all been established, the team then turns to the living curators of those buildings that survived to the modern day.You can talk to the people taking care of these castles or churches, and see if they have any material on a particular building, says Bittner. Sometimes they do, sometimes they dont! If they dont, then you have to reconstruct it from more general knowledge about the time.Some aspects of this historical forensic work are trickier to tackle than others. One such example is the clock tower that was once situated in the main square of central city Kuttenberg, but has long since been lost to history.We know there was a tower there, but it burned down, explains Bittner on researching this particular missing piece. When you look at woodcuts from the 16th century you can see how the city looked from a hill, but theres not usually any detail. We have to research how clock towers from that period would have looked, and then reconstruct it.Thankfully, some of the periods most extraordinary architecture has survived intact into the modern age. Consider the Sedlec Ossuary, for example, the extraordinary chapel decorated with the bones of more than 40,000 people.Buildings like these arent just eye-catching attractions for tourists and gamers alike, they also provide a rich source of environmental storytelling that helps the team understand the outlook of a long-gone medieval population. Attitudes towards death veered more towards the macabre then, and had a profound influence on art and architecture.The natural environments of medieval Europe provide another atmospheric playground for the studio to explore. Near Trosky Castle, the intimidating centerpiece of the sequels storyline, lie the Apolena Rocks. This type of sandstone rock formation is a common sight across the Czech Republic, forming maze-like structures associated with all manner of local legends.Most of the landscape of Bohemia even in the 15th century is quite inviting, says Bittner. I would say its pretty mellow but this area immediately feels dangerous, as though bad people are hiding out here. Thats reflected in the music design and all manner of things, and its a place thats allowed us to do something special.While the geography hasnt changed much over the last 500 years, civilizations influence on the natural habitat has been sharply felt. Even half a millennium ago, humans were planting forests for the explicit purpose of de-forestation, replacing many of the natural tree and bush formations in the process.Sometimes we do want a clearly defined forest and so we have those areas, explains Bittner. Then we have more natural forests based on research about biodiversity and the various plants and flowers that are still here. This usually hasnt changed.Instead, much of medieval historys impact on the Bohemian landscape has been buried underground. Its here in the dumping grounds of medieval Europe that Warhorse has discovered a goldmine of information as it seeks to recreate an authentic representation of 15th century life.You can learn a lot about human civilization if you look in the trash bin! says Bittner. Our researchers will go to dump locations and look at what people have been throwing out. Are there a lot of pottery shards here? If so, pottery was probably quite common. The composition of clothing also tells us more about these people.I wont go into gruesome details, but the seeds have a certain advantage when it comes to archaeology too, as theyre non-digestible!By combining this sort of painstaking research with a passion for telling stories in a unique period of history, Warhorse has created an authentic and immersive world unlike any other in RPG gaming. Its a world youll be able to experience for yourself when Kingdom Come: Deliverance II launches on Xbox Series X|S today.Kingdom Come: Deliverance IIDeep Silver189$69.99Get it nowPre-order now to receive the bonus quest, The Lion's Crest. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a thrilling Action RPG, set amid the chaos of a civil war in 15th Century Bohemia.You are Henry of Skalitz an ordinary man doing extraordinary things caught in a gripping tale of revenge, betrayal and discovery as he embarks on an epic journey, from a humble blacksmith's forge to the court of Kings, as he searches for purpose in this beautiful but brutal medieval world.From bustling city streets to lush forests, discover this open-world Medieval Europe through an unforgettable adventure filled with action, thrill and wonder.A Tale of Love and RevengeLive life through the eyes and actions of Henry, a young man on a quest to avenge his murdered parents. His story illustrated with over five hours of stunning cinematics takes him from aspiring warrior to rebel, crossing paths with a charismatic cast of characters and an unforgettable set of adventures, as he goes up against the King of Hungary, Sigismund the Red Fox and his fearsome allies. A True RPG ExperienceYour actions shape Henrys destiny and how the world will react to him. Customize freely his appearance, skills and equipment while taking a moral stance on the events around you. Travel round the land engaging in unique activities, such as blacksmithing and archery, to truly immerse yourself in this vibrant region of Europe that will remember your actions, forever.Live a Life MedievalThis stunningly authentic rendition of 15th Century Bohemia allows you to experience this fascinating setting like never before. Get lost in a sprawling city, engage with peasants and talk with nobles while exploring a vast and rich countryside with taverns, bath houses, castles and more. Authentic First-Person CombatFeel the clash of steel and visceral combat as you engage in thrilling real-time battles. Theres a range of authentic weapons and combat styles to suit every player. On foot, horse or by stealth, you can specialise in elegant sword mastery, brutal blunt weapons or deadly ranged attacks.

Netflix has long championed the binge model of TV releases, dropping full seasons all at once. Recently though, split-seasons have become more common. Now, Netflixs content head has explained why.Netflix splitting seasons started because of COVID, but kept going for other reasonsIn the early days of TV streaming, Netflixs pioneering role led many to wonder if the companys binge-drop practice would become common in the industry.Several years in, Netflix now stands largely alone in dropping full seasons all at once. Apple TV+, Max, Disney+, and others tend to do weekly releases instead.Instead of turning the industry toward binge-drops, recently Netflix has shown more willingness to follow the path of its competitors. Weekly releases are still rare for the streamer, but some of the biggest Netflix titles of the last few years have debuted in split-seasons. This happened with Stranger Things, The Crown, Bridgerton, Emily in Paris, and more.Bela Bajaria, Netflix Chief Content Officer, was recently asked by Deadline about the new split-season practice.Some of those have been for reasons, because it was during Covid and strikes to get the shows on so audiences dont have to wait for a long time, she said. A lot of times its been creator-driven. Peter Morgan on The Crown, Shonda Rhimes on Bridgerton, there was a way that they wanted to structure or write it because they felt it was an actual, natural emotional break. So theres no set way, it depends on whats best for the show.Her COVID and strike explanations certainly ring true for why Netflix began splitting seasons in two. However, continuing the practice well beyond those circumstances is apparently a creator-driven decision.Balancing viewer satisfaction with financial needsWhen Bajaria was asked about seeing mixed results for the new practicefor example, subscriber dissatisfaction, losing viewers between parts 1 and 2, she pushed back.Im not sure it was mixed results, Bajaria said.Only Bajaria has the full data to see how successfulor notNetflixs new split-season approach has been. But the fact that the company keeps doing it seems to support her claim.Whether viewers like it or not, splitting seasons of popular shows allows Netflix to retain subscribers longer, and get double the hype for a new season premiere. In other words, Netflix can keep its binge-drop reputation while enjoying some of the benefits of more drawn-out releases.What are your thoughts on Netflixs split-season approach? Do you prefer binge drops or slower releases? Let us know in the comments.Best iPhone accessoriesAdd 9to5Mac to your Google News feed. FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.Youre reading 9to5Mac experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Dont know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel