UPDATE 12pm UK: Fortnite has now formally detailed how players can get their hands on the Cybertruck, and as suspected (below) the vehicle has ultimately been revealed as a free reward.

Players can add the Cybertruck to their in-game garage without paying Elon Musk a penny by completing a series of in-game quests between now and 7th August. The vehicle will also be available in Rocket League via a similar manner, and is a cross-game unlock.

ORIGINAL STORY 11am UK:
Reaction to yesterday’s reveal of the Tesla Cybertruck in Fortnite has been swift from players and Epic Games’ own developers alike.

In a rare show of public disapproval, several Epic Games staff have taken to social media to give their personal takes on the addition of Elon Musk’s car to the gam…

Update, 20th July, 2024: Xbox has hit back at the FTC, saying it is “wrong” and “misleading” to call its revised Xbox Game Pass tiers “degraded”, and stating the Commission “barely mentioned [concerns about] subscription[s] at trial”.

“Earlier this month, Microsoft announced changes to its gaming subscription service, Game Pass, to provide consumers valuable options at different price points,” Xbox said, in court papers filed yesterday, Friday 19th July.

“Microsoft is offering a new service tier, Game Pass Standard, which offers access to hundreds of back-catalogue games ‘and multiplayer functionality for S14.99/month.

“It is wrong to call this a ‘degraded’ version of the discontinued Game Pass for Console offering. That discontinued product did not offer mul…

Amazon’s Fallout TV adaptation, which drew significant acclaim from critics and attention from audiences when it was broadcast back in April, has been nominated for 16 Emmy Awards, across categories including Outstanding Drama Series and Best Actor.

This year’s 76th Emmy Awards, which are hosted by the US Academy of Television Arts & Sciences to recognise excellence in American primetime television programming, will be held this September. They’ll be the second Emmy Awards in 2024, after the last year’s ceremony was delayed due to the writers’ and actors’ strikes.

With votes now tallied and nominations announced, it’s clear Amazon’s Fallout TV adaptation has made an impression among academy members, garnering 17 nominations across 16 award categories. It’…

Court documents have revealed detailed employment statistics for Valve, the company behind ubiquitous PC storefront Steam, the Steam Deck handheld, and – still – a team dedicated to game development.

How many people work on the world’s most-used PC game store and launcher? As of 2021, just 79. Valve’s hardware team stood at just 41 people as of the same year, a fraction of its games team which employed 181 people. A further 35 staff were described as being employed in “admin” roles.

Altogether, that’s just 371 people employed by Valve in 2021, for a company believed to bring in around $6.5bn a year. EA, home to FIFA/FC, which also generates around $6.5bn annually, had 13,700 staff on the payroll this year.

Newscast: Does the loss of day one launches ma…

UPDATE 16/7/24: Disney has now acknowledged the hack of its Slack channels for the first time. “Disney is investigating this matter,” a spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
Hacker group Nullbulge has meanwhile taken responsibility for the attack, and said it targeted Disney “due to how it handles artist contracts, its approach to AI, and its pretty blatant disregard for the consumer”.

ORIGINAL STORY 14/7/24: A number of unannounced Disney projects have leaked online after 1.1TB of internal documents – “every message and file possible”, according to the hackers – were reportedly compromised.
Whilst Disney has yet to comment formally on the alleged hack, details from various internal files – including upcoming collaborations with Epic Games’ Fortnite, and the …

Three Starfy games previously only available in Japan have been added to Nintendo Switch Online for Expansion members.

Densetsu no Starfy 1, 2 and 3 were all released on the Game Boy Advance between 2002 and 2004, but are now available globally on Switch. A fourth game came to Nintendo DS in 2006, which was followed by The Legendary Starfy on the same console – the only game in the series to be released outside of Japan, until now.

So who is Starfy? As one comment on X put it: “He’s like Kirby, but a starfish”. Makes sense.

Newscast: Does the loss of day one launches make Xbox Game Pass pointless?

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80s movie favourite The Karate Kid is being turned into a 16-bit-style side-scrolling beat-’em-up, and it’s heading to PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC on 20th September this year.

The Karate Kid: Street Rumble comes from GameMill Entertainment, the publisher behind Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, and is firmly setting its sights on the 80s era of Karate Kid rather than Netflix’s Cobra Kai continuation – which has already spawned two games itself.

Street Rumble is, somewhat surprisingly, only the third game to be directly based on the 80s movie series – the first, Atlus’ NES action game The Karate Kid, arrived in 1987, and Microdeals’ The Karate Kid 2 hit the Amiga and Atari ST in 1986. This new outing, though, promises to feature a whole bunch of familiar faces…

Microsoft has confirmed sweeping changes – including price increases – to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service in the run-up to October’s launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, which will include the removal of day one releases for its overhauled basic tier.

As reported by Windows Central, which says Microsoft has now confirmed the details, the first big Game Pass change comes with the imminent closure of Xbox Game Pass for Console. While this will continue to be available to existing members until their subscription expires (notably, from 12th September, Microsoft will only allow users to stack Game Pass for Console for up to 13 months), new users looking for a basic tier package will need to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass Standard, which launches in September.
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Manor Lords’ publisher has hit back at claims the game is an “interesting case study in the pitfalls of early access”, stating that assuming games can continue “endless growth” “causes so much trouble in the games industry”.
Responding to a post on LinkedIn from Hinterland CEO Raphael van Lierop, Tim Bender – who heads up publisher Hooded Horse – responded with a lengthy post of their own, suggesting that “if this industry is to find a more sustainable path forward, we need to move away from takes like [this]”.

Newscast: With the death of Keystone, will Xbox give up its streaming console plans forever?

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The latest free-to-play RPG from the Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail team has reached an impressive milestone, less than a week since it made its debut.
Zenless Zone Zero has seen 50m downloads since its release on 4th July, MiHoYo announced over the weekend.
“A city that once only existed in the hopes and dreams of the dev team has never been as buzzing with life as it is now. Your patience and support have made New Eridu what it is today,” the team wrote on social media platform X.

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