One of Helldivers 2’s more unique features is the presence of a human Game Master who orchestrates its galaxy-spanning war. However, it seems to be a challenging job, as Arrowhead Game Studios needed to deploy “emergency” assistance to cope with the game’s massive player base.

Helldivers 2 GM “was just not sleeping,” says Arrowhead’s community manager

Last week, Arrowhead revealed that it employs a Game Master named Joel to oversee Helldivers 2’s galactic war. His role resembles a D&D Dungeon Master, crafting the story around the players’ actions. However, DMing for half a million players is a tall order. As GamesRadar reported, Arrowhead’s community manager, Baskinator, said the studio had to dispatch additional personnel to help manage the workload.

“Sounds incredibly daunting when you have to juggle the expectations set by the roadmap/dev studio vs what the 500K+ active players want and do,” said one Discord user. “Yes, absolutely,” Baskinator responded. “That’s why we have done an emergency expansion to the GM’s team. He’s only one guy, and he was just not sleeping. I remember over the launch weekend, he was sending me messages at 4 AM because we were the only ones still awake.”

Helldiver’s 2 was a much bigger hit than either Arrowhead or Sony expected and suffered from overcrowded servers at launch. Given that, it’s unsurprising that the game’s DM was swamped in the days following release.

“Unfortunately, our scope was much narrower at launch,” the community manager explained. “We expected fewer players and easier means and methods of communication.”

As for the specifics of how Helldivers 2’s GM system works, Arrowhead hasn’t gone into too much detail. However, Baskinator said her job includes relaying player feedback to Joel and his team. The community manager also mentioned plans to give “deep dives” into the GM system. This includes letting Joel address the community directly.

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We’re into a new month, and the list of new PS5 and PS4 games due to be released during the week beginning March 4, 2024, has gotten bigger. There are plenty of different genres to occupy all types of gamers, but the highlights of the week are the latest installment in the WWE 2K franchise and the third game in the Outlast series, which finally makes the jump to consoles.

All PS5 and PS4 March 4 to 10, 2024 game release dates

Here are all of the PS5 and PS4 games currently set to be released throughout the week of March 4 to 10, 2024.

PS5 Games

• Classified: France ’44 (March 5)
• Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (March 5)
• Juicy Realm (March 5)
• Mediterranea Inferno (March 5)
• The Outlast Trials (March 5)
• Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties: Definitive Edition (March 5)
• 10 Seconds to Win! (March 6)
• Cat and Ghostly Road (March 6)
• Hex Gambit: Respawned (March 6)
• Reveil (March 6)
• ABRISS – build to destroy (March 7)
• As Dusk Falls (March 7)
• Manic Maniacs (March 7)
• Mortal Fight: Lethal Revenge (March 7)
• OVRDARK: A Do Not Open Story (March 7)
• Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator (March 7)
• Top Racer Collection (March 7)
• Akka Arrh (March 8)
• Ancient Weapon Holly (March 8)
• DateJournal (March 8)
• Dreamland Solitaire: Dragon’s Fury (March 8)
• In Celebration of Violence (March 8)
• Stilt (March 8)
• System Critical 2 (March 8)
• Unicorn Overlord (March 8)
• WWE 2K24 (March 8)

PS4 Games

• Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (March 5)
• Juicy Realm (March 5)
• Mediterranea Inferno (March 5)
• The Outlast Trials (March 5)
• Plumbers Don’t Wear Ties: Definitive Edition (March 5)
• 10 Seconds to Win! (March 6)
• Cat and Ghostly Road (March 6)
• Hex Gambit: Respawned (March 6)
• Reveil (March 6)
• As Dusk Falls (March 7)
• Manic Maniacs (March 7)
• Mortal Fight: Lethal Revenge (March 7)
• New Star GP (March 7)
• Top Racer Collection (March 7)
• Ancient Weapon Holly (March 8)
• DateJournal (March 8)
• Unicorn Overlord (March 8)
• WWE 2K24 (March 8)

A total of 26 games are coming to PS5 this week, while PS4 players get a shorter list of 18 titles. The biggest of them all is WWE 2K24, which is available at the end of the week. However, those who purchase the Deluxe or 40 Years of WrestleMania Editions can get access to the game three days earlier on March 5.

The Outlast Trials, the prequel to the first two games, dumps up to four players in the middle of a horrifying Cold War experiment as they fight to survive. If you fancy something a bit more sedate, As Dusk Falls brings the story of two families whose trajectories collide in the Arizona desert to PS5 and PS4. Elsewhere, there is the tactical RPG Unicorn Overlord, or new off-road adventure Expeditions: A MudRunner Game.

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Sackboy: A Big Adventure is crossing over with the free PS5 game Astro’s Playroom. Earlier today, developer Sumo Digital announced that players can equip the free Astro Bot costume later this week.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure crosses over with Astro’s Playroom

The Astro Bot costume arrives in Sackboy: A Big Adventure as a free DLC on March 8. The studio has only shared one image of the costume so far and has yet to show how it will look in the game. However, unlike some other costumes, which are just Sackboy in a funny outfit, this looks more like a Little Big Planet version of the character. It has a larger, boxier head and a proportionally smaller body. The Astro costume’s antenna is also a lot bigger than the original. This has the side effect of making him look a lot more like the Reddit mascot than the designers probably intended.

Astro’s Playroom is a free 3D platformer that comes pre-loaded in all PS5s. It primarily serves as a tech demo for the console’s DualSence controller. It was also the last original game from Gravity Rush developer Japan Studio before its dissolution in 2021. The timing of this new crossover is interesting given the new Astro Bot game reportedly in development.

Meanwhile, Sumo Digital’s Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a 2020 spinoff of the Little Big Planet series. It follows the titular Sackboy in his quest to save Craftworld from the villainous Vex. The game features hundreds of costumes, with developers frequently more through updates. Many of these outfits are inspired by other Sony properties. Past crossovers include characters from God of War, The Last of Us, Ratchet and Clank, Horizon, and Uncharted.

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A Digital Foundry analysis has found that PS5 cloud streaming outperforms Microsoft xCloud in a number of aspects. In fact, the only department in which xCloud surpasses PS5 streaming is latency, and that’s because Microsoft’s service is streaming Series S versions of games rather than their superior Series X counterparts.

How PS5 cloud streaming outperforms Microsoft xCloud

Digital Foundry notes that performance wise, games streamed on the PS5 mostly closely represent locally installed games, but that’s not the case when it comes to xCloud. Those streaming games on the Xbox Series X are getting somewhat of a downgraded version that’s more reprentative of the Series S.

Games streamed on the PS5 also offer better resolution and higher bitrate albeit with inferior latency compared to the xCloud. “Between the use of PS5-grade hardware server-side, the higher bitrate and resolution, PlayStation Plus presents its catalogue at a quality level that’s much closer to justifying that Premium label – even if it’s behind Xbox in terms of latency,” Digital Foundry concludes.

Digital Foundry also notes that both PS5 streaming and Microsoft xCloud come with a similar price tag but Sony offers 851 games compared to Microsoft’s 402 games. 201 out of Sony’s 851 games are PS5 titles.

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Arrowhead Game Studios’ CEO Johan Pilestedt recently revealed that stats in Helldivers 2 are a lot more complicated than the interface would lead players to believe. Early versions of the game provided players with much more detailed information on each weapon’s performance. However, developers thought it was too complex for the average player.

Weapons in Helldivers 2 have 46 hidden stats

Weapons in Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2 have four visible stats: Damage, Capacity, Recoil, and Fire Rate. However, Pilestedt described these as “guidelines” that don’t give a full picture of the weapon’s performance. He revealed on Twitter that there are actually 50 stats in all. Many of these reflect characteristics of the weapon’s ammunition rather than the gun itself.

In addition to the visible stats, each weapon in Helldivers 2 has a hidden Ergonomics score, which initially appeared alongside the other four. This number represents how unwieldy the gun is and governs things like how long it takes to aim down the sights.

The stats screen also originally had a second page providing additional information. These include Reload Time, Fire Modes, Magazines, and Muzzle Velocity in meters per second. Helldivers 2 also originally had a graphic showing how the weapon’s Recoil affects its bullet spread. Even this was a simplification, with Recoil being a combination of 14 hidden values.

In another tweet, the Helldivers 2 developer explained the mechanics behind Armor Penetration. “Armor pen is a value between 0 and 10,” he clarified. “If the AP is equal to the enemies [sic] armor value the damage is 50% if the AP beats the armor you do 100%. If AP is less than the AV the bullet ricochets.” However, even he doesn’t remember what everything does, saying, “I don’t know what the light AP condition is. I think it might be if AP is 2 or less. But honestly I don’t know either.”

He described how Arrowhead attempted to strike a balance between providing information and overwhelming Helldivers 2 players with too much of it. However, Pilestedt acknowledges they may have gone too far in the other direction. “Yeah,” he wrote, “in retrospect it might have been a bad call.”

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Bungie is looking into the possibility of adding something like Halo’s 8 vs. 8 Big Team Battle PvP mode to Destiny 2. However, some technical issues make implementing a 16-player mode in Bungie’s FPS MMO difficult.

Destiny 2 might get a version of Halo’s Big Team Battle

Former host and current Destiny 2 weapons designer Mercules recently joined the 64th episode of the Firing Range Podcast. During the interview, the host asked him about the possibility of bringing Big Team Battle to Bungie’s MMO.

“So, we’re investigating it,” Mercules replied. “It is an ongoing active investigation at Bungie.”

However, some “really weird” technical issues crop up when that many players load into a single activity. “We want to make sure that we can make it happen in a way that ends up being fun and stable,” the Destiny 2 dev explained. “Like, the stable part is pretty important.”

The 16-player Big Team Battle mode first appeared in Halo 3 multiplayer and has been in every Halo game since. Given the overlap between Halo and Destiny 2 fans, many players would no doubt consider it a great addition.

It might also do something to recover lost players. Going by the game’s player numbers on Steam, Destiny 2 hit its all-time peak in February 2023 in anticipation of the Lightfall expansion. However, the year-long post-Lightfall dip has seen the lowest PC player numbers since its release. While console numbers are harder to come by, they likely follow a similar trend.

Hopefully, The Final Shape expansion will reinvigorate Destiny 2 when it arrives in June. Considering the upcoming expansion will reportedly overhaul the game’s core mechanics, it might be an excellent opportunity to implement the Halo-inspired mode.

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Gran Turismo 7’s Update 1.43 is out now, introducing a variety of new content. The latest update adds three new cars, three World Circuit events, a new Café Menu item, and a new Scapes backdrop.

Gran Turismo 7 gets two sports cars and a retro hatchback

Polyphony Digital announced Gran Turismo 7’s new update with a trailer and a post on the official PlayStation blog. The most prominent features are the three new cars. These are the Audi TTS Coupé ’09, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX MR GSR ’06, and Renault R4 GTL ’85. Players can purchase them from Brand Central or the used car dealership.

Gran Turismo 7′ Audi TTS Coupé is a high-performance version of the 2009 Audi TT sports coupé. Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX MR GSR is an upgraded version of the Lan Evo, featuring improved aerodynamics and other refinements. The “MR” stands for “Mitsubishi Racing,” a label Mitsubishi gives to its highest-performance sportscars. Finally, the Renault R4 GTL is the most retro addition in this update. The 1985 French hatchback was the first of its kind and earned a reputation as a “car of the people.” It also goes well with the update’s Cité de Carcassone Scape, which adds a French mountaintop castle to photo mode.  

The update also lets Gran Turismo 7 players with a Collector level of 43 or higher unlock the Lamborghini in Café mode. Meanwhile, the game’s new events are the Sunday Cup Classic, European Clubman Cup 600, and Japanese Clubman Cup 550. The first two take place on the Tsukuba Circuit in Japan, with the third utilizing California’s WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.

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An analyst reports that Helldivers 2 sold twice as much in its second week as the game did in its first. Game sales typically peak at the week of release, but Arrowhead Game Studios’ co-op third-person shooter shows that isn’t always the case.

Helldivers 2 makes twice as much money in its second week

Mat Piscatella is an analyst for the market research company Circana Incorporated. In a recent tweet, he revealed that Helldivers 2 made twice as much money in the US in its second week as it did in the first. While a 100% increase is obviously a big deal, Piscatella pointed out how unusual it is for a game to grow like this. “Inverse decays are rare,” he said, “this large a week 2 jump even moreso, especially outside the holiday window. Great stuff.”

Piscatella didn’t provide specific numbers or offer any deeper insight into Helldivers 2 success. However, on February 11, Arrowhead Games CEO Johan Pilestedt revealed the game had sold about 1 million copies. If sales doubled in week 2, it’s not reasonable to assume that it’s eclipsed 3 million units sold. Still, it’s best to wait for official confirmation on Helldivers 2’s sales numbers.

Either way, it is fair to say that Helldivers 2 is a massive success for the Stockholm-based studio. The game saw overall positive reviews, with the PlayStation 5 and PC versions both averaging 82 on Metacritic. Released simultaneously on both platforms, it was Sony’s most successful PC release to date and greatly surpassed the publisher’s expectations. While other Sony studios face layoffs and closures, Arrowhead recently announced it’s expanding in light of Helldivers 2’s phenomenal success.

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EA and Ascendant Studios’ fantasy FPS Immortals of Aveum hasn’t left a big impression since launching in August 2023. According to the studio’s founder, the game would have done better if it hadn’t been sandwiched between so many other AAA releases.

Immortals of Aveum released in an extremely crowded year, but Ascendant Studios isn’t giving up

“When we were heading to launch, we knew it was very crowded,” Ascendant’s founder, Bret Robbins, told GamesIndustry.biz. “This was a very unusual year. Zelda had come out, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was a little before us. And as we were nearing launch, Baldur’s Gate 3 suddenly blew up right in front of us. That one, more than any of the others, seemed unanticipated.”

The studio also knew that Immortals of Aveum would be competing against both Armored Core 6 and Starfield. “We were sandwiched between a lot of different big games or games from really big studios,” said Robbins. We absolutely got lost in the noise.

He also partly attributed Immortals of Aveum’s underperformance on the studio’s decision to delay the game from July 20 to August 22. This gave the developers more time for polish and optimization but meant it faced stiffer competition on release. “Although the game was better, the timing was worse,” Robbins admitted.

Then again, the argument that Immortals of Aveum would have done better in a worse year isn’t exactly a glowing recommendation. While some reviewers liked the game, its PS5 version only averaged 69 on Metacritic, with a user score of 6.0. The Xbox version did a little better with a score of 76, while the PC release only managed a 65. By comparison, the PS5 versions of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Armored Core 6 averaged 96 and 86, respectively.

Either way, Robbins hasn’t given up on Immortals of Aveum and thinks it may be a sleeper hit. “The story of Immortals isn’t written yet,” he said. “I was the creative director on Dead Space, and people were discovering that for years and years. I think Immortals will be the same.”

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants launches for PC and consoles this April. The 2017 arcade game is on its way to PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants launches for PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC on April 23

TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants uses the version of the characters from the 2012 Nickelodeon show. The 1-4 player beat ‘em up sees the turtles battle Foot Clan, robots, and more across New York City. They’ll face bosses like Leatherhead, Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang, Chrome Dome, and Baxter Stockman, culminating in a showdown with Shredder himself. The Console port also includes new levels, bosses, and dialogue. Seth Green, Rob Paulsen, Sean Astin, and Greg Cipes reprise their roles as Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michaelangelo.

TMNT Arcade: Wrath of the Mutants was developed by Cradle Games and Raw Thrills. The latter company specializes in modern arcade games, releasing almost 50 since opening its doors in 2001. These include arcade adaptations of popular gaming franchises like Jurassic Park, The Fast and the Furious, Alien, Halo, and Injustice. It released its first-ever console game, a port of the arcade racing game Cruis’n Blast, for Nintendo Switch in 2021. As with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, Cruis’n Blast’s console port added a variety of new content.

However, the company is casting a bit of a wider net with Wrath of the Mutants, releasing on all current platforms. The TMNT game will be released on PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam on April 23.

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