Highguard Implodes and John Wick Returns [Nerfed.ai]

[00:00] Vanessa Calderon: Nerf.ai, the week gaming broke. [00:03] Vanessa Calderon: I am Vanessa Calderone. [00:05] Vanessa Calderon: And if you thought your week was stressful, at least you didn't launch a major hero shooter [00:10] Vanessa Calderon: and lose your job 16 days later. [00:13] Vanessa Calderon: The industry is in a strange place right now where the highs are incredibly high, but [00:18] Vanessa Calderon: the floor seems to be falling out from under everyone else. [00:21] Vanessa Calderon: We have a packed show today looking at some absolute chaos in the development world. [00:26] Marcus Shaw: And I'm Marcus Shaw. [00:27] Marcus Shaw: It is a heavy one this week, no doubt about it. [00:31] Marcus Shaw: But we have some massive reveals to balance out the studio drama. [00:35] Marcus Shaw: From Keanu Reeves making a big comeback in gaming [00:39] Marcus Shaw: to massive birdmen in Korea, there is plenty to talk about. [00:43] Marcus Shaw: You are listening to Nerf.ai, [00:46] Marcus Shaw: the place where we break down what is happening [00:48] Marcus Shaw: at the intersection of tech and play. [00:51] Vanessa Calderon: Um, Marcus, we have to start with the absolute car crash that is high guard. [00:57] Vanessa Calderon: Wildlight Entertainment dropped this game on January 26th after a huge spot at the Game Awards. [01:04] Vanessa Calderon: And now, just over two weeks later, the lights are basically being turned off. [01:09] Vanessa Calderon: Most of the staff? Gone. Just like that. Is this... [01:14] Vanessa Calderon: a new record for the live service to Ghost Town Pipeline? [01:17] Marcus Shaw: It is definitely up there, Vanessa. Reports from LinkedIn posts by former staff, [01:23] Marcus Shaw: like senior level designer Alex Griner, confirm that most of the team was laid off this week. [01:29] Marcus Shaw: Wildlife says they're keeping a core group to support the game, but the math isn't mathin. [01:35] Marcus Shaw: They went from a peak of nearly 100,000 players on Steam at launch to just over 2,400 concurrence this week. [01:44] Vanessa Calderon: Right. That is a 97% drop-off in under 20 days. [01:49] Vanessa Calderon: They tried to pivot to a 5v5 mode permanently last week, but I guess it was too little too late. [01:55] Vanessa Calderon: It is just... [01:55] Vanessa Calderon: It's sickening for the devs who put years into this, only to be shown the door before they could even finish the first patch. [02:03] Vanessa Calderon: These are ex-respawn people, industry vets, who know how to build a world. [02:08] Marcus Shaw: It feels like the market for hero shooters is just completely saturated. [02:14] Marcus Shaw: If you aren't Overwatch or Valorant, you are fighting for scraps. [02:18] Marcus Shaw: And when you look at the investment required for a game like High Guard, scraps just don't pay the bills. [02:24] Marcus Shaw: The tragedy here is that the game actually had some solid movement mechanics. [02:29] Marcus Shaw: But the player base just moved on to the next shiny thing in a heartbeat. [02:33] Vanessa Calderon: And they aren't the only ones feeling the squeeze. [02:37] Vanessa Calderon: Riot Games also cut about 80 people from the team working on their upcoming fighting game, [02:42] Vanessa Calderon: which is still in development. [02:44] Vanessa Calderon: It feels like the industry is in a massive correction phase, [02:48] Vanessa Calderon: and the employees are the ones paying the price for these high-stakes gambles by management. [02:53] Vanessa Calderon: It is a recurring theme this year, and it is getting harder to ignore. [02:58] Marcus Shaw: Wild. [02:58] Marcus Shaw: It's the human cost that really gets to you. [03:01] Marcus Shaw: We see these numbers like 80 people or 100 people, but those are careers and lives disrupted. [03:06] Marcus Shaw: For Riot, it's particularly surprising because they generally have a reputation for stability. [03:11] Marcus Shaw: But even the giants are looking at their bottom lines and realizing they can't sustain the bloat from the pandemic-era hiring spree. [03:18] Vanessa Calderon: Speaking of those giants, which leads us to the streets of Paris. [03:22] Vanessa Calderon: Yes. [03:22] Vanessa Calderon: Over 1,200 Ubisoft workers just wrapped up a three-day strike today. [03:28] Vanessa Calderon: They are protesting the return-to-office mandate five days a week, no excuses, [03:33] Vanessa Calderon: and the fact that they haven't seen meaningful pay raises in years. [03:37] Vanessa Calderon: Honestly, given the studio closures and game cancellations Ubisoft announced recently, [03:43] Vanessa Calderon: the staff is basically saying, enough is enough. [03:46] Marcus Shaw: The Salivare Informatic Union rep, Mark Rushley, was pretty blunt, [03:50] Marcus Shaw: saying CEO Eves Guillemot doesn't seem to understand his own employees. [03:55] Marcus Shaw: When you have teams that are already understaffed and underpaid, [03:58] Marcus Shaw: forcing them back into a five-day commute is a bold move. [04:01] Marcus Shaw: and definitely not the good kind of bolt. [04:04] Marcus Shaw: It has sparked a huge conversation about what work-life balance even means in modern game dev. [04:09] Vanessa Calderon: Um, Marcus, let's pivot to something that doesn't make us want to scream into a pillow. [04:14] Vanessa Calderon: Let's talk about the Baba Yaga. [04:16] Vanessa Calderon: Sabre Interactive just announced a single-player AAA John Wick game. [04:22] Vanessa Calderon: And yes, Keanu Reeves is actually involved. [04:24] Vanessa Calderon: He is reprising the look and the voice. [04:26] Vanessa Calderon: My inner Gen X is thriving, just thinking about it. [04:29] Vanessa Calderon: We have been waiting for a proper action game for this franchise for a long time. [04:34] Marcus Shaw: It is a huge win for Saber. [04:36] Marcus Shaw: They are promising a gun-food combat system that captures the film's choreography. [04:41] Marcus Shaw: It is set years before the Impossible Task from the movie, [04:43] Marcus Shaw: so we're getting some prequel lore with the high table. [04:46] Marcus Shaw: No release date yet, but single-player action on PS5 and Xbox Series X sounds like exactly what we need right now after all this live service fatigue. [04:55] Vanessa Calderon: For real, if I can't clear a room with a pencil, I am refunding it. [04:59] Vanessa Calderon: Sabre has a lot of momentum right now, especially after the success of Space Marine 2. [05:05] Vanessa Calderon: They've shown they can handle massive scale and intense action. [05:08] Vanessa Calderon: Taking that expertise and applying it to a tight, focused John Wick experience [05:13] Vanessa Calderon: could be the perfect use of their tech. [05:15] Vanessa Calderon: I just hope the narrative holds up to the action. [05:17] Marcus Shaw: The involvement of Keanu is what really seals the deal for me. [05:21] Marcus Shaw: Often these licensed games use a look-alike or a sound-alike, [05:24] Marcus Shaw: But having the man himself means they are taking the source material seriously. [05:29] Marcus Shaw: It feels like we are entering a new era of licensed games that aren't just cheap cash-ins, [05:34] Marcus Shaw: but legitimate extensions of the cinematic universes they're based on. [05:38] Vanessa Calderon: Exactly. Speaking of high-concept action, [05:42] Vanessa Calderon: Krafton finally pulled the curtain back on Project Windless this week too. [05:47] Vanessa Calderon: This is something that has been in the rumor mill for ages, and seeing actual details is refreshing. [05:52] Vanessa Calderon: It is an open-world action RPG based on the Korean novel The Bird That Drinks Tears. [05:58] Vanessa Calderon: You play as the Hero King, a recon, which is basically a giant, terrifying birdman with twin blades. [06:05] Marcus Shaw: Wait, what? A birdman king leading a thousand-man army? [06:10] Marcus Shaw: Vanessa, that is the most video game sentence you've said all year. I love it. [06:14] Marcus Shaw: The big technical hook is their mass technology, which allows thousands of soldiers to clash in real time. [06:21] Marcus Shaw: We have seen games try this before, but usually with a lot of shortcuts. [06:25] Marcus Shaw: Krafton is claiming this is all simulated in real time on the hardware. [06:29] Vanessa Calderon: It's built on Unreal Engine 5, so you know it is going to melt some GPUs. [06:34] Vanessa Calderon: The art style they showed off is stunning. [06:36] Vanessa Calderon: It has this very distinct East Asian fantasy aesthetic that feels different from the usual Western tropes we see in RPGs. [06:43] Vanessa Calderon: The world building in the original novels is incredibly deep, often referred to as the [06:47] Vanessa Calderon: Witcher of Korea, so the potential for a massive franchise is definitely there. [06:52] Marcus Shaw: Yep. [06:53] Marcus Shaw: It is a single-player experience with no live service elements, which, given our first story, [06:59] Marcus Shaw: might be the smartest move crafting could make. [07:01] Marcus Shaw: They are leaning into the narrative and the single-player immersion. [07:05] Marcus Shaw: It's bold to take a niche novel and try to turn it into a global AAA blockbuster, but [07:10] Marcus Shaw: if they pull off those massive battles, [07:12] Marcus Shaw: People will show up just for the spectacle. [07:14] Vanessa Calderon: I mean, I think players are hungry for those big, polished, single-player adventures. [07:20] Vanessa Calderon: We saw it with Black Myth Wukong, where a unique cultural perspective combined with top-tier visuals just exploded in popularity. [07:29] Vanessa Calderon: Project Winless seems to be aiming for that same lightning in a bottle. [07:33] Vanessa Calderon: If you want more updates on this and other stories, you can check out nerfed.neurlnewscast.com for the full breakdown. [07:39] Marcus Shaw: No way. [07:41] Marcus Shaw: If they actually managed to get thousands of NPCs on screen [07:44] Marcus Shaw: without the frame rate dropping the single digits, [07:47] Marcus Shaw: that would be a technical marvel. [07:49] Marcus Shaw: I'm cautiously optimistic, [07:51] Marcus Shaw: but we've been burned by mass tech promises before. [07:54] Marcus Shaw: Still, seeing more diverse stories from different cultures [07:57] Marcus Shaw: getting the big budget treatment [07:59] Marcus Shaw: is something we should all be rooting for in this industry. [08:02] Vanessa Calderon: Seriously, just give us a finished game [08:05] Vanessa Calderon: and let us play it. What a concept. [08:08] Vanessa Calderon: That is the wrap for this week's Chaos on Nerf.ai. [08:12] Vanessa Calderon: From strikes in Paris to bird kings in Korea, we are covering it all. [08:18] Vanessa Calderon: It has been a wild ride, and we really appreciate you spending your time with us. [08:22] Vanessa Calderon: The gaming world moves fast, but we'll be here to help you make sense of it. [08:27] Marcus Shaw: Thanks for hanging with us. I'm Marcus Shaw. [08:29] Marcus Shaw: Keep an eye on those Steam charts, and maybe hug a game developer if you know one. [08:34] Marcus Shaw: It sounds like they could use it this week. [08:36] Marcus Shaw: We will keep tracking the high-guard situation and see if that core group can actually keep the game afloat, [08:43] Marcus Shaw: or if it's truly the end of the road. [08:46] Vanessa Calderon: And I'm Vanessa Calderone. [08:48] Vanessa Calderon: We'll see you next week on nerfed.ai. [08:51] Vanessa Calderon: Stay cool, stay gaming. [08:53] Vanessa Calderon: Neural Newscast is AI-assisted, human-reviewed. [08:57] Vanessa Calderon: View our AI transparency policy at neuralnewscast.com.