Open Roads Preview – A Personal Start – Game Informer

In my bedroom, I have a drawer lovingly dubbed my “drawer of sentimentality.” There’s a hat signed by various members of my favorite bands of a 2010s Warped Tour, tickets to some of my favorite movies, sticks from my last year on drum line in high school, and cards. Birthday cards, Christmas cards, “just because” cards, ones I got for graduating high school, ones I got for graduating college – So. Many. Cards. I struggle to throw cards away with personal greetings. I struggle to throw out anything that means something to me, even more than a decade later, so my sentimental stuff lives in a single drawer to keep me in check. 

During a virtual hands-off preview of Open Roads, the player, as Tess, played by Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and soon-to-be Abby in HBO’s The Last of Us), picked up an old birthday card they received from their grandma, who recently passed away, kickstarting the events of the game. It’s an action players will do a lot of in Open Roads, given it’s what I’d lovingly call a narrative-driven walking sim. This card is nondescript with a simple pre-written message inside. But Tess’ grandma signed something to the extent of, “I’m so proud of you, love grandma.” It wasn’t much, but I immediately felt tears in my eyes. 

Open Roads Preview – A Personal Start – Game Informer

Admittedly, I cry easily. Also, my grandma, a matriarch of sorts in my family, passed away suddenly in August. That grief rose to the surface during this Open Roads preview when I saw that birthday card. 

It reminded me so much of my grandma. I have at least half a dozen cards, if not more, from her, just like it. Perhaps there’s a sailboat on the front (I’ve never been sailboating) and a prewritten message inside that says something like, “May you enjoy another year of new horizons.” And signed under it by grandma, “I’m so proud of you, love grandma.” My grandpa would sign it, too, of course. And I’d take the card home after birthday celebrations and stash it away in my drawer of sentimentality. Beyond my struggle to throw sentimental things away, I couldn’t have told you a specific reason for keeping this or that. In hindsight, I guess it’s for moments like these when I’m previewing a game and am reminded of my grandma and feel the need to pull out one of her cards, to remember those are real words she wrote to me, just for me.

I’d later learn during this preview that things like this card from Tess’ grandma, or the colorful scribble on the inside wall of a closet done by a child, or the art of a Pikanese Pomeranian Tess and her mom, Opal, played by Keri Russell (The Americans, Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker), joke about, are all real things from someone on the Open Roads Team.

Open Roads Team February Release Date Preview Event Gameplay Impressions Thoughts

Notably, Open Roads was originally in development as part of Fullbright with creative lead Steve Gaynor, director of Gone Home, before allegations of cultivating a hostile work environment in 2021 led to Gaynor stepping back. The team working on Open Roads detached itself from Fullbright, now going by the title of Open Roads Team. 

Executive producer Amy Fincher says during the preview, “[It’s] a great game for nosy people,” pointing out that a Pirates of Penzance brochure Tess finds in a drawer is a tribute to her late grandmother; Pirates of Penzance was Fincher’s grandmother’s favorite musical. Someone else on the Open Roads Team would add that the studio hopes all of the personal touches put into the game make Open Roads feel more handcrafted and resonate with players of various ages. It takes place in 2003, with a Tomogatchi-like device, Scholastic Book Fair erasers, a 9/11 commemorative paper, and more alluding to this, but there are trinkets and remnants of the 1960s and ’70s, too, thanks to Tess’s grandma.

Open Roads Team February Release Date Preview Event Gameplay Impressions Thoughts

All the handwriting in the game, including that of Tess’ in-game grandma on the birthday card, is actual handwriting. Everyone on the Open Roads Team has their handwriting featured somewhere in the game, and there’s a lot in just the 25 minutes I see, which takes place in Tess and Opal’s house. However, the duo remarks that the house is up for sale. “We took care of Grandma right up until the end, and now they’re selling the house right out from under us,” they say, and the two will soon set off on the road trip. 

Graphic artist Harrison Gerard says Opal goes anywhere Tess goes, so picking up something in the house to interact with will net you insight into both characters. And I imagine that carries over into the road trip that Open Roads is mostly about. I don’t see any of that road trip, though, with the preview stopping right at the point where it is initiated. 

Open Roads Team February Release Date Preview Event Gameplay Impressions Thoughts

I have no idea how the game feels to play; I’m impressed with the voice acting, but the lip sync seemed random, and sometimes, when I heard their voices, their mouths wouldn’t move; the art is nice and easily telegraphs what you can interact with; I don’t know much about the story yet at all, to be honest. But most of all, and perhaps most importantly, following a game preview, I’m excited to play Open Roads. The personal touches seemingly inject a level of relatability I haven’t felt in a game for a while – I certainly haven’t teared up previewing a narrative-driven game like this before. I’m a sucker for games that pull on heartstrings, and mine are easily pulled, so perhaps the warmth of Tess’ grandmother’s card won’t carry the rest of the experience. I look forward to finding out, though. 

Open Roads hits PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on February 22, 2024. 

For more, watch the latest Open Roads trailer here, and then check out the Open Roads announcement trailer. After that, read Game Informer’s exclusive feature about how Open Roads changed direction and saved its turbulent road trip.

The art of being FLI

The art of being FLI

When you walk through Memorial Lobby (better known as Lobby 10), you never know what you might find. The space has long been a campus hub for any manner of activities — from students tabling for their organizations and the iconic glass pumpkin sale to the MIT Juggling Club practicing their craft.

On a sunny, crisp Wednesday in November, passersby likely saw a sea of students affiliated with MIT’s First Generation/Low Income (FLI) Program in Lobby 10 milling about in matching red sweatshirts. In addition to chatting and nibbling on cookies, many of them wrote down affirmations on envelope-sized cards, which were then displayed in the lobby and Infinite Corridor.

One read: When I need motivation, I remind myself… “I’ve gone a long way despite my FLI background.”

I am most proud of… “being able to join a community like FLI and meeting lifelong friends,” said another.

A third declared: My FLI affirmation is… “The past built you, everything converged to make you belong here.”

The affirmations were a powerful way to give voice to the students’ identity on the last day of the FLI Program’s Week of Celebration, timed to coincide with the National First Generation College Celebration on Nov. 8. (The date marks the anniversary of the signing of the Higher Education Act in 1965, which established federal financial aid programs.)

One of the goals of the week-long festivities was to raise awareness of the FLI experience. By that measure, the event in Lobby 10 was a big success. “I kept overhearing people say, “I didn’t know there were so many FLI students. I didn’t know this was that big of a deal at MIT,” says junior Kanokwon Tungkitkancharoen, executive director of the FLI Student Advisory Board. “Someone even posted on MIT Confessions about how happy they were to see so many people in the red FLI sweatshirts. I thought, ‘Wow, someone posted that? That tells me that people really felt something that day.’”

Uncovering the “hidden curriculum”

During the week’s activities, students had an opportunity to get to know FLI Program staff, enjoy goodies such as sushi or cupcakes, and learn about support resources and wellness strategies. They also received FLI swag, including stickers and the red sweatshirts, both of which feature the program’s new logo: Tim the Beaver launching a paper airplane.

The launch metaphor is fitting: The FLI Program is taking off in new directions and growing steadily. What began informally over a decade ago as the First Generation Project, with part-time assistance from one administrator, has become one of the cornerstones of the new Undergraduate Advising Center (UAC). “We are so excited to be building upon and expanding  this program,” says Diep Luu, associate dean and director of the UAC. “About 18 percent of our undergraduates are first-gen students — the first in their family to go to college — and 25 percent are low-income. These cohorts overlap, as well; about 12 percent are both first-gen and low-income. So, this is sizable population that has specific needs and deserves our support.”

“MIT does a really great job at financial aid, because it meets 100 percent of financial need and its admissions is need-blind,” says Tungkitkancharoen. As a result, she adds, “There’s a lot of FLI students at MIT compared to schools of similar rigor. But just admitting is not enough. You have to provide resources to carry us through the institution.”

Oftentimes, FLI students have to navigate issues that they are less familiar or comfortable with than other students. Asal Vaghefzadeh, a junior and member of the FLI Advisory Board, notes that developing financial literacy and gaining career-related skills can be particularly challenging. “A lot of FLI students don’t have as much experience networking as other students do, or resources for networking, like family members or family friends,” she says.

In 2021, two Institute reports set in motion a concerted effort to improve the FLI experience. Task Force 2021 called for the implementation of a stronger undergraduate advising structure, where students are supported by a team of professional advisors that work with them from admission to graduation. The report acknowledged that “students arrive with varying previous experiences and levels of knowledge about how to fully access MIT’s considerable resources. What is sometimes called ‘the hidden curriculum’ of success needs to be uncovered and made available to every student regardless of their starting point.”

Meanwhile, the First Generation/Low Income Working Group (FGLIWG) identified many gaps in support for FLI undergraduate students, such the need for more career advising, opportunities for community-building, and help navigating MIT’s complex landscape of resources.

Promising growth potential

Armed with the reports’ findings and drawing on stakeholders’ ongoing input, the FLI Program is poised for growth. “We are currently embarking on a comprehensive listening tour and strategic review of the landscape, to ensure that our actions are informed by a deep understanding of the needs and aspirations of FLI students in four key areas, what we call our ‘pillars’ of FLI: community, academics, professional development, and advocacy,” says Sade Abraham, associate dean of advising and student belonging.

The UAC plans to add several full-time staff members to the FLI Program in the next few years. In the meantime, Abraham and her colleague Alex Hoyt, senior staff associate for advising and programming, are busy promoting resources and information through a weekly FLI newsletter and planning a lengthy docket of activities, including a monthly faculty lunch series, community dinners, wellness events, study breaks, outings, and academic and professional development opportunities. FLI student leaders are actively involved in the planning and also devote time to novel projects and ideas. For example, Vaghefzadeh is leading an effort to trace the FLI experience at MIT to raise visibility. “The goal is to have this concise and well-recorded history that people can see and interact with,” she says. Ultimately, she envisions presenting the information through a timeline and mini-exhibition outside Hayden Library.

One growth area for the program will be involving more FLI-identifying faculty. Ed Bertschinger, a professor of physics, has been engaged in FLI programming since 2013. As a former FLI student himself, he prefers to focus not on what these students lack but what they have — like “cultural capital,” as he puts it. “Community cultural wealth, including family relationships and traditions, are important for all students, yet they are rarely recognized in academic settings. FLI students have an incredible diversity culturally and demographically. The community they form, with help from MIT, helps each member achieve their full potential.”

Hoyt can see the downstream impact of that potential very clearly. “FLI students are often thoughtful about not only their own personal journey, but also the larger impact they can have as educational pioneers in their family and community. They’re passionate about leaving MIT as a better institution for the FLI community than when they entered, putting efforts into projects that will improve future FLI students’ MIT experience,” he says.

John Buttrick, celebrated pianist and former director of music at MIT, dies at 88

John Buttrick, celebrated pianist and former director of music at MIT, dies at 88

John LaBoiteaux Buttrick, a former professor in MIT’s Music and Theater Arts Section and prize-winning pianist, died in late November, 2023, in Zurich, Switzerland. He was 88.

Buttrick joined the humanities faculty at MIT in 1966, where he lectured and taught as a professor of humanities and music. He served as the head of MIT’s music section from 1967 to 1976. He taught introduction to music subjects as part of the humanities requirement and was, according to colleague and MIT professor Marcus Thompson, “very popular.” 

Buttrick was born Dec. 15, 1934. He grew up in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, and Nantucket, Massachusetts. He spent a year at Haverford College before later earning a BS in 1957 and an MS in 1959 from the Juilliard School of Music. He completed additional graduate work at Brandeis University. During his personal and professional career, he studied piano with Isidor Philipp, Rudolf Serkin, and Beveridge Webster. 

One of Buttrick’s first professional outings was as a participant in the Marlboro Music Festival. 

Beginning in 1961 he toured major European cities performing in recitals and as a soloist with symphony orchestras. Critics from news organizations in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Zurich lauded his “technical and musical prowess and his communicative gift.” He also toured with orchestras and groups across the United States and Europe for most of his life. 

During his tenure at MIT, Buttrick performed numerous solo recitals in Kresge Auditorium, favoring Beethoven. He was also a soloist with the MIT Symphony Orchestra on a national tour to several major American cities. The tour was hosted by the MIT Alumni Association and conducted by Professor Emeritus David Epstein.

An article in Time magazine reported that, under Buttrick’s leadership, MIT saw its music faculty more than double to 13 and oversaw the increasing popularity of its music courses; two-thirds of the 1973 sophomore class enrolled in them. The Institute’s student orchestra, under Buttrick’s direction, regularly sold out the Kresge Auditorium.

Buttrick, alongside MIT students, was also featured in a weekly radio program, “After Dinner,” which was broadcast on station WGBH in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The program featured “informal, four-handed playing of pieces by Mozart and Schubert.” 

He was frequently featured in chamber music presentations on MIT’s campus accompanied by other prominent artists like French flutist and Marlboro School of Music co-founder Louis Moyse, son of the famous flutist Marcel Moyse.

Buttrick was passionate about his musical forebears, particularly Beethoven. The liner notes Buttrick wrote for his 1983 album — “Ludwig von Beethoven: Klaviersonate Nr. 30 E-Dur, Op. 109 – Klaviersonate Nr. 31 As-Dur, Op. 110” — released in Switzerland on the label Jecklin Musikhaus, described Beethoven’s sounds as “melodic shapes and figurations” and “rounder and more undulant.”

Buttrick recorded several other albums of music by Franz Schubert, Ferruccio Busoni, Joseph Haydn, Max Reger, Richard Strauss, Johannes Brahms, L.van Beethoven, César Franck, and Frédéric Chopin. His favorite composers were Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Chopin.

Buttrick believed in music’s power to heal people. A former student of Joseph Pilates, Buttrick  healed after suffering significant injuries to his hand, arm, and shoulder. Later, he came to practice movement therapy, helping clients avoid surgery using alternative therapies.

While living in America, he was active on Nantucket and a member of the Congregational Church, where many passersby could hear him practicing the piano any given weekday.

In 1985, John relocated to Zurich, where he continued to teach, perform, and engage in the arts. While in Zurich, he met and later married Irene Buttrick. He officially took leave of his MIT position in 1988.

Buttrick is survived by his children, Miriam, David, Simon, and Michael; five grandchildren; ex-wife and caregiver Irene; brothers Daniel Drake and Hoyt Drake; and numerous beloved nieces and nephews.

PTW, A Support Studio That’s Worked With Capcom And Blizzard, Lays Off 45 People

PTW, A Support Studio That’s Worked With Capcom And Blizzard, Lays Off 45 People

PTW, a support studio that’s worked with some of the industry’s biggest companies like Blizzard, Capcom, and Sega, has laid off about 45 people, as first reported by Kotaku. PTW was previously called Pole To Win and its services include quality assurance, studio support, and localization. Last week, on January 11, someone with knowledge of the studio told Kotaku about the layoffs, noting that roughly 45 people lost their jobs. 

The person with the knowledge of PTW also told the publication that the majority of those laid off live outside the United States – it has studios in North America, Europe, and Asia – and were QA workers. However, jobs were cut in other departments, too, Kotaku notes. 

“PTW made the difficult decision to reduce our workforce in several countries where we operate,” a PTW spokesperson told Kotaku. “This decision was not made lightly – Our company’s core offerings stem from the people who enable us to deliver world-class products and services. We want to thank our departing team members for the time and effort they put into the company.” 

These layoffs join a large string of other job cuts that happened last week, following a terrible 2023 for the people who make games and those in game-adjacent industries. Last week, we learned Unity would be laying off 1800 people by the end of March, and that Twitch was laying off 500 employees. Discord also announced it had laid off 170 employees. 

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]

K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center will prioritize innovations for resource-constrained communities

K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research Center will prioritize innovations for resource-constrained communities

Billions of people worldwide face threats to their livelihood, health, and well-being due to poverty. These problems persist because solutions offered in developed countries often do not meet the requirements — related to factors like price, performance, usability, robustness, and culture — of poor or developing countries. Academic labs frequently try to tackle these challenges, but often to no avail because they lack real-world, on-the-ground knowledge from key stakeholders, and because they do not have an efficient, reliable means of converting breakthroughs to real-world impact.

The new K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center at MIT, founded with a $28 million gift from philanthropist and investor Lisa Yang, aims to rethink how products and technologies for resource-constrained communities are conceived, designed, and commercialized. A collaboration between MIT’s School of Engineering and School of Science, the Yang GEAR Center will bring together a multidisciplinary team of MIT researchers to assess today’s most pressing global challenges in three critical areas: global health, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and the water-energy-food nexus.

“As she has shown over and over through her philanthropy, Lisa Yang shares MIT’s passion for connecting fundamental research and real-world data to create positive impact,” says MIT president Sally Kornbluth. “I’m grateful for her powerful vision and incredible generosity in founding the K. Lisa Yang GEAR Center. I can’t imagine a better use of MIT’s talents than working to improve the lives and health of people around the world.”

Yang’s gift expands her exceptional philanthropic support of human health and basic science research at MIT over the past six years. Yang GEAR Center will join MIT’s Yang Tan Collective, an assemblage of six major research centers focused on accelerating collaboration in basic science, research, and engineering to realize translational strategies that improve human health and well-being at a global scale.

“Billions of people face daily life-or-death challenges that could be improved with elegant technologies,” says Yang. “And yet I’ve learned how many products and tools created by top engineers don’t make it out of the lab. They may look like clever ideas during the prototype phase, but they are entirely ill-suited to the communities they were designed for. I am very excited about the potential of a deliberate and thoughtful engineering effort that will prioritize the design of technologies for use in impoverished communities.”

Cost, material availability, cultural suitability, and other market mismatches hinder many major innovations in global health, food, and water from being translated to use in resource-constrained communities. Yang GEAR Center will support a major research and design program with its mission to strategically identify compelling challenges and associated scientific knowledge gaps in resource-constrained communities then address them through academic innovation to create and translate transformative technologies.

The center will be led by Amos Winter, associate professor of mechanical engineering, whose lab focuses on creating technologies that marry innovative, low-cost design with an in-depth understanding of the unique socioeconomic constraints of emerging markets.

“Academia has a key role to play in solving the historically unsolvable challenges in resource-constrained communities,” says Winter. “However, academic research is often disconnected from the real-world requirements that must be satisfied to make meaningful change. Yang GEAR Center will be a catalyst for innovation to impact by helping colleagues identify compelling problems and focus their talents on realizing real-world solutions, and by providing mechanisms for commercial dissemination. I am extremely grateful to find in Lisa a partner who shares a vision for how academic research can play a more efficient and targeted role in addressing the needs of the world’s most disadvantaged populations.”

The backbone of the Yang GEAR Center will be a team of seasoned research scientists and engineers. These individuals will scout real-world problems and distill the relevant research questions then help assemble collaborative teams. As projects develop, center staff will mentor students, build and conduct field pilots, and foster relationships with stakeholders around the world. They will be strategically positioned to translate technology at the end of projects through licensing and startups. Center staff and collaborators will focus on creating products and services for climate-driven migrants, such as solar-powered energy and water networks; technologies for reducing atmospheric carbon and promoting the hydrogen economy; brackish water desalination and irrigation solutions; and high-performance, global health diagnostics and devices.

For instance, a Yang GEAR Center team focused on creating water-saving and solar-powered irrigation solutions for farmers in the Middle East and North Africa will continue its work in the region. They will conduct exploratory research; build a team of stakeholders, including farmers, agricultural outreach organizations, irrigation hardware manufacturers, retailers, water and agriculture scientists, and local government officials; design, rigorously test, and iterate prototypes both in the lab and in the field; and conduct large-scale field trials to garner user feedback and pave the way to product commercialization.

“Grounded in foundational scientific research and blended with excellence in the humanities, MIT provides a framework that integrates people, economics, research, and innovation. By incorporating multiple perspectives — and being attentive to the needs and cultures of the people who will ultimately rely on research outcomes — MIT can have the greatest impact in areas of health, climate science, and resource security,” says Nergis Mavalvala, dean of the School of Science and the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Astrophysics.

An overarching aim for the center will be to educate graduates who are global engineers, designers, and researchers positioned for a career of addressing compelling, high-impact challenges. The center includes four endowed Hock E. Tan GEAR Center Fellowships that will support graduate students and/or postdoctoral fellows eager to enter the field of global engineering. The fellowships are named for MIT alumnus and Broadcom CEO Hock E. Tan ’75 SM ’75.

“I am thrilled that the Yang GEAR Center is taking a leading role in training problem-solvers who will rethink how products and inventions can help communities facing the most pressing challenges of our time,” adds Anantha Chandrakasan, dean of the School of Engineering and the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “These talented young students,  postdocs, and staff have the potential to reach across disciplines — and across the globe — to truly transform the impact engineering can have in the future.”

Stability AI releases Stable Code 3B for enhanced coding assistance

Stability AI has announced the release of Stable Code 3B, an upgraded three billion parameter AI system for automatic code generation and completion. With enhancements like larger context size and improved completion quality, Stable Code 3B aims to push the boundaries of AI-assisted software development. At…