Top Story
Sony join “Playing for the Planet” alliance by the UN for ‘global sustainability’
Sony Interactive Entertainment is joining the United Nations in their effort to tackle the environmental impact of the games industry. The result is an ambitious initiative named Playing for the Planet.
What does this mean, except that Sony thinks being environmentally conscious is good PR? Sony will be reviewing their business practices to reduce power consumption via more efficient chipsets and improved energy-saving features. Sony claims they have already cut their carbon footprint dramatically.
“For context, we estimate the carbon emissions we have avoided to date already amount to almost 16 million metric tons, increasing to 29 million metric tons over the course of the next 10 years (which equals the CO2 emissions for the nation of Denmark in 2017),” blogged Jim Ryan, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Microsoft’s datacenters have been ‘carbon neutral’ since 2012, and Apple ‘went green’ in April 2018
Of course, there’s not that much the games industry can do to reduce its environmental impact without hurting their business – which is, after all, about making and selling energy-slurping entertainment devices and as many good reasons to use them as possible.
Sony seems to think every bit helps: “We could not be more proud to be part of the Playing for the Planet Alliance and the commitments announced. We look forward to seeing what the industry can achieve together.”
Time For A Quick Daily Quiz?
Which Batman villain did Arkham Asylum writer Paul Dini co-create?
- Bane
- Hush
- Harley Quinn
- The Court of Owls
The answer will be revealed at the end of this issue!
News Bits
Resident Evil spin-off Project Resistance has single player campaign
Lonely horror fans, rejoice! Turns out Project Resistance isn’t just a 4v1 online game: Producer Masachika Kawata has revealed that the spin-off features a single-player campaign too. Project Resistance is coming to PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One with a closed beta bethween October 4th and 7th.
Nintendo Switch Lite ‘not technically capable’ of TV video output
Looks like there won’t be any mods enabling Switch Lite to output to TV. YouTube channel Spawn Wave cracked open the new console and rummaged through its innards, and found that it’s missing the hardware necessary for TV output.
Daily Fact
There was a Sly Cooper film in the works, and it even had a trailer
Remember Sucker Punch’s classic 3d platforming series Sly Cooper? Well, the titular thievius raccoonus was meant to become a silver screen star: Rainmaker Entertainment worked with Sucker Punch to develop an animated movie, scheduled for release in 2016.
The adaptation was coming along nicely, but the failure of the Ratchet & Clank movie apparently caused some consternation and the project kept getting delayed – until Rainmaker finally left the project in 2017. All we know is that the movie wouldn’t be an origin story, since the official teaser trailer shows the whole gang together committing their crime capers.
Daily News
New Batman game from WB Games?
Developer WB Games Montréal hasn’t been in the news since they dropped Batman: Arkham Origins in 2013, a prequel to Rocksteady’s Arkham Asylum from 2009.
There’s no definitive proof there’s another Batman title in the works, but rumours are swirling about the ‘Court of Owls’ from the comic books. WB Games Montréal’s official Twitter account teased a clip of the Batman logo projected on to the side of a building, while a static image appears briefly over the top.
An interview from October 2018 revealed two DC Comics projects at WB Games Montréal
We’ve seen that logo before: Back in 2018, a developer from the studio was photographed wearing a T-shirt with a similar design. The game could be about a new Batman dealing with the shadowy Court of Owls, or it could just be about the group and their role in the DC universe.
WB Games Montréal is rumoured to have another ‘open world’ game in development too, and to have had several other projects cancelled since Arkham Origins. In any case, the Dark Knight just celebrated his 80th anniversary, so there’s a strong chance we’ll be donning the cowl again soon.
Arkham writers joins Fable reboot
Worried about the fate of classic RPG series Fable? Well, your fears are about to be allayed: British developer Playground Games is rebooting the classic, with the help of writers formerly of Rocksteady Studios.
Kim MacAskill and Craig Owens were both senior script writers for the Arkham series, while Martin Lancaster was lead scriptwriter for Arkham Knight and is now narrative director at Playground.
Maybe you can plant trees this time?
They’ve also nabbed a lead environment artist from Anthem, a lead character artist from Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands, a lead animator from Hellblade, a project manager from Metal Gear Solid V and several others.
The studio remains very secretive about the whole affair, so there are no more details yet. Up until now, the studio has been busy working on the Forza Horizon series for Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC and was acquired by Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios last year. Let’s hope they can keep Fable’s cheeky, chicken-chasing spirit alive!