"I could feel myself coming apart at the seams": Suicide Squad leads on almost leaving the games industry after its failure

Woof

A screenshot from Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League showing Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and King Shark looking down

Crikey, remember Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? That sure was a mess. It was a public mess too, one where there were seemingly some attempts to save the game, but none that could have shifted it away from its inherent flaws. But for the game's co-director Axel Rydby and associate design director Johnny Armstrong, the behind the scenes events were enough to almost turn them off from the games industry entirely.

Ithaca is a road trip RPG about climate resistance and dealing with the hostage you have in your trunk

How'd that get in there?

A woman is opening the trunk of her car at night, a tied up pair of hands flopping out in Ithaca.
Image credit: The Pixel Hunt

The ethical quandaries around car usage aside, we can all agree there's nothing like a road trip, right? When better a time is there to think about every single decision you've ever made in life than on an open stretch of road with only other cars to stop you? It feels like a great setting for a video game, despite there not being very many road trip games. But another one is entering the fray and it's called Ithaca, a "narrative road-trip with RPG elements about environmental resistance."

GTA 6 makers have 10 working days to voluntarily recognise Rockstar IWGB Game Workers Union or it may go to a government tribunal

Can I get a witness?

A character in GTA 6 demands recognition of the Rockstar union
Image credit: Take-Two Interactive / Rockstar Games

The newly-formed Rockstar IWGB Game Workers Union are pushing for official recognition by Rockstar ahead of GTA 6's console release this November.

Generative AI is a "virulent plague" and even using it to eliminate "drudgery" has downsides, reckons long-time Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider

"It's not ready for prime time"

A battle against some creatures which are on fire in Dragon Age Inquisition.
Image credit: BioWare

Former Dragon Age wordsmith David Gaider isn't keen on the use of generative AI in game development, at least in the tech's current form. In the veteran developer's view, even if it can be used as a means to speed up the handling of more mundane tasks - which is the way many execs have been trying to sell it - genAI runs the risk of inhibiting developers' abilities to teach the less experienced colleagues the ins and outs of the craft.