The Pokémon Company Issues Statement On Palworld Copyright Controversy

The Pokémon Company Issues Statement On Palworld Copyright Controversy

Earlier this evening, The Pokémon Company issued a press release seemingly addressing the recent conversation surrounding the new Steam Early Access release Palworld and its suspiciously familiar-looking collectible creatures. 

“We have received many inquiries regarding another company’s game released in January 2024,” the company states. “We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokémon intellectual property or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to address any acts that infringe on intellectual property rights related to the Pokémon.”

While The Pokémon Company doesn’t explicitly name Palworld or its developer, Pocketpair, in its statement, we presume it’s investigating the record-setting Steam title based on the specified release window and recent controversies surrounding the game’s alleged infringement of Pokémon IP. 

“We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokémon and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokémon in the future,” the company states in closing. 

Need to get up to speed on Palworld’s meteoric launch or its subsequent controversies? Read our full breakdown right here. 

Grounded II, The Making-Of Documentary For The Last Of Us Part II, Will Be Released Next Week

Grounded II, The Making-Of Documentary For The Last Of Us Part II, Will Be Released Next Week

Earlier this month, developer Naughty Dog announced Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II would be coming to its recent release, The Last of Us Part II Remastered, in a post-launch update for the game. Now, we know exactly when this behind-the-scenes documentary will be live: February 2. 

Grounded II will be added to The Last of Us Part II Remastered in a free update for the game on February 2, but you can also watch the documentary on YouTube the same day. The documentary and associated game update will both go live at 9 a.m. PT/Noon ET. 

If you haven’t yet, check out the Grounded II: Making The Last of Us Part II trailer below: 

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As you can see, Grounded II promises to dive into various behind-the-scenes aspects of Naughty Dog’s latest and arguably most controversial game. The trailer touches on studio crunch, leaks, and more. 

While waiting for Grounded II to go live next week, read Game Informer’s review of The Last of Us Part II, and then check out these first-time player impressions of The Last of Us Part II Remastered. After that, read my opinion piece about how HBO’s adaptation can fix the worst part of The Last of Us Part II, and then watch these two NGTs for The Last of Us Part II Remastered: Surviving the No Return Roguelite Mode and Checking Out The “Lost Levels” Cut Content. 

Are you going to watch Grounded II next week? Let us know in the comments below!

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition Comes To PC This March

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition Comes To PC This March

PlayStation console exclusivity used to be a permanent status for a first-party game to have, but in recent years, Sony has been sending its most popular first-party titles to PC as well. Today, we learned about the most recent instance of this – Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition is coming to PC on March 21. The news comes via the PlayStation Blog, where they revealed that both the base game and its 2023 expansion, Burning Shores, will come to the new platform as a package deal. 

Bringing the game to PC allows more people to play it, but it also allows people to take the experience to a new level with a powerful PC. Here’s what the blog post has to say about the PC specs.

Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition on PC features unlocked frame rates, customizable graphics settings, and a broad range of performance-enhancing technologies, including NVIDIA DLSS 3 upscaling and frame generation. AMD FSR and Intel XeSS are also supported. For players with high-end hardware and extra headroom, image-enhancing NVIDIA DLAA is also available. The game leverages DirectStorage for quick loading times on PC.

 To figure out if you want to grab the game for yourself, check out our review of the base game, and then read our review of the expansion. For more Horizon, check out our thoughts on the VR game, Call of the Mountain, as well.

Solving Over 10,000 Puzzles In Islands of Insight | New Gameplay Today

Solving Over 10,000 Puzzles In Islands of Insight | New Gameplay Today

In this episode of New Gameplay Today, editors Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard explore the opening section of an early in-development build of Islands of Insight. The open-world game tasks players with solving over 10,000 puzzles spread across multiple islands. It’s also a shared world, with dozens of other players exploring that can assist you in this sublime puzzle adventure. You can read more about Islands of Insight by reading our preview from last year’s Summer Games Fest. 

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Head over to Game Informer’s YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. Watch other episodes of New Gameplay Today right here.

Spoiler-Free Hawaii Exploration In Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth | Game Informer Live

Spoiler-Free Hawaii Exploration In Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth | Game Informer Live

Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth release tomorrow, and ahead of the launch, Marcus Stewart and I decided to cause some trouble in the streets of Hawaii. Check out the archive of our stream below where we chat about the series, whether or not this is a good place to jump in, and just generally talk about what makes the game cool without spoiling any story elements. It’s just some good old fashion beating up random people on the streets in Ichiban and pals.

You can read Game Informer’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth review by following the link, and learn why the game feels like an RPG for grown-ups in unexpected ways.

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Head over to Game Informer’s YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. You can also visit our second channel Game Informer Shows for more archived livestreams and series such as Super Replay and Game Informer Live. 

Entrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare

Entrepreneur creates career pathways with MIT OpenCourseWare

When June Odongo interviewed early-career electrical engineer Cynthia Wacheke for a software engineering position at her company, Wacheke lacked knowledge of computer science theory but showed potential in complex problem-solving.

Determined to give Wacheke a shot, Odongo turned to MIT OpenCourseWare to create a six-month “bridging course” modeled after the classes she once took as a computer science student. Part of MIT Open Learning, OpenCourseWare offers free, online, open educational resources from more than 2,500 courses that span the MIT undergraduate and graduate curriculum. 

“Wacheke had the potential and interest to do the work that needed to be done, so the way to solve this was for me to literally create a path for her to get that work done,” says Odongo, founder and CEO of Senga Technologies. 

Developers, Odongo says, are not easy to find. The OpenCourseWare educational resources provided a way to close that gap. “We put Wacheke through the course last year, and she is so impressive,” Odongo says. “Right now, she is doing our first machine learning models. It’s insane how good of a team member she is. She has done so much in such a short time.”

Making high-quality candidates job-ready

Wacheke, who holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Nairobi, started her professional career as a hardware engineer. She discovered a passion for software while working on a dashboard design project, and decided to pivot from hardware to software engineering. That’s when she discovered Senga Technologies, a logistics software and services company in Kenya catering to businesses that ship in Africa. 

Odongo founded Senga with the goal of simplifying and easing the supply chain and logistics experience, from the movement of goods to software tools. Senga’s ultimate goal, Odongo says, is to have most of their services driven by software. That means employees — and candidates — need to be able to think through complex problems using computer science theory.

“A lot of people are focused on programming, but we care less about programming and more about problem-solving,” says Odongo, who received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell and an MBA from Harvard Business School. “We actually apply the things people learn in computer science programs.”

Wacheke started the bridging course in June 2022 and was given six months to complete the curriculum on the MIT OpenCourseWare website. She took nine courses, including: Introduction to Algorithms; Mathematics for Computer Science; Design and Analysis of Algorithms; Elements of Software Construction; Automata, Computability, and Complexity; Database Systems; Principles of Autonomy and Decision Making; Introduction to Machine Learning; and Networks. 

“The bridging course helped me learn how to think through things,” Wacheke says. “It’s one thing to know how to do something, but it’s another to design that thing from scratch and implement it.”

During the bridging course, Wacheke was paired with a software engineer at Senga, who mentored her and answered questions along the way. She learned Ruby on Rails, a server-side web application framework under the MIT License. Wacheke also completed other projects to complement the theory she was learning. She created a new website that included an integration to channel external requests to Slack, a cross-platform team communication tool used by the company’s employees.

Continuous learning for team members

The bridging course concluded with a presentation to Senga employees, during which Wacheke explained how the company could use graph theory for decision-making. “If you want to get from point A to B, there are algorithms you can use to find the shortest path,” Wacheke says. “Since we’re a logistics company, I thought we could use this when we’re deciding which routes our trucks take.”

The presentation, which is the final requirement for the bridging course, is also a professional development opportunity for Senga employees. “This process is helpful for our team members, particularly those who have been out of school for a while,” Odongo says. “The candidates present what they’ve learned in relation to Senga. It’s a way of doing continuous learning for the existing team members.”

After successfully completing the bridging course in November 2022, Wacheke transitioned to a full-time software engineer role. She is currently developing a “machine” that can interpret and categorize hundreds of documents, including delivery notes, cash flows, and receipts.

“The goal is to enable our customers to simply feed those documents into our machine, and then we can more accurately read and convert them to digital formats to drive automation,” Odongo says. “The machine will also enable someone to ask a document a question, such as ‘What did I deliver to retailer X on date Y?’ or ‘What is the total price of the goods delivered?’”

The bridging course, which was initially custom-designed for Wacheke, is now a permanent program at Senga. A second team member completed the course in October 2023 and has joined the software team full time. 

“Developers are not easy to find, and you also want high-quality developers,” Odongo says. “At least when we do this, we know that the person has gone through what we need.”

Performance art and science collide as students experience “Blue Man Group”

Performance art and science collide as students experience “Blue Man Group”

On a blustery December afternoon, with final exams and winter break on the horizon, the 500 undergraduate students enrolled in Professor Bradley Pentelute’s Course 5.111 (Principles of Chemical Science) class were treated to an afternoon at the theater — a performance of “Blue Man Group” at Boston’s Charles Playhouse — courtesy of Pentelute and the MIT Office of the First Year.

Theatrical thrills aside, it was Blue Man Group’s practical application of chemical principles that inspired Pentelute to initiate and fund this excursion. The MIT Office of the First Year was pleased to collaborate with him to support an opportunity for first-year students to interact with one another outside of the classroom by providing funding for 300 of the tickets and T passes for all.

“By observing the use of specialized paints and materials in the show, students gain a deeper understanding of how chemistry intersects with creative expression,” says Pentelute. “This unique experience is inspired by our discussions on the chemistry of pigments and the role of chemistry in everyday life, aiming to bridge theoretical knowledge with real-world applications. The visit served as an engaging opportunity to enhance [the group’s] learning and foster a sense of community within our class.”

A fixture in Boston’s theater district since 1995, “Blue Man Group” is a euphoric, multi-sensory performance featuring three silent “Blue Men” who interact with the audience and one another not with words, but with art, music, comedy, and non-verbal communication. The characters are other-worldly in their innocence, appearing mystified by the audience and the most commonplace of objects. No two performances are completely alike, as the Blue Men pull members of the audience on stage, make music with instruments fashioned out of construction and plumbing materials, and, possibly most notably, drums covered in liquid paint that splash all over everything — and everyone — in what is known as the Poncho Zone.

The Charles Playhouse has a capacity of 500 seats, so the audience of this particular show was made up entirely of MIT undergraduate students — any tickets not utilized by 5.111 students were offered to first-generation first-year students. The experience proved to be an exciting example of practical applications of the general chemistry concepts and undergraduate camaraderie.

Catherine Hazard, a Department of Chemistry graduate student and the teaching assistant for 5.111, was one of the many attendees thrilled to see science in action at the theater.

“The use of brightly colored oil paints, a hallmark of the show, was a direct representation of chemical structures and crystal field theory concepts covered in class,” explains Hazard. “We learned how energy splitting of d orbitals influences color of varying inorganic transition metal complexes, as well as how chemicals such as waxes, resins, polymers, and stabilizers give the oil paint the proper consistency for the performance. The event was a fun culmination of the lessons learned just before heading into a week of finals.”

The goal of the Office of the First Year is to provide excellent services and programs to catalyze student exploration and access to opportunity, and promote the academic success and personal development of undergraduates. Programs and experiences like this one serve to enrich and support undergraduate education at MIT.

Pentelute joined the MIT faculty in 2011. His research group in the Department of Chemistry develops new protein modification chemistries, adapts nature’s machines for efficient macromolecule delivery into cells, invents flow technologies for rapid biopolymer production, and discovers peptide binders to proteins.

Destroy All Humans Remake Developer Black Forest Games Reportedly Lays Off 50 Employees

Destroy All Humans Remake Developer Black Forest Games Reportedly Lays Off 50 Employees

Black Forest Games, the studio behind the recent Destroy All Humans! 1 and 2 remakes, has reportedly laid off about 50 people. This news comes from Kotaku, which learned from a source with knowledge of the situation that these layoffs were announced yesterday, January 24, and that more information about them would be provided next week. 

Game Informer has reached out to Black Forest Games and will update this story if it learns more. 

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Kotaku writes that its source says creative directors and most, “if not all,” of the managers at Black Forest Games will keep their jobs following the layoffs. At approximately 110 employees as of last year, 50 job cuts would equate to a roughly 50 percent reduction in staff at the studio. 

Last August, publisher THQ Nordic, which is owned by Embracer Group, revealed that Black Forest Games was developing a game based on the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles graphic novel, The Last Ronin. It’s unclear if these layoffs will affect its development. 

These job cuts join a string of other disheartening 2024 layoffs, which total more than 5,500 in just the first 25 days of the year. Microsoft is laying off 1,900 employees across its Xbox, Activision Blizzard, and ZeniMax teams, Outriders studio People Can Fly laid off more than 30 employees this week, and League of Legends company Riot Games laid off 530 employees this week, too.  

We recently learned Lords of the Fallen Publisher CI Games was laying off 10 percent of its staff, that Unity would be laying off 1,800 people by the end of March, and that Twitch had laid off 500 employees. 

We also learned that Discord had laid off 170 employees, that layoffs happened at PTW, a support studio that’s worked with companies like Blizzard and Capcom, and that SteamWorld Build company, Thunderful Group, let go of roughly 100 people. Dead by Daylight developer Behaviour Interactive also reportedly laid off 45 people, too. 

Last year, more than 10,000 people in the games industry or game-adjacent industries were laid off. 

In January of last year, Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees amidst its ongoing $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which it completed in October. 

Striking Distance Studios, the team behind 2022’s The Callisto Protocol, laid off more than 30 employees in August of 2023. That same month, Mass Effect and Dragon Age developer BioWare laid off 50 employees, including long-time studio veterans. The following month, in September, Immortals of Aveum developer Ascendant Studios laid off roughly 45% of its staff, and Fortnite developer Epic Games laid off 830 employees. 

In October of last year, The Last of Us developer Naughty Dog laid off at least 25 employees, and Telltale Games also underwent layoffs, although an actual number of affected employees has not yet been revealed. Dreams developer Media Molecule laid off 20 employees in late October.

In November, Amazon Games laid off 180 staff members, Ubisoft laid off more than 100 employees, Bungie laid off roughly 100 developers, and 505 Games’ parent company, Digital Bros, laid off 30% of its staff. 

In December, Embracer Group closed its reformed TimeSplitters studio, Free Radical Design, and earlier in the year, Embracer closed Saints Row developer Volition Games, a studio with more than 30 years of development history. A few weeks before the winter holidays, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering owner Hasbro laid off 1,100 employees. 

The games industry will surely feel the effects of such horrific layoffs for years to come. The hearts of the Game Informer staff are with everyone who’s been affected by layoffs or closures.

[Source: Kotaku]

A Hands-On Look At Skull And Bones’ Season 1 Endgame Content

I’ve been tracking developer Ubisoft Singapore’s naval warfare multiplayer game, Skull and Bones, since its reveal years ago, both as a massive fan of all things pirates and someone who specifically loved the high seas action of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. I wrote Game Informer’s Skull and Bones cover story back in 2022, and have played the game several times since then in previews, betas, and more. 

Despite what various delays had me believing, Skull and Bones is actually shaping up to be, at the very least, a fun and competent experience. Because I’ve played so many of its disparate parts rather than the whole, I believe there’s something really good in the game. However, without playing the full package, it’s tough to say how it all comes together, a critical aspect for any live-service multiplayer game. 

A Hands-On Look At Skull And Bones’ Season 1 Endgame Content

I’m going to dive into Season 1’s offerings and some of the endgame content I experienced in this final preview, but if you’d rather watch some gameplay and hear me talk about my time playing it this time around, check out the Skull and Bones New Gameplay Today below: 

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Skull And Bones: Season 1 Endgame And Bosses

The first season of Skull and Bones is called Raging Tides, and this season and three following it – Chorus of Havoc, Into the Dragon’s Wake, and Shadow of the Deep – are all part of the game’s Year 1 roadmap. Collectively, Year 1 is the Rise of the Kingpins, Ubisoft tells me. 

In Raging Tides, players are up against the pirate kingpin Phillippe Le Peste, a master of potent African poisons. He’s attracted to the region after hearing about the spoils you’ve captured as the area’s kingpin and as such, sends skirmishers and headhunters your way to put an end to your reign. Eventually, after you take down enough of his armada, threatening his own strangle on the seas, La Peste will fight you in the La Potence World Event, which is the penultimate fight against the kingpin on the Indian Ocean. This leads to one final climactic battle against La Peste that will end the season. 

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I didn’t take part in that final battle in this hands-on preview of Skull and Bones, but I did play through the La Potence World Event. I am impressed with how unique this boss fight felt, especially compared to the action against other ships in the game. Admittedly, I didn’t expect anything more than the third-person (ship?) arcade shooter action the rest of the game features – how much more varied can firing weapons from a ship while controlling said ship be? It turns out, with some queues pulled from MMO games, very. 

La Peste uses poison attacks to keep me on the move, forcing my tank class ship to be played differently. I can’t hunker down and hold a spot while throwing cannonballs, mortars, and torpedos La Peste’s way. He targets not just me, but various other areas at once with a barrage of poison mortars that do damage on hit and area-of-effect damage as well. His biggest move places at least eight or so green targets on the seas and seconds later, each is hit with a powerful poison attack. My teammates, specifically our squad’s healer ship, keeps a constant barrage of healing mortars firing at me, thankfully, so I’m able to withstand the worst of La Peste, but just barely. 

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La Peste is also fast, meaning I have to weave in and out of his poisonous barrage attacks and utilize my ship’s three different sailing speeds to keep a balance between running for my life and not going so fast that I lose my maneuverability. After about five or so minutes, myself and the other five pirates helping take down La Peste, ending this world event. It’s a great time, and I hope other boss-like fights feature similar variations on the Skull and Bones formula. 

Elsewhere in Season 1, players can expect a Smuggle Pass, which is Ubisoft’s take on the battle pass for Skull and Bones. The pass lets players gain access to a special ship, the Barque, and themed equipment perfect for fighting La Peste. Plus, you can unlock La Potence schematics, which Ubisoft says is essential for taking on the season’s kingpin. The ship, themed equipment, and schematics are free, but you can also upgrade the Smuggle Pass for a paid, premium experience, too, for even more seasonal offerings. 

In Season 2: Chorus of Havoc, the Hubac twins from the power-hungry Compagnie Royale decide to invade the Indian Ocean, putting your status of Kingpin pirate on the line once more. Sent by the king of France, the Twins will make their presence known with stronger forts and stronger defenses throughout the region, presenting new opportunities for action and challenges, too. 

The final piece of the Skull and Bones endgame puzzle I want to touch on are Hostile Takeover and Legendary Heist events. In the former, you must stay in a designated zone and destroy ships, buildings, and fortresses, and ultimately, cause as much damage as possible. The more damage you do without leaving the designated zone, the better your performance. I enjoy this challenge as it forces me to stay right up in the action, removing my ability to sail away to safety for a breather. 

In the Legendary Heists, I and other players on the server have to work together to take down a legendary captain and his armada of ships. It was extremely difficult – I failed this event twice before finally succeeding the third time – because not only is the captain hard to take down, but other players can also target me if they choose. They might do this because only one ship can deliver the captain to a marked outpost for the full suite of rewards. The same goes for sea monsters, like the one I take down in the New Gameplay Today episode above – only one person can turn in its head to special merchants, meaning while various pirates might work with me to take the beast down, they might just as easily turn on me once the monster is dead, hoping to secure the head for themselves. 

Overall, I quite enjoyed my time sailing through Skull and Bones’ Season 1 endgame content. It’s still tough to say how the entire experience melds together, and I’m still not fully sold on a game where I play primarily as the ship and not a pirate, but if my various hands-on opportunities have proven anything, it’s that Skull and Bones is better than I expect so far and worth checking out in its final form. 

Skull and Bones hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on February 16. 

Are you going to check out Skull and Bones next month? Let us know in the comments below!