The first month of the year was crazy for the gaming industry, as in January, Sony had a State of Play conference. Many studios were represented with their games there but some of them really stood up. You can read the show down below in the following paragraphs!

Video of the Month

But before we get there, let’s take a look at Arrowhead Game Studios and their newest game Helldivers 2. It came out in early February and it managed to get over million players to try it out so far! Check out its trailer to get excited for killing all forms of aliens on different planets!

TOP Five January News

 Konami attended the Sony’s State of Play in January and out of nowhere announced and immediately published a brief free-to-play game called Silent Hill: The Short Message. However, it apparently is not a very good one, as the reviewers have criticized its story, dialogue, and chase sequences. The game has been the subject of many leaks for years but had never been officially announced before.

The gaming mastermind Hideo Kojima showed up on Sony’s State of Play as well with Death Stranding 2: On the Beach. Fans were hoping for a 2024 release. However, in the trailer, Kojima announced it for next year. It will feature all-new characters and will take us to places we’ve never seen before in this franchise, for example the Moon. The game will launch exclusively on PS5, but it might get to PC or iPhone later down the road, as the first entry to the franchise did.

Nintendo announced it will close on-line play for Nintendo WiiU and Nintendo 3DS on April 8. Prior to this, it had already closed off the shop a year ago which means players can no longer buy games. Downloading the already purchased ones is still possible and for the foreseeable future will be even after April 2024. However, the shutdown does not apply for an app called Pokemon Bank.

MachineGames in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games introduced Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the new first-person adventure of the fan-favorite movie and videogame series. The game feature an entirely original story taking place in 1937, placing the game between Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Last Crusade. The new Indy’s adventure will take us to the temples of Sukhotai, the pyramids of Egypt, and the Himalayas. Bethesda plans to release it on PC and Xbox Series consoles. It might get to PS5 as well, but that is just rumored as of now.

Microsoft’s Xbox have reportedly shut down physical game release divisions which would confirm the older leaks about Xbox going all-digital. This would, however, fit in with Xbox’s strategy this generation, which has been heavily pushed towards its digital-only Xbox Series S model, as well as an increased focus on bolstering its Game Pass library.

Statistic and Chart of the Month

A survey conducted by Statista showed that in the third quarter of 2023, over 83 percent of internet users worldwide played video games on any kind of device. Interestingly enough, over 70 percent of people aged 55-64 game as well. The biggest percentage goes to male gamers aged 16-24, as almost 93 percent of them are gamers.

Call of Duty is one of the biggest franchises in the world and the chart below takes a look at the Steam number of concurrent players of 2022’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II and Warzone combined. As you can see, the biggest hype was in November 2022 at almost 224 thousand, with numbers steadily going downwards ever since. The lowest from the survey period was May 2023 with about 64 thousand.

 Quote of the Month

„My two cents here is that given the increasing popularity of the handheld market as of late, this is probably one of the best educated guesses that you can make in terms of PlayStation tech,” stated Tom Henderson on social media X, thinking Sony will make another handheld console after the flop the PS Vita was.

 Number of the Month

Hogwards Legacy became the best-selling video game of 2023. It managed to sell over 22 million copies, surpassing even The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom. Safe to say, we can expect another entry to this series in the upcoming years.

 Photo of the Month

Last year, developers from Teyon released a first-person game RoboCop: Rogue City. And we at Fanatic Games had the pleasure working on it as well, as we prepared several assets for it including vehicles. The game became a financial success shortly after its release and in about two weeks, almost half a million players had tried it! This was such a big release, and we are so happy and proud we could work on it!