Portal's Month(s) in Games - July & August 2024

Right. You may have noticed (please say you did) that Month in Games had a break last month. It was definitely, categorically and absolutely planned, and certainly not a case of us running out of time and going on holiday. (It was lovely, thanks).

Our tardiness comes with an upside, though, as it means this edition is a double-whammy news bonanza. So, grab a slice of cake and settle down for a Month in Games BOGOF special.

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Gamescom

Let’s start with Gamescom—catnip for those who love 90-second trailers, slightly awkward stage appearances by reluctant devs and Geoff Keighley.

Uncle Geoff got us started in Cologne with Opening Night Live, a non-stop parade of stuff that’s coming soon, later or maybe not at all. We won’t list everything that appeared at the show—Eurogamer has you covered for that—but here are a few things that caught our eye.

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‍Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

Bethesda revealed the release date for its promising Indy adventure. The noted snake hater will be hating snakes on Xbox and PC from 9 December. Interestingly, the Microsoft-owned title will also launch on PS5 next spring—the latest example of Microsoft’s strategy of releasing first-party games on rival platforms.

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Borderlands 4

ONL began with the announcement of Borderlands 4. Presumably, 2K were banking on this reveal coinciding with the franchise’s glorious cinematic debut. Sadly, Eli Roth’s big screen adaptation turned out to be not very good, which urinated on their frites somewhat. You can look forward to more looting and shooting sometime in 2025.

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Goat Simulator: Remastered

Winner of the funniest trailer of this year’s ONL? It has to be Coffee Stain’s Goat Simulator: Remastered.

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Sniper Elite: Resistance

Who doesn’t love shooting nazis in the testicles? Rebellion’s long-running WWII series returns in 2025 on all platforms, including a day-one release on Game Pass.

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Masters of Albion

It’s pretty fashionable to dunk on Peter Molyneux these days, but I challenge you to name a designer who’s had a hand in as many certified bangers as he has. 

‍Theme Park, Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper, Magic Carpet, Populous, Fable, Syndicate, Powermonger. Ok, he’s tarnished his legacy since (with a game called Legacy, ironically), but the guy invented genres. Let’s be a bit nicer to Peter is all I’m saying.

Anyway, Masters of Albion is an all-new open-world god game from 22Cans, and it looks very Molyneux indeed.

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Path of Exile 2

The long-awaited PoE 2 is heading to early access this November. The announcement came alongside a typically gloomy trailer. 

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Civilization VII

‍Sid Meier’s Civ VII has a pleasing rhythm when you say it out loud. Give it a go. Some fundamental design changes are coming to this edition, which lands on 11 February. Check out Eurogamer’s excellent preview for the details.

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Towerborne

We're including this because the trailer gave us strong Guardian Heroes vibes. RIP the SEGA Saturn, history’s greatest console.

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Mafia: The Old Country

This year’s ONL finished with a bit of surprise in the shape of a new Mafia game. The Old Country is under development at Hangar 13, and an extended reveal is due this December.

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Switch 2 delayed again?

It looks likely that Nintendo’s successor to the Switch will no longer appear in early 2025. 

Switch 2 was initially expected to launch in 2024, but a report by Bloomberg earlier this year indicated that the hybrid console had been delayed and would now see the light of day in the first three months of 2025.

Now, a report by Eurogamer suggests that Nintendo’s new platform won’t launch this financial year, making next April the earliest possible release date.

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Evil Within developer Tango Gameworks acquired by Krafton

Tango Gameworks, the team behind Evil Within and Hi-Fi Rush, has been acquired by Korean publisher Krafton.

The move comes following the Japanese studio’s closure by Microsoft back in May. Reports suggest that around half of the original team’s staff will make the move to the PUBG’s publisher’s Tokyo office.

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All change for Xbox Game Pass

Microsoft has made big changes to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service. Windows Central broke the news, and their piece has the finer details, but the headlines are:

• Xbox Game Pass for Console is no longer available to new users. A new tier called Xbox Game Pass Standard will replace it in September.
• The Standard tier will cost $14.99 a month and will include access to Xbox Live Gold (to play online multiplayer) and the service’s large catalogue of games.
• Standard will not include access to day one releases (so, no Black Ops 6), and Xbox Cloud Gaming will also not be available at this tier.
• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate’s offering remains the same, but its monthly price will increase to $19.99.
• PC Game Pass will continue to get day-one releases, but its price is going up to $11.99 per month.
• Xbox Game Pass Core’s (what used to be Xbox Live Gold, keep up) annual price increases to $74.99, but its monthly cost remains at $9.99. Core comes with the ability to play online multiplayer games and access to a catalogue of 25 titles. 
• Need more detail? Microsoft has a handy support page here.

The Game Pass shakeup comes as Microsoft’s Gaming division seeks to recoup some of the $69bn it spent on Activision Blizzard last year.

On that note, the changes have not gone down well in the US, with the country’s Federal Trade Commission describing the new Game Pass Standard tier as a “degraded product” in a new filing to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The FTC continued: “Removing the most valuable games from Microsoft’s new service… combined with price increases for existing users, is exactly the sort of consumer harm from the merger the FTC has alleged.”

In response, Xbox denied that Game Pass Standard was an inferior product because it includes multiplayer and hit back at the FTC, saying that the commission “barely mentioned subscription at trial”, instead focusing on fears that MS would withhold Call of Duty from Sony platforms, something that hasn’t happened.

Nintendo Direct

Nintendo snuck out one of their Direct streams on August 27, showing off some of their upcoming titles. It wasn’t vintage stuff; it felt like things were being held back for Switch 2, understandably, but a couple of games caught our eye. Take a look and then head to IGN for a full breakdown of announcements. 

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Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma

The latest iteration in the series that began life as a Harvest Moon / Story of Seasons spin-off. Guardians of Azuma introduces the ability for players to use the power of dance to boost the growth of their cabbages, something we’ve been doing for years.

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Star Overdrive

Explore alien worlds atop your trusty hoverboard. Star Overdrive is heading to Switch in 2025 as a timed exclusive. 

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Green shoots for the industry? 

Better times may be on the horizon for the games industry, that's according to a new report by the agency DDM.

The report details an increase in industry investment in the first half of 2024, an area that has taken a knock over the last couple of years because of high inflation and interest rates.

Let’s hope that investors returning to the industry is the first sign of better times after a rotten and sustained period of redundancies, studio closures and project cancellations.

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Out this month(s)

Call us biased, but we’re going to start this section with two games we had the great pleasure of contributing to: SteamWorld Heist II and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate.

Published by our friends at Thunderful, SteamWorld Heist II is the follow-up to 2015’s much-loved turn-based strategy game. Fans have been waiting a while for this sequel, but the critical response suggests it was well worth it. Congratulations to the Thunderful crew!

‍TMNT: Splintered Fate brings a dash of Hades roguelike gameplay to everyone’s favourite pizza-guzzling reptiles. The game made waves when it launched on Apple Arcade last year, and it arrived on Switch this July, thanks to our pals at Super Evil Megacorp.

Critics and players have praised the Switch port, particularly the addition of four-player co-op, and some have described it as a contender for the best game in the TMNT franchise. Well done to everyone at SEM!

Look out for our Heist II and Splintered Fate case studies coming to portalstudio dot com very soon.

Elsewhere, Black Myth: Wukong was arguably the most high-profile release of the last few months and maybe even this year. Critic reviews have been solid, if unspectacular, but Game Science’s action RPG seems to have struck a chord with its audience.

Launching on 20 August, Black Myth romped to over 2 million concurrent players on day one. That makes it the second most played game by that metric, ahead of Palworld but still some way off PUBG’s record of 3.3 million.

As you might expect from those player numbers, Black Myth's sales have been equally impressive. The action RPG sold an incredible 10 million copies in its first three days.

Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws launched to decent reviews on 30 August. The broad consensus seems to be that the game successfully captures the look and charm of the Star Wars universe but that some of the mechanics, particularly stealth, are a bit undercooked.

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Signing off

And that about wraps it up for this doubleheader. We’ll be back (probably) in early October for the next edition of MiG. While you wait, why not join us on X, Instagram or LinkedIn and share your thoughts on everything happening in the world of games.