MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry

Latest issue out now in print or digital, will also be available at Gamescom and GDC Europe

PC’s critical hit Xcom 2 has been pushed back a few weeks on PS4 and Xbox One. The Firaxis action strategy outing had been due out on September 9th, but will now not arrive in the UK until September 30th. It hits the US slightly earlier on September 27th. This …

The director of Star Wars: The Old Republic insists that the MMO market is more popular than ever. The MMO sector has seen declines amongst its traditional big hitters, such as Blizzard’s World of Warcraft. Yet James Ohlen tells MCV that the recent success of Activision’s Destiny and Ubisoft’s The …

Gruff-voiced Elias Toufexis may be the face of mankind’s future in Deus Ex, but he’s also a sign of things to come for studios. James Batchelor asks him why voice actors want to become increasingly involved in their character’s development

Third-party developers will soon be able to make use of SteamVR’s tracking abilities in their own virtual reality hardware, opening the doors for custom controllers for VR titles. Valve has announced that it will offer royalty-free licences for the platform to hardware makers who complete an in-person training course. The …

Publisher Merge Games plans to be the No.1 indie label in the North of Britain. The firm also hopes its strategy of working with leading British games creators will see it become one of the UK’s biggest publishers overall. The news comes as the company prepares to release games – …

Number of titles certified in the last 12 months now at 178, UK spend at £554m

John Broomhall discusses the sound of Faith with EA DICE audio director James Slavin

The content boss for the Vive VR headset has delivered a warning to major games publishers that are reluctant to invest in virtual reality. Joel Breton told MCV that these businesses risk enabling ‘massive new competitors’ by not getting in early on virtual reality – akin to what happened in …

‘There is a range of motives here from blatant commercial ventures to enthusiastic fans but the negative impact on game resources is the same’