Good morning. Thanks for being part of a growing group of Early Access readers. For those that are new here: Early Access is a newsletter about video games. We cover the biggest news and the biggest games once per week, first to our Substack subscribers on Wednesdays, and then republished here on Fridays. Let’s get started.

😀 Xbox Developer_Direct

From the whip-cracking exploits of Dr. Jones to the sprawling RPGs of Avowed and Ara, to the mind-bending odyssey through Senua’s Saga, Xbox’s Developer_Direct showcase painted a vibrant picture of what awaits Xbox gamers in the near future.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Taking place between Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, The Great Circle will take players on a globe-trotting adventure across various exotic locations, including the Vatican, Egypt, and the Himalayas. Featuring a first-person perspective, players will play as Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford’s likeness; Troy Baker voice acting) as they encounter a variety of puzzles and enemies, and will need to use their wits and resourcefulness to overcome them. The game is scheduled to release later this year – we only got “2024” as a release window – on Xbox Series X|S. PC, and Game Pass.

Avowed. Set in the Pillars of Eternity Universe, Avowed is an upcoming RPG from Obsidian Entertainment where players can wield a diverse arsenal of weapons and magic on an adventure through the Living Lands, a perilous island teeming with secrets, danger, and breathtaking environments. The artwork for this game looks incredible, and we got a deeper dive into its gameplay a few days ago. Avowed launches Fall 2024. Watch the gameplay reveal here, and a deep dive here.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2. Senua’s Saga is a digital-only release, and will feature a narrative mirroring the immersive and personal journey of the first game. This entry in the Hellblade series takes Senua to 10th-century Iceland, where she will have to engage in brutal and visceral combat against Viking enemies and her own internal demons. Developer Ninja theory said that it’s goal is to make players always feel like they “just scraped through fights.” Hellblade 2 is set to release on May 21, 2024.

Ara: History Untold. Oxide Games, a studio comprised of veterans from the Civilization franchise, is set to bring Ara: History Untold to PC and Game Pass. In the presentation, Oxide expressed a desire to “challenge some of the preconceived notions of the genre” in creating a strategy game that allows players to rule how you want to rule, and chart your own path to become the most prestigious nation on a fictional Earth. Ara was built alongside players, and will continue incorporating player feedback through an insider program post-launch. The game is slated to release Fall 2024.

Quake 6 Teaser. Eagle-eyed viewers noticed an easter egg during the Indiana Jones presentation – a whiteboard with the Quake logo and the words “Quake 6” in the background. Neither MachineGames nor id Software has officially confirmed anything, but MachineGames’ history working on expansions for the original Quake and the recent remaster of Quake 2 has ignited speculation that a new Quake is in the works. Whether the easter egg is a genuine confirmation – a la Remedy Games – or simply a playful nod to the franchise’s rich history remains to be seen.

No Big Surprises. Last week, I speculated that we might see an appearance of the rumored Gears of War Collection – which is allegedly readying for release – and/or Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC. But Xbox, apart from the surprise appearance of Square Enix with Visions of Mana, stuck to its script. If there was any real surprise, it’s the 2024 release window for Indiana Jones.

Release Dates. All of the games shown at Developer_Direct are scheduled to release in 2024. Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 is the only title with a firm release date. Both Avowed and Ara: History Untold are slated to release in “Fall 2024.” The only real question mark is Indiana Jones, which is slated only for “2024.” The lack of specificity could mean multiple things (or nothing at all), but omitting the word “Fall” seems like a deliberate choice. That choice, at a minimum, gives Xbox more wiggle room to delay the game out of 2024 if MachineGames runs into development hiccups as the game continues to get polished.

💥 Pokémon with Guns

Palworld, colloquially described as “Pokémon with guns”, is the first viral video game of 2024. In addition to releasing on Game Pass, the game has had a monster launch on Steam, selling millions of copies in less than a week on the market. Yesterday, the game hit 1,864,421 concurrent players on Steam, overtaking Counter-Strike’s peak of 1,818,773 in May 2023, and only behind PUBG: Battlegrounds, the current record holder with a peak of 3,257,248 players in January 2018. Then this morning, that number climbed above 2 million for the first time.

Despite its commercial success, Palworld’s “Pals” have been criticized for bearing a more-than-striking resemblance to Pokémon. Armchair attorneys have taken to Twitter and other social media to criticize the developers, who have reported receiving death threats amid the “rip-off” claims. At the moment, lawyers for Nintendo and GameFreak are certainly pouring over Pokémon and Palworld assets to decide whether to bring a lawsuit against Pocketpair. But even if they do, here’s why I don’t think they’d win any attempt to shut Palworld down.

(Quick note: I’, antitrust attorney, and while I’m familiar with copyright / patent / trademark law, I’m certainly no IP expert. Also important to note that Japanese copyright/trademark law is very similar to US law as it would pertain to any lawsuit between Nintendo and Pocketpair.)

Similarities Abound. There’s no question that Pocketpair took heavy inspiration from Pokémon with some of their 110 Pals – 8 of which are very close to being identical. But Nintendo is going to have a very hard time winning any infringement claim here unless they can prove that there is direct design copying. And that is a very uphill battle. “Very close” is not the same as direct design copy, and Pocketpair has been very careful to make sure their designs, while sometimes very similar, are distinct enough to avoid being a copy. Nintendo doesn’t have any legal interest in either the genre of the game or the art style. And when it comes to the Pals, the small details matter, and thematic similarities are not going to cut it here to prove infringement. Nintendo needs to prove absolute copying, not just taking influence.

Guns Change the Game. The fact that Palworlds’ Pals can weild machine guns and rocket launchers immediately changes the target audience for Palworld, and eliminates any confusion for the average person off the street. Nobody, in other words, can reasonably mistake a Pal for a Pokémon given the context of the games in which they exist. Pokémon is focused on kids; Palworld is decidedly not, and its introduction of guns to the monster capturing formula immediately changes the game (in the eyes of the law). Even if you aren’t deeply familiar with the games, everybody knows that Pokémon don’t wield assault rifles.

More than Guns. But it’s not just the fact that Palworld is “Pokémon with guns,” the game is completely different than Pokémon in nearly every respect. Palworld is a survival game with no home town, no hero’s path, no starters. Yes, you catch Pals, but you do so by beating them up, and then equip them with weaponry to take them into battle. Palworld is not even a Pokémon-like game. It has more in common with Ark and Rust than with Pokémon, and its successful because of how effectively it imitates, parodies, and blends concepts from other successful games – Pokémon, yes, but also games like Breath of the Wild, Minecraft, Fortnite, and even Elden Ring.

Asset Extraction. VGC recently ran with an article about accusations levelled by an anonymous account claiming that some of Palworld’s in-game 3D models were nearly identical to Pokémon models exported from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. And one unnamed triple-A developer told VGC that the similarities, several Pal and Pokémon models lined up as direct fits for their 3D mesh, was “impossible” without copying, adding that they would testify in court to that effect. If there is any legal claim Nintendo can make against Palworld, it’s if they can prove that Pocketpair extracted assets from Pokémon and altered them. Other companies – look up what happened to Silicon Knights – have gotten wiped off the Earth for this. Asset extraction, if proven here, could potentially get Pocketpair into hot water.

Nintendo is Litigious. Nintendo is one of the most litigious companies in the video game industry, and frequently uses litigation (or the threat of litigation) as a cudgel against anyone who even mildly infringes on its intellectual property. Nintendo sues fans for creating fan games, emulators and ROM websites, and even went after custom Joy-Con shells paying homage to a YouTuber whose proceeds were destined for a mental health charity. Given that history, it wouldn’t surprise me if Nintendo pursues a lawsuit. But not only do I don’t think they will win, I also don’t want to live in a world with even stricter IP laws. Existing restrictive IP laws already strangle the building blocks of new ideas and choke innovation. Remixing, sampling, and iterating on existing works fuel progress, but overbroad IP claws can snatch those tools away.

🔥 Quick Hits

• Riot Layoffs. Riot Games, the publisher behind League of Legends and Valorant, is laying off 530 employees. The company said that some of it’s “big bets” were not “paying off the way the company expected them to,” and claimed that it needed to make the layoffs “to move us toward a more sustainable future.” Riot has more than doubled in headcount since 2019.

• The Witcher 4. Polish developer CD Projekt Red revealed that it will begin full production on The Witcher 4, codenamed Polaris, as early as this year, and wants to have “around 400 people working on the project.” The release of Polaris will begin a new trilogy for the beloved monster-hunting franchise, and will be powered by Unreal Engine 5 instead of CD Projekt’s proprietary REDengine.

• AI in Games. Over 30% of Game Developers Use Generative AI, according to a recent survey from game developers.

• Halo Infinite. Developer 343 Industries announced that it is shifting away from a seasonal aproach to its live service, starting January 30th. Operations are replacing seasons, with future “Content Updates” planned. The January update will be known as “Content Update 29”, or CU29, instead of Season 6.

• Circana (NPD) Sales Data. Avalanche Software’s open-world adventure game, Hogwarts Legacy, was the best-selling title in the US for all of 2023, ending a 15-year reign by the Call of Duty franchise or developed by Rockstar games. The top 5 consisted of: (1) Hogwarts Legacy, (2) CoD: MWIII, (3) Madden NFL 24, (4) Spider-Man 2, and (5) The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

• Half Mermaid. Immortality developer Sam Barlow announced two new games from his studio, Half Mermaid. Two heavily redacted product pages for Project C and Project D went live on Steam. In an interview with Kinda Funny, Barlow said that Project C is “in the tradition of Immortality” and “sci-fi horror”, while Project D is for his “old school fans that played Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.”

• Game Reviews. This week was a big one for game reviews with anticipation building for Tekken 8 and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth’s release later this week. Both games are knockouts. Tekken 8 has earned a PLAY IT recommendation with a 98% critics recommended score. Infinite Wealth is also rated PLAY IT on an impressive, and rare, 100% recommended score.

👀 Game Dev Moves

I hope that every employee impacted by recent layoffs falls upward, and I’ll be highlighting some opportunities in game development here every week.

• Blizzard Entertainment is hiring a Senior Character Concept Artist, Outsource – World of Warcraft in Irvine, CA (Remote).

• Monolith Productions (WB Games) is hiring a Senior Software Engineer, Gameplay in Kirkland, WA (On-site)

• Wizards of the Coast is hiring a Level Designer (Principal) in Austin, TX (Hybrid)

🕹 Upcoming Games

New game releases for the week ahead – January 29 to February 4.

• The Lost Legends of Redwall: Feast & Friends [PC] – January 30, 2024
• The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology [PC, PS5, XSX] – January 30, 2024
• Rugby 24 [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO] – January 30, 2024
• Eastward: Octopia DLC [PC, Switch] – January 31, 2024
• Granblue Fantasy: Relink [PC, PS5, PS4] – February 1, 2024
• Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch] – February 2, 2024
• Persona 3 Reload [PC, XSX, XBO] – February 2, 2024
• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League [PC, PS5, XSX] – February 2, 2024

View all of the upcoming video game release dates (including DLC) for PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, Nintendo Switch, and more, over on VSG’s release calendar.

That’s all for today. Early Access is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts via email and support VSG, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber via Substack.

Thanks for reading,

Josh