SEGA have sold their stake in Humankind developer Amplitude Studios as a part of a management buyout. The studio has now become an independent and will thankfully continue to exist.
SEGA have made considerable lay-offs to staff internally as well as staff working at The Creative Assembly and SEGA Hardlight across 2024 as a part of their corporate restructure. It’s all a bit cold and uncaring for an industry that is reportedly one of the most successful entertainment mediums around nowadays.
Under SEGA, Amplitude developed Humankind, Endless Dungeon and Endless Space 2. The studio mainly specialised in strategy titles for a PC audience.
SEGADriven would like to wish everyone at Amplitude Studios our very best and hope the studio manage to continue their work and success as an independent.
Justin Scarpone, the current transmedia boss at SEGA, has casually dropped the news that SEGA are developing a new Virtua Fighter game in an interview with VGC.
When questioned about the challenge of reviving old franchises for modern audiences, Scarpone says the following:
“So we have a suite of titles in development right now that fall into that legacy bucket, which we announced last year at The Game Awards; Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and we have another Virtua Fighter being developed.”
While we have seen some in-game footage of the new Shinobi, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio games, this is the first time SEGA have mentioned anything about a new Virtua Fighter game.
The last Virtua Fighter title to be released was the digital-only Virtua Fighter 5: Ultimate Showdown for PS4 back in 2021. This was an expanded port of Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown that was developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios using their Dragon Engine. The game was released for free to PlayStation Plus subscribers and amassed a very large playerbase as a result.
There is currently no further information about this new Virtua Fighter game at the time of writing. Fingers crossed we don’t have to wait too long to see the game formally announced with a trailer alongside some more information like what platforms it is heading to.
SEGA are going to be delisting a bunch of digital games on December 6th 2024 with the headline release being the SEGA Mega Drive Classics compilation on Switch, PC, PS4 and Xbox One. On Steam this title has a dedicated launcher called the SEGA Mega Drive Hub, but each game in the collection is available to buy seperately. The full collection was only made available as one big compilation on Switch, PS4 and Xbox One.
Alongside the delisting of SEGA Mega Drive Classics, a bunch of other titles are being delisted like the HD ports of Jet Set Radio, Nights into dreams…, SEGA Bass Fishing, Crazy Taxi and Sonic the Fighters. For the full list of titles affected click the “read more” link below:
The Creative Assembly have taken to social media to announce that a follow-up to Alien Isolation is in the early stages of development. SEGA will once again handle publishing duties.
The original Alien Isolation released 10 years ago for PC, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PS4. The game is a first person horror title where you are play as Amanda Ripley, the daughter Ellen Ripley as you try to investigate your mother’s disapperance on the space station Sevastopol. While you’re doing this you are being constantly stalked by a xenomorph and have to carefully explore using stealth so you don’t alert the xenomorph.
There is currently no word on which platforms are being targeted for Alien Isolation 2 or when we can expect the game to release. As this initial announcement from The Creative Assembly is just to reveal the game is in early development, I can imagine we’ll be waiting a while before we get to see something some substantial for this title.
The holy grail of lost Mega Drive media has been discovered and was even playable at Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2024. A build of 1995’s Garfield: Caught in the Act – The Lost Levels has finally been unearthed after 29 years.
Garfield: The Lost Levels was a SEGA Channel exclusive version of Garfield: Caught in the Act that features 2 exclusive stages called Bonehead the Barbarian and Slobbin’ Hood. It is further enhanced with the Alien Landscape stage which was only made available via the SEGA PC release of Garfield: Caught in the Act that released in 1996.
An attendee at Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2024 called PZTunleaded has recorded 43 minutes of off-screen footage of the recently discovered build of Garfield: The Lost Levels and shared it on their YouTube channel. You can watch this footage via the embed below:
While PZTunleaded is not the owner of the build, the video description does mention that the general public will be able to play this build “sooner or later” which suggests the owner is going to release the ROM dump soon.
SEGA are continuing to expand their gaming portfolio into the cinematic arena with an animated movie based on mobile rhythm game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage. Entitled Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing; this upcoming animated feature will be directed by Hiroyuki Hata of Recently, My Sister is Unusual and Girls und Panzer fame.
Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing sees Miku trying to reach out to people in need, but something is holding her back. It’s up to Ichika Hoshino and her bandmates to spread the good word of Miku to their audience. You can watch the first trailer for the movie with English subtitles via the embed below:
Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can’t Sing will release in Japan on January 17th 2024. A wider global release will then follow, but we currently only have a release date of “coming soon” at the time of writing.
2 of the SEGA Saturn’s most beloved RPGs are returning in a newly remastered format for PS4, PS5, PC, Switch and Xbox One. The Lunar Remastered Collection bundles Lunar: Silver Star Story and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue together, and features the original pixel art but now with upscaled cutscenes and some fancy depth-of-field effects.
Originally developed by Game Arts and released for the Mega CD, both games would later come to the Saturn and then the PlayStation. The PlayStation versions are what is being used as the basis for this new collection. These new remasters are being developed and published by GungHo Online Entertainment who are responsible for games in the Puzzle & Dragons, Ninjala and Let It Die franchises. They also handled the Grandia HD Collection released back in 2019.
You can watch the reveal trailer for Lunar Remastered Collection via the embed below:
The next entry in the Yakuza franchise has been revealed! This time Goro Majima gets lead billing in a real-time action title as opposed to Like a Dragon and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth which focused on turn-based combat.
Majima finds himself washed up on the shores of an island off the coast of Hawaii with no memory of who he is. With a new found need to protect the island natives from pirates, Majima himself takes the high seas and turns to a life of piracy when he defeats the captain of a ship. Check out the reveal trailer below:
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii will release on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S on February 28th 2025. Development is once again being handled by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio.
Yakuza Kiwami returns with a fresh port to the Nintendo Switch on October 24th 2024. This marks the first time the Like a Dragon franchise has made it to a Nintendo platform since the Japan exclusive Ryu Ga Gotoku 1&2 HD for Wii U released back in 2012. Check out the reveal trailer below:
Yakuza Kiwami launches for Nintendo Switch on October 24th 2024. It is currently unclear if this is only a digital release or if the game will receive a boxed release at a later date.
While originally released in arcades first, Dreamcast favourites Power Stone 1&2, Capcom vs SNK 1&2 and Rival Schools sequel Project Justice are coming to PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch in 2025. These titles will form Capcom Fighting Collection 2 alongside Capcom Fighting Jam, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper and Plasma Sword. Check out the announcement trailer below:
Capcom Fighting Collection 2 will launch in 2025 for PS4, PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch.
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