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Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime Returns to Gaming with Dreamhaven
Blizzard co-founder and former president Mike Morhaime, who left the video game industry back in October 2018, has made his return to the industry with a new company called Dreamhaven which is based in Irvine, California, according to GamesBeat.
Dreamhaven already has two internal studios which is run by other Blizzard veterans who departed shortly after Morhaime’s departure, including Moonshot which is led by Hearthstone executive producer Jason Chayes, StarCraft 2 game director Dustin Browder, and Hearthstone creative director Ben Thompson.
As well as Secret Door which is lead by Hearthstone executive producer Chris Sigaty, Hearthstone game director Eric Dodds, and Alan Dabiri.
Dreamhaven is funded by Morhaime who now serves as their CEO, while his wife Amy is leading operations.
“My wife, Amy, and I were working at Blizzard and left at the end of 2018,” Morhaime said. “We didn’t have anything planned. … We’re going to unplug and take a bunch of time off to travel. We actually went to the HomeStory Cup in Germany for their StarCraft II tournament. We took our daughter.”
“We’re almost trying to create a haven for creators who want an environment that is development friendly, values product, and player experience over short-term financial pressures,” Morhaime said. “We believe in the power of gaming to bring people together and as an escape of the unpleasant things that reality can bring. In that sense, it’s a haven as well. We like the imagery of a lighthouse as a beacon, and that inspires us because we hope that Dreamhaven can be a beacon of hope to others in the industry who share our values and philosophies. There is a better way of approaching business and game creation that can work and be sustainable and be a lot of fun and yield positive results.”
“They can make the games they are passionate about,” Morhaime said. “They’re in control of their destiny and hopefully feel like they have the best of both worlds: the entrepreneurial spirit, the stability and resources that often only larger companies can provide.”
Capcom has officially announced that Free Title Update 4 will be arriving for Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak on February 7th which will include new foes alongside new Anomaly Research content, Event Quests and a new paid DLC.
Velkhana, the elusive Elder Dragon, has been spotted by the scouts of Elgado Outpost and poses a chilly challenge as it can freeze hunters in an attack, and will join the arrival of Risen Crimson Glow Valstrax when the new update drops.
New Anomaly Research will be available, Afflicted Chaotic Gore Magala joining the A8 Quests, and the Anomaly Investigation cap will be upped to 220.
More is in the works for Free Title Update 5, which is currently slated to arrive in April
News
Overwatch 2 Aims to Penalize Players Who Are Friends with Cheaters, Increased Voice Comms Monitoring
Blizzard is leveling up their efforts to thwart cheaters and misconduct within Overwatch 2, as the company aims to penalize players who are friends with cheaters and will amp up their monitoring of voice communications.
The company detailed this in the brand new update for its Defense Matrix Initiative, which is focused on curbing “gameplay sabotage, abusive chat, and cheating” stating their plan to come down on players who team up with cheaters, and more.
Blizzard admitted that cheating in Overwatch 2 is a problem and has “actioned over 50,000 accounts” since the game launched and starting in Season 3 they will be actively identifying players that purposely team up with players who are regularly flagged as cheaters, and will also face potential discipline.
Overwatch 2 will also have improved protection for streamers, as the issue of Stream sniping continues to be a problem, and in Season 3 they will be “introducing new streaming protection features that should be a huge step toward enabling content creators to share Overwatch 2 with their fans safely.”
Blizzard is encouraging players to report any disruptive or problematic behaviour in their matches.
EA and Respawn Entertainment is shutting down their Apex Legends mobile game with the company announced that they will be sunsetting the title this May with EA adding that they have also stopped development on a mobile Battlefield title.
According to Respawn Entertainment, the decision to sunset Apex Legends was not an easy one to make but the company said that “factors” beyond its control have prevented it from “maintaining the high-quality experience and content” players deserve and expect.
Despite the game having a rather strong start, Respawn said that the content pipeline for the game began to “fall short of that bar for quality, quantity, and cadence.”
EA announced that they made the decision to halt the Battlefield mobile title as they wish to create “deeply connected Battlefield ecosystem” which made them arrive at the decision to “pivot from the current direction”
“We remain highly committed to unlocking Battlefield’s enormous potential,” the company said in the statement. “We’re hard at work at evolving Battlefield 2042 and are in pre-production on our future Battlefield experiences at our studios across the globe.”
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