According to ComicBook, Gunn and Safran revealed during a recent DC Studios event that they spoke with the studios behind games like the Batman: Arkham series and the Injustice series about the future of DC-based games.

“We work incredibly closely with JB Perrette who runs that division,” said Safran at the event. “It’s really the first time its ever been this way at Warner Bros. James and I sit with the guys that run the studios under JB whether it’s NetherRealm or Rocksteady. We sit with them and we talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”

Gunn spoke about conversations with the studios revolving around various aspects of games that are currently in development, such as story. According to Gunn, the duo consulted with the studios about how their stories could potentially shape out, considering DC Studios’ future plans for those characters.

“We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages,” said Gunn. “We talk about those, we talk about what the story might be and we’ll say ‘Well, you maybe you want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character.'”

It is worth noting that these conversations still revolve around the earlier process of game development, however, with Gunn stating that the fruits of these plans will start being seen a “couple years” from now.

While Rocksteady Studios has been reeling from the failure of its last major release, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the studio has seemingly already begun work on its next title. Reports have indicated that Rocksteady will be returning to the Batman franchise for its next game, and a job listing from earlier this month indicates that it will be a third-person open world game with an emphasis on melee combat.

However, while it might be in development, the rumours have also indicated that the in-development title is still “years away from landing”. Work on the new game seemingly started once the studio had wrapped up Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, with Rocksteady having reportedly started pitching a single-player title since back in June 2024.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League dealt a major blow to Rocksteady, however, with the company being hit by a new round of layoffs right before the year 2024 ended. Revealed back in January, the round of layoffs came soon after a similar one from back in September 2024, where Rocksteady had lost more than half of its QA staff at the time.

NetherRealm Studios, on the other hand, has largely focused on the Mortal Kombat franchise for a while, with its last DC-related title being fighting game Injustice 2. While the reception of the title was positive at the time, the studio has since been focused on continuing to support its more recent Mortal Kombat titles, including new DLC for Mortal Kombat 1.

#15. BATMAN: THE ENEMY WITHIN

The first iteration of Telltale Games had a spotty track record with licensed properties in its latter years, but one in particular where the studio knocked it out of the work was Batman. And though the first Telltale Batman game was solid enough in its own right, its sequel, The Enemy Within, took things to much greater heights. Its portrayal and characterization of Batman and the Joker deserves all the praise in the world, and the complex, nuanced dynamic between the two characters is something every Batman fan needs to experience.

Starting from October 4 until October 31, PS Plus will have three free games on offer- Milestone’s acclaimed arcade racing game Hot Wheels Unleashed, NeatherRealm Studios’ superhero fighting title Injustice 2, and indie fan-favourite first person shooter Superhot. These will, of course, be available to subscribers of all tiers- Essential, Extra, and Premium.

That means subscribers have until October 3 to redeem last month’s games for free- Granblue Fantasy Versus, Need for Speed Heat, and TOEM. Meanwhile, Sony says the lineup of games to be added to the Extra and Premium tiers for October will be revealed in the coming days, so stay tuned for those details.

Control

The morphing Service Weapon may be her claim to the Director position in The Oldest House but it’s Jesse’s psychokinetic powers that make her a force to reckon with. Along with launching objects – and bodies – into enemies, she’s capable of using nearby rubble to create a shield, temporarily Seize a foe’s mind, and even Levitate. Further powers were added in subsequent updates, like Shield Rush for conjuring a shield of rubble and then charging into enemies with it.

Microsoft have revealed the lineup of games being added to the Xbox Game Pass catalog this month to kick off 2021, and there’s plenty of solid titles to check out across Game Pass on console, PC, and cloud. On Xbox Game Pass for console and cloud, Microsoft are adding the recently released action RPG, Torchlight 3; last year’s season update to Konami’s football sim, eFootball PES 2021; and acclaim indie adventure title, The Little Acre. Meanwhile, NetherRealm Studios’ superhero fighter Injustice 2 is coming to Xbox Game Pass across all platforms- console, PC, and cloud.

Where Xbox Game Pass for PC’s exclusive January lineup is concerned, there’s action roguelite title Neoverse, one of the best narrative aventure games out there in What Remains in Edith Finch, and the indie JRPG YIIK: A Postmodern RPG. 

PES 2021, Injustice 2, and The Little Acre will be coming to the service on January 7, while Neoverse, What Remains of Edith Finch, Torchlight 3, and YIIK will be added on January 14.

Granblue Fantasy Versus

Cygames’ mobile RPG envisioned as a fighting game with side-scrolling hack and slash RPG battles, weapon grids and bosses? It’s doable but Arc System Works took the idea and ran with it, using its incredible visual style and art direction for each character and environment. The combat has a decent amount of depth with Skybound Arts (which are executable using a single button, if necessary). The online play could be improved – as is always the case with these kinds of games – but Granblue Fantasy Versus is still a worthy title especially with updates and new fighters rolling in.

We’re on the cusp of the weekend and, hopefully, for you that means a time to kick back and relax. For a lot of people it’s a time to unwind and play some video games and, as often is the case for Xbox users, it also means some free days of play for select titles. This weekend is no different, and it’s a mix of some childhood favorites of racing and superheroes.

This weekend for Xbox Live Gold subscribers you’ll be able to play Injustice 2, the fighting game from NetherRealm studios that sees your favorite DC character duking it out in an alternate universe. DC FanDome is next weekend, so there’s a chance Injustice 3 could be announced there, so perfect time to catch up. You also can burn some rubber with NASCAR Heat 5, the latest entry in the racing series that lets you jump into the seat of your favorite NASCAR driver in hopes of winning some races.

Both NASCAR Heat 5 and Injustice 2 will be free to play for Gold members up until August 16th. Both games are also discounted if you really enjoy what you play.  You can read full details through here.

NetherRealm Studios’ has been pushing the envelope with fighting game graphics for a while now, especially with titles like Injustice 2 and more recently with Mortal Kombat 11. Nonetheless, it may be looking to go even further on Xbox Series X and PS5. A new job listing is seeking a Principal Software Engineer for Graphics to work on “state-of-the-art graphics technology for the PS5 and Xbox Series X”.

The kicker is that this will be to “drive the next generation console graphics vision for the Mortal Kombat and Injustice franchises.” The position involves working closely with the Lead Engineer and team to “develop state-of-the-art graphics technology for the PS5, and Xbox Series X. Your domain will span the entire rendering pipeline and your responsibilities will include optimization, design, and implementation of pivotal new graphics technology.”

It’s likely that Mortal Kombat 11 and Injustice 2 will be making the jump to next-gen consoles in the coming year. In the case of the former, it would make even more sense especially as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has spoken about “years of new content” being planned. However, it wouldn’t be strange if NetherRealm has already started planning sequels in both franchises for next-gen consoles.

The DC Fandome event is taking place on August 22nd at 10 AM PT with WB Games and DC announcing a new game. Maybe an announcement of Injustice 2 for Xbox Series X and PS5 could be made as well? Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Keiji Shibusawa – Yakuza 0

There’s only room for one Dragon of Dojima in Yakuza 0 and unfortunately for Keiji Shibusawa, it’s not him. The patriarch of Yakuza 0’s Shibusawa family, he’s usually portrayed as someone with a mind for business. However, this hides his sheer ruthlessness as witnessed when he set out to kill the Kazama family. The final battle sees Kiryu nearly kill Shibusawa but Nishiki would intervene, thus ensuring that Keiji went to jail.

Systemic issues with AAA development in the video games industry have come to the surface with greater force than ever before in recent times. From the likes or Riot Games and BioWare to others like Rockstar and Epic Games, issues with the internal workings of several studios have come to light, and said surfacing of issues has blessedly empowered other members of the industry to speak out about their own experiences.

Recently, several former employees and contractors who worked with NetherRealm Studios on several projects, including Mortal Kombat and Injustice, have taken to Twitter to speak about the issues at the studio, and their accounts paint a bleak picture, from crunch to harassment to poor working conditions.

James Longstreet, former programmer at NetherRealm Studios, spoke about his work on Mortal Kombat 9, where he described overbearing crunch conditions, which saw crunch not as something voluntary that employees would volunteer for, but something that was mandatory. “This was not a wink-wink-nudge-nudge ‘passionate hardworking’ thing,” he wrote. “This was a mandate.”

Longstreet says that the Mortal Kombat team sees crunch as necessary, and as something that has always worked for them in the past, in light of which they see it as “clearly the right thing to do”. He also describes poor working conditions for contractors, saying the studio hires “as many contractors and interns as they can, pay them s**t (much less than I started at 12 years ago), and work them to death”.

Beck Hallstedt, a contractor concept artist who worked on Injustice 2, also recounts her own experiences during the five months she spent working at the studio, calling their practices “predatory and abusive”. She describes poor infrastructural issues and a culture of harassment, such as contractors being stuffed into small workspaces with not enough room to work, female contractors being paid less than the usual rates, female employees not being allowed into certain meetings, contractors getting treated poorly and blamed for several issues by the higher-up employees, and them not getting credited with the nature of the work they are doing.

Her accounts are backed up by former QA analyst Rebecca Rothschild, who says she can “confirm everything” described by Hallstedt, before saying there are “lots of amazing people work at NRS [NetherRealm Studios], but there are serious, systemic issues that need to be addressed.”

You can read the aforementioned accounts in the tweets below. One can only hope that with such issues having come to light, NetherRealm Studios will be forced to take action and get to work on fixing these internal issues, which are clearly not sustainable or healthy in any way. Accounts don’t mention whether similar issues have persisted with the development of their most recent project, Mortal Kombat 11, but in the absence of evidence to the contrary, in light of what’s surfaced, it would be hard to assume that anything has changed- not until change is forced, at the very least.

on MK9 crunch officially began after new years day 2011. of course, we did a bit of pre-crunch before that, just to make sure we were in a good spot for crunch. this was on schedule documents. this was not a wink-wink-nudge-nudge "passionate hardworking" thing, this was mandate.

— Jiminy Snackmouth 1 (312) (@jlongstreet) April 23, 2019

i took one day off between jan 1 and the day the day1 patch was approved. it was my birthday, and it was on a sunday, so it was ok if i was just on call. i was allowed to go to a friends' wedding (on call of course) on a saturday night, after working an 8 hour shift first

— Jiminy Snackmouth 1 (312) (@jlongstreet) April 23, 2019

those were the only two days i didn't work from at least 10 am to at least midnight. we were all doing this. i mean, except the bosses, of course, who would leave after dinner

— Jiminy Snackmouth 1 (312) (@jlongstreet) April 23, 2019

from what i've heard the crunch cycle has gotten worse since i've left. a friend i talked to in september said they were crunching already. they hire as many contractors and interns as they can, pay them shit (much less than I started at 12 years ago) and work them to death

— Jiminy Snackmouth 1 (312) (@jlongstreet) April 23, 2019

the MK team's stance is that crunch works, and MK games are always profitable, so it's clearly the right thing to do. it's wrong — crunch doesn't work, the workers don't see the profit (bonuses at WB games are capped to a small percentage of salary), and it ruins lives

— Jiminy Snackmouth 1 (312) (@jlongstreet) April 23, 2019

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