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

The Ukrainian studio behind cult PC shooter STALKER has re-opened. The developer hit hard times in 2010 and was eventually closed completely the following year. It now emerges that the company was half way through the development of STALKER 2 when business was halted, Valentine Yeltyshev has told Games Industry. …

Ubisoft’s free game offer for Assassin’s Creed: Unity Season Pass holders comes with a hefty caveat. As spotted by Joystiq, anyone downloading a free title – which was offered to Season pass holders as recompense for the game’s troubled launch – must agree to a document that says the user …

We pick our favourite titles from the past 12 months

It appears that gaming’s transition year has turned into transition years” – that’s the headline from Metacritic after a poor year for game quality. The reviews aggregator said that for the second year in a row just 11 console games (and nine unique titles) scored 90 per cent or higher …

UPDATE:It looks like this was alla big misunderstanding, according to Neogaf sleuths, and that DSfix will survive as normal. ORIGINAL STORY: The mod that popularised the otherwise technically compromised PC version of Dark Souls has been pulled after a copyright threat. DSfix, made by Durante, implements 1080p and 60fps gameplay …

343 Industries has released a new update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection, adding new bug fixes along with the Spartan Ops co-op campaign from Halo 4. 343 explained in October – ahead of the game’s troubled launch – that the Halo 4 Spartan Ops content would miss being part …

Bungie has released a slew of statistics for Destiny, revealing that nearly 13m people have played the online FPS. As of the studio’s post earlier today, the game boasts 12,869,066 players across Playstation and Xbox console platforms that have created 22,932,276 guardians and logged 872,404,449 hours collectively. Destiny’s Crota’s End …

Maniac Mansion creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick have successfully crowdfunded their new adventure game Thimbleweed Park, raising more than a quarter of a million dollars over the campaign’s funding goal. The recently concluded Kickstarter effort – and true spirtual successor” to Maniac Mansion and other Lucasfilm Games from decades …

A group of Canterbury students have riled UKIP leader Nigel Farage by developing a game that spoofs both the politician and his party. Kent Online reports that the game, called UKIK, sees players take control of a character called Nicholas Fromage who is tasked with kicking immigrants as far as …

RPG fans were treated to a first glimpse at two new characters in Square Enix’s upcoming Final Fantasy XV in a video released this weekend. Shown off at Japanese anime convention Jump Festa 2015, the short reveals both popular summon Titan – who is now absolutely huge – and Cid. …