Suicide Squad Falls Short

Happy Monday. Elden Ring is receiving a Japanese novel based on an office worker who finds a connection with a colleague through the discovery that each plays the game.

Let us know in today’s poll if you read books based on games!

—Tim Rhyne

MAIN QUEST: Multiple studios help

Warner Bros. has a difficult year ahead as CFO Gunnar Widen explains in an earnings call that “Suicide Squad has fallen short of our expectations since its release earlier in the quarter.” The ability to deliver a similarly strong year-over-year performance after Hogwarts Legacy’s record-breaking success in 2023 was already going to be a difficult one and they did get a small reprieve from the Switch release of the Howarts Legacy in Q4.

While this year may be starting down due to Rocksteady Studios’s poor performance, some have spotted that Avalanche Software, the studio behind Hogwarts Legacy, has posted new jobs for their next AAA title. While it is unknown what this title may be, two leading theories emerge. One surrounds the rumors of Howarts Legacy 2 already being in production, and the other leans towards David Zaslov’s statement that they were “looking to explore other franchises like Harry Potter in the coming years.”

Step Back: The continued investment into the industry is important as the majority of industry roles, especially junior and intern roles, are sustained by AAA companies.

HUD

• Arrowhead CEO praised the team for successfully handling all Helldivers 2 traffic over the weekend, which peaked at 458,709 players on Steam. The game has been struggling with long queues for 2 weeks and now is seeing a rise in cheating within its game.

• Supermassive Games gave notice to 150 employees that they were at risk of job loss. The horror games company plans to lay off approximately 90 positions in the near future.

• Larian Studios is attempting to “patch the game while working on future mod support” for Baulder’s Gate 3. This news comes as Larian Studios’s Director of Publishing had to ask people to “please stop” the threats and toxicity against developers and community mod teams.

MAJOR W

• ⌛️ Tekken 8 sold 2 million copies in its first month, taking half the time Tekken 7 needed.

• 🔥 Leak suggests that Avatar: The Last Airbender is the next crossover event coming to Fortnite and LEGO: Fortnite.

F IN THE CHAT

• 💲 Die Gute Fabrik, the studio behind Saltsea Chronicles, has not secured new funding and thus stopped production with the team seeking new roles elsewhere.

• 💢 Switch 2 delays are reported to allow Nintendo to produce sufficient supply to meet demand — aka combat scalpers. The expected March 2025 delay also allows them to include launch sales in their upcoming financial year, ending March 31st, 2025.

CAREER CORNER

• Program Manager, Player Support — Netflix (Los Angeles, CA)

• Project Coordinator, Analytics — Rockstar Games (New York City, NY)

• Manager, Research Operations — EA (Vancouver, Canada)

HIVE MIND

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