For starters, a number of studios that were operating under the Saber Interactive label will be part of Embracer Group’s divestment. That will include 3D Realms, Slipgate Ironworks, New World Interactive, Nimble Giant, Sandbox Strategies, Mad Head Games, Fractured Byte, and Digic. In total, Embracer says its divested assets include 38 ongoing game projects, as well as “certain proprietary engine technology and game tools relating to the divested companies.”

However, a number of studios that were previously operating under Saber are not being divested, and will continue to be owned by Embracer Group. This includes Tuxedo Labs (as well as the ongoing development of Teardown), Demiurge Studios, Beamdog, 34 Big Things, Tripwire Interactive, Snapshot Games, Shiver Entertainment, and Aspyr Media.

Embracer is also retaining control of ownership of 14 projects that were previously under Saber Interactive’s oversight, including two that are being worked on as joint projects with Saber itself.

These 14 projects include 4A Games’ next AAA project (which is presumably the next Metro game), a “previously announced AAA game based on a major license”, an unannounced AAA title that’s currently in the concept stage of production, a new AAA multiplayer shooter based on an IP owned by Embracer, a new AA game based on an Asmodee-owned IP, a new AA game by 34 Big Things based on an IP owned by Embracer, and the entire back catalog and all future upcoming projects by Aspyr Media, Tripwire Interactive (including Killing Floor 3), and Zen Studios.

It’s also been confirmed that Embracer and Saber’s deal includes an option for the latter to acquire Zen Studios and Metro developer 4A Games, though licensing and publishing rights for all existing and future Metro titles will be retained by Embracer Group’s PLAION.

Reports had previously indicated that development of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Remake would continue at Saber Interactive following the deal’s completion, though that has yet to be officially confirmed.

According to Insider Gaming, Saber Interactive confirmed the New World Interactive layoffs to be a restructuring of the studio.

“Saber can confirm there have been restructuring changes involving our New World Interactive subsidiary,” said the company in a statement.

“This reorganization has unfortunately resulted in layoffs at the studio. We are working to fill existing open roles within Saber with individuals affected by these changes wherever feasible and we will be providing severance packages to those employees impacted.”

The company has also confirmed that New World Interactive will be continuing development on its multiplayer shooter Insurgency: Sandstorm, as well as projects that are currently unannounced.

“Development will continue on Insurgency: Sandstorm, as well as unannounced future projects.”

Originally caught by Nick Calandra of Second Wind, the layoffs were originally thought to be a prelude to New World Interactive being shut down by Embracer.

Quite a few studios have been seeing layoffs and shutdowns as a result of Embracer’s ongoing restructuring. The end of November saw Fishlabs laying off around 50 employees, while earlier in the month, internal documents indicated that TimeSplitters developer Free Radical Design was next on the chopping block.

Embracer Group’s interim strategy officer Phil Rogers recently called the process of laying off employees from its studios as “agonizing” but “necessary”.

In not so great news… I'm hearing from sources that New World Interactive is the next studio shutdown from Embracer… happened this morning apparently and no public statement has come out yet.

Super sad to hear this as I did the documentary on that studio and they're great. pic.twitter.com/aBtwE3HMX1

— Nick Calandra (@nickjcal) December 4, 2023

Insurgency: Sandstorm features a number of competitive and co-op modes, with up to 20 players participating in a single match. As suggested by a previous blog post from Focus Entertainment, the game will be targeting a resolution of 4K at a frame-rate target of 60 fps on current-gen consoles. More enhancements for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S are also confirmed, which will be arriving sometime in the next year.

The game will be available in two editions, including a standard edition which comes at $40, a Deluxe Edition, which costs $70, and finally, a Gold edition, which costs $80.

Focus Home Interactive recently released its yearly earnings and reported $143 million revenue. Perhaps to no one’s surprise, Giants Software’s Farming Simulator 19 has been a huge success. The title has sold over two million copies since release. Furthermore, the developer has launched an esports league for the game with a €250,000 prize pool (seriously).

Other noteworthy successes include Dontnod’s Vampyr, an RPG that’s sold over one million copies. Thanks to the game’s success, Dontnod will be working with the publisher again on a new project that promises to be its “most ambitious to date”, while Vampyr itself is also slated for a Switch release as well. New World Interactive’s Insurgency: Sandstorm has also done very, selling over half a million copies on PC via Steam.

Overall, Focus Home Interactive had a good year and beat their overall target by 20 percent. Other big titles like The Surge 2 are coming up in September, and the publisher has announced that it will bring its titles to Xbox Game Pass for PC. Stay tuned in the coming months to see how things pan out for Focus Home Interactive.

After several months of closed beta testing and years of development, New World Interactive’s Insurgency: Sandstorm is now available on PC. Those who own the original game will receive a 10 percent loyalty discount, but another discount will also be available till March 2019 end. Check out the launch trailer below.

Insurgency: Sandstorm emphasizes a more realistic form of modern military shooting. It has both co-op and PvP, with a focus on teamwork, tactics, and objective play. Suffice it to say that conserving ammunition and not taking too many risks (thanks to the low time-to-kill) is paramount.

New World Interactive isn’t done with the base launch though. It’s promising new maps, weapons, mod support, cosmetics, and much more in the future. All of this will be free of charge to players, thus ensuring the community isn’t split. For console players, Insurgency: Sandstorm is still slated to release in 2019, so stay tuned for more updates on development.

The long-in-development Insurgency: Sandstorm has been delayed to December 12th. The tactical FPS was originally slated to release in September, but has been pushed back to ensure a more polished experience.

In a recent statement, developer New World Interactive said, “This was one of the hardest decisions our team has ever had to make and not one taken lightly. However, we feel it is in the best interest of the game and our community to spend more time working to ensure we deliver the best possible experience.”

The developer was “acutely aware” of beta players not having the “ideal experience” that it wanted to deliver. As a result, the beta has been extended. “By extending the beta and moving our launch date to December, the additional time will allow us to make significant improvements to the game with continued input from you.”

A few of these improvements include optimizing the game and upgrading to Unreal Engine 4.20; improvements for level visuals and gameplay; more variations for cosmetic items and a new cosmetic forearm tattoo that players can see in first-person; and a server browser and support for community-run servers.

If you own the first Insurgency on Steam, then Insurgency: Sandstorm can be purchased for 10 percent off, courtesy of a loyalty discount. This discount will be available till the end of March 2019.

Insurgency: Sandstorm will also be coming to Xbox One and PS4 along with its PC release. What are your thoughts on the delay? Let us know in the comments.

New World Interactive’s Day of Infamy, a rather decent World War 2 shooter from the team that made Insurgency, is available to play free this weekend on Steam. Head on over to Steam now to play but keep in mind that it will only be free until April 30th, 1 PM EST.

Though it’s set during World War 2 like, say, Call of Duty: WW2, Day of Infamy is a lot more tactical and measured. It’ll take some getting used to but along with 14 player PvP modes, there are three co-op modes to play against the AI as well.

Among the things that New World Interactive is doing to welcome new players is increased XP earned in-game throughout the free weekend and a few livestreams with fans and other community members. There will be giveaways and such so tune into Twitch for more details, including some guides and tips.

Day of Infamy is also discounted by 70 percent for both the regular version and Deluxe Edition. If you enjoy the game and feel the urge to pick it up, that’s one more incentive for you.

World War 2 shooter Day of Infamy has begun its free weekend for players on Steam. It kicked off at 10 AM PT/1 PM ET/6 PM BST/7 PM CEST and players can download the full game to try out till October 16th. The free weekend is meant to commemorate a new update that’s live for the game which brings a tutorial mission and a new map, Britanny.

If that weren’t enough, all players will earn double XP during the free weekend thus allowing for outfits and other cosmetic items to be purchased. The game is also 50 percent off on the Standard and Deluxe Editions. If competitive multiplayer isn’t your thing, then Day of Infamy also has co-op game modes where players can team up against bots.

With nine different classes to choose from and a number of different maps, there’s quite a bit to experience. Day of Infamy has been out on PC since March 23rd 2017 and has some decent critical acclaim on Metacritic. Will you partake in the free weekend? Let us know in the comments.

Day of Infamy distinguishes itself from better-known shooters by stripping the UI down to its bare minimum, and reducing the time-to-kill down to zero. These two design choices make it a tense experience were even small mistakes can get you killed. If and when you are killed, the game will give you very little information about where your enemy was shooting from, or how they did it. When you respawn you’ll have just as little information as you did in your last life, and you’ll have to carefully pick your way towards the objective, knowing that somewhere a sniper is waiting.

"Instead of penalizing players with an excessive timer in order to make death in game consequential, Day of Infamy ties respawning to objectives."

When and why you do respawn is one Day of Infamy’s most interesting systems. Instead of penalizing players with an excessive timer in order to make death in game consequential, Day of Infamy ties respawning to objectives. If your team is attacking, then your respawn will be earned upon capturing a point, meaning that the attacking team has a set pool with which to achieve the objective, and which is only replenished when they complete that objective. On the other side, defensive respawns are earned by regrouping, a process where at least one defender must return to the very back to the map to trigger their team’s respawn, meaning that a defender must abandon their position to bring their team back. Regroup too often and the team will run out of spawn points, fail to regroup and you’ll find yourself alone on the objective, unable to retrieve assistance without ceding the point.

Respawning is one system within Day of Infamy that is emblematic of the design direction. The one-bullet time-to-kill is another imposing factor on gameplay, that fundamentally shapes how the game functions. Because the consequences for dying are so steep, players work hard not to, and tactical gameplay that is a waste of time in faster moving shooters really shines in Day of Infamy.

Nowhere is this more felt than in the game’s officer and radio operator classes, which must work together to be effective. Officers in Day of Infamy have a binocular set, and can call in air strikes, artillery barrages, and smoke screens for their team. These are tremendously powerful abilities that can turn the tide of a game when used appropriately. The catch is that officers must have a radio in proximity, which are only carried by the radio operator class. The result is a demand that players work together, that the radio operator shadow his or her officer, and that the officer read the battlefield and apply their awesome power appropriately. Once I grew to understand this mechanic I started looking out for officers even when I wasn’t playing a radio operator, and set up behind or front of them in order to provide cover and security to that vital two man team.

"If Day on Infamy has a problem, it is that it fills its niche too well. The game is not accommodating towards new players. There is a learning playlist where new players can wet their feet, but the game graduates you out of this playlist quickly, and once it does you won’t be allowed to return."

As an aside, I highly recommend that new players looking to get into Day of Infamy but who are worried about the fast time to kill and the unforgiving mechanics play the radio operator class. Your primary job is to stand next to an officer, and players who choose the officer class tend to have at least a decent handle on the game’s mechanics and a working knowledge of the maps. If nothing else, playing the operator will force you to think and work as a team, which is crucial in the game.

Even when you’re not a member of the officer dream team, tactics are available at every level, with smoke grenades, dynamite, and rocket launchers spread out across the game’s classes. Even with a strict class system, I rarely felt completely helpless. The classes are well balanced, and even the flamethrower has enough drawbacks that it isn’t a guaranteed killing machine.

If Day on Infamy has a problem, it is that it fills its niche too well. The game is not accommodating towards new players. There is a learning playlist where new players can wet their feet, but the game graduates you out of this playlist quickly, and once it does you won’t be allowed to return. While this should prevent veterans from stomping the poor souls in the practice list, it also means that those very same souls are shoved into the real world a little too soon, and that the practice list is filled mostly by bots which give no real indication of what’s in store once players start matchmaking.

New, and even veteran, players should be prepared to spend much of their time dead. Its easy to die in Day of Infamy, and the consequence for doing so can be minutes long as you watch through a team-mates eyes while they painstakingly approach the objective, or stubbornly refuse to fall back and regroup.

"Day of Infamy succeeds in crafting a shooter experience where death feels present and real, and success comes in the form of surviving engagement after engagement through teamwork, a little luck, and the proper application of the tools at hand."

Even when you’re not dead, the game can still be a slow affair. Map knowledge is crucial to even find other players, and moments of frantic action are spaced by long stretches or run-die-run. The closest you’ll get to feeling like a badass will be surviving a house clearing. The tactical aspects of Day of Infamy also depend on a team with a strong sense of the game’s mechanics. Sometimes the game can feel truly hopeless when you’re matched against more experiences opponents and your own team flounders before capturing a single objective.

Still, despite the game’s narrow focus and steep learning curve, Day of Infamy delivers a brutal, intense, tactical shooter that is a joy to play once you narrow in on the game’s core mechanics. Day of Infamy seeks to choose one gameplay experience, and hone in on how that experience can be its best. With death so near at all times, and its consequences so deep (at least by video game standards) every moment in Day of Infamy is filled with anxious potential.

Every time I come out on top in a close quarters fight it feels wonderful. Every time I watch the man in front or to the side of me get blown away I feel fear. Every time I sprint across open ground I chant, “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die,” under my breath. Day of Infamy succeeds in crafting a shooter experience where death feels present and real, and success comes in the form of surviving engagement after engagement through teamwork, a little luck, and the proper application of the tools at hand.

This game was reviewed on the PC.

Focus Home Interactive and New World Interactive have announced they are going to be bringing Insurgency: Sandstorm to the PC, Xbox One and PS4 sometime in 2017. This is good news for fans of the online hardcore shooter, Insurgency who were promised the title was going to be coming to current generation games in the near future. The original game was lauded by gamers and critics because of the interesting “one death per player” feature, as well as the fact that the game doesn’t have an aiming reticle so the shooting seems to fee far more realistic when taking aim at enemies.

The two companies announced Sandstorm is going to be putting players “into a gritty, visceral combat experience that delivers first-person gunplay as immersive as it gets, with support for team-based online multiplayer and a brand new story mode set within the Middle East.” There isn’t a great deal known about the game just yet beyond the fact that it is planned to be coming sometime next year but you can certainly jump to some conclusions based on what the first game in this franchise brought.

Whether or not this game is an actual sequel or just another title in the same vein won’t be known until later this year or early next either. Insurgency: Sandstorm is coming to the PC, Xbox One and PS4 sometime in 2017.