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- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
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Anthem was officially delayed to Early 2019 to make room for Battlefield V
UPDATE: EA has announced that “Battlefield 6” will officially be known as Battlefield V.
ORIGINAL STORY: Electronic Arts delivered their quarterly financial report yesterday, and the megapublisher used the opportunity to shuffle their upcoming release schedule.
Confirming rumors we first heard last week, EA’s CEO, Andrew Wilson, announced that BioWare’s Anthem will now launch in Early 2019:
Our new IP, Anthem is a stunning project from BioWare that will blend genres with a shared world experience that evolves around its players. Excitement for Anthem is building, and we’re deeply invested in delivering a great new experience with this game when it launches in [Early 2019].
None of EA’s executives had much else to say about Anthem, but Wilson returned during the Q&A portion to fill in a few more details about the delay. According to the CEO, Anthem was delayed to give it some breathing room away from the Fall 2018 launch of Battlefield 6:
The first thing about Anthem is regardless of kind of how it’s being portrayed, we are not looking at that as a delay in the game. We’ve chosen to launch Anthem in [Early 2019] and the date is really determined by portfolio of balancing consideration not for product readiness reasons. It’s tracking well on its development milestones. We are really confident of its ship date.
We are really excited by the way the next Battlefield is shaping up and it might set… it probably doesn’t make sense to launch Anthem right up next to it. And when you think about Anthem as a brand new IP, we also believe it make sense to give it its own launch window so that we can give us a focus and attention that it deserve and give it some free air.
As for Battlefield 6, Wilson promised that it will appeal to “longtime fans and new players alike” with “innovation at every level, incredible stories at the core, astonishing visuals, and gameplay that will captivate every Battlefield fan.”
New Retail Releases: Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, EA Sports UFC 3, Railway Empire
Let’s get ready to rumble! Three new games will be available on retail shelves this week and they all involve a bit of rumbling.
First up is Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, a team-based brawler for the PS4 from Square Enix and Team Ninja. A spinoff/sequel to 2008’s Dissidia and 2011’s Dissidia 012, this new entry will bring together more than 20 classic Final Fantasy characters in 3v3 arena battles.
The MMA octagon is also something of an arena, and EA Sports is returning to the cage with EA Sports UFC 3, a new fighting sim for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One. In addition to a revamped graphical presentation, EA Sports UFC 3 will feature a brand new Career Mode and Ultimate Team Mode.
Finally this week, a different kind of rumbling will be at the center of Railway Empire. Players will need to take control of a fleet of trains and lay a rail network that connects the coasts on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
That’s it for this week’s New Retail Releases report, but we’ll be back later this week with a look at all the new additions to the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, EA Sports UFC 3
Get your first look at the new multiplayer maps from CoD: WWII’s Resistance DLC Pack
Call of Duty: WWII players on the PS4 will be able to download the game’s first expansion, the Resistance DLC Pack, beginning next week. And yesterday, Activision and Sony unveiled a new trailer showcasing the add-on’s three new multiplayer maps at the PlayStation Blog.
Here’s a few details on what to expect from the Resistance DLC Pack when it launches on January 30:
Anthropoid – Based in Prague, Czechoslovakia, this map is inspired by Operation Anthropoid – the famous assassination attempt on a high-ranking German officer during World War II. This map features a center lane divided by a river, with long-flanking paths that can be used by snipers for ranged attacks.
Call of Duty: WWII – The ResistanceOccupation – In this remake of a classic Call of Duty map, players battle through the streets and shops of German-occupied Paris during WWII. Long side streets encourage mid-range combat, with nearby homes and storefronts lending defensive positions for ambush and recovery.
Valkyrie – Located in the Masurian Woods, East Prussia, this map was inspired by The Wolf’s Lair – Hitler’s Eastern-front headquarters during Operation Barbarossa – the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. This is a medium-sized map with gameplay focused around a dangerous center lane covered by multiple overwatch positions and mounted machine guns.
Call of Duty: WWII’s Resistance DLC Pack is also in the works for PC and Xbox One players, and it should be available to download sometime in late February/early March.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: WWII
EA might have delayed Anthem into 2019 as Dragon Age 4 begins development
According to a new report in Kotaku, BioWare is currently going through a bit of a rough patch, and it looks like both Anthem and Dragon Age 4 have been affected.
Speaking to several people “familiar with the project,” Kotaku’s Jason Schreier has learned that EA has pulled the entire BioWare team onto Anthem (minus the small teams maintaining Star Wars: The Old Republic and doing pre-production work on Dragon Age 4). But even with this increased amount of manpower, Schreier’s sources say that Anthem will most likely be delayed to Early 2019:
Anthem, which was announced at E3 2017, is now scheduled for release in early 2019, according to three people familiar with the project. The “fall 2018” window mentioned during that E3 announcement was “never realistic,” one source said. Exact dates remain in flux—and Anthem’s developers must also plan for a beta release, an EA Access launch, and an ongoing schedule of patches and updates—but it appears unlikely to developers that publisher EA will allow BioWare to delay the game any further than March 2019, when the company’s 2019 fiscal year comes to an end.
As for Dragon Age 4, a small part of BioWare has begun to work on the game, and the team is currently looking to add “live” elements to the game that’ll keep players coming back after they complete the main story:
The day following the publication of this article, BioWare studio head Casey Hudson confirmed that the next Dragon Age will indeed be a live game. “Reading lots of feedback regarding Dragon Age, and I think you’ll be relieved to see what the team is working on,” he wrote on Twitter. “Story & character focused. Too early to talk details, but when we talk about ‘live’ it just means designing a game for continued storytelling after the main story.”
While Anthem’s likely delay and Dragon Age 4’s “live” makeover were the big scoops to come out of Schreier’s sources, his report also includes several gritty details about the day-to-day environment at BioWare and how many of the developers feel about the company’s direction.
Impress a giant blue man in Slam Land on the PC, PS4, and Switch
Players will need to impress a giant blue man with their dunking prowess if they want to succeed in Slam Land, a new competitive brawler from Bread Machine Games. Described by the developer (on Twitter) as a “couch-competitive slam dunking brawler,” Slam Land will feature hand-drawn graphics and local play for up to four players.
Instead of dunking basketballs, players will fight it out for the right to dunk each other, which… again… is supposed to impress a giant blue man looming in the background. You can get your first glimpse at Slam Land’s dunking action in Bread Machine’s recent Twitch stream.
Slam Land will be available for the PC, PS4, and Switch this Summer.
Closed Beta for Sea of Thieves begins today
Ahoy, matey! Earlier today, Microsoft and Rare raised the Jolly Roger and launched the Closed Beta for Sea of Thieves.
The pirate simulation will be available for Windows 10 and Xbox One on March 20, but fans who joined the “Sea of Thieves Insider Programme” before December 1 and anyone who pre-ordered the game can take part in this week’s Closed Beta. The pre-release test kicked off at 7:00 AM (Eastern Time) this morning and players will be able to plunder and pillage all they want until January 29 at 3:00 PM (Eastern Time).
A short trailer promoting the Sea of Thieves Closed Beta has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC, Xbox One
Tagged Sea of Thieves
Creative Director of Uncharted: Lost Legacy joins Crystal Dynamics to lead Avenger Project
Crystal Dynamics is continuing to make progress on their Avengers Project, and today the developer confirmed that they’ve hired Shaun Escayg as the game’s Creative Director. Escayg was previously employed by Naughty Dog, where he served as the Creative Director on Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, as well as the Animation Supervisor on The Last of Us in addition to his role.
Of course, because this is an Avengers project, it’s possible that Escayg allowed himself to be captured so that he could then unleash his diabolical scheme from inside Crystal Dynamics. It’s what Loki would do.
“We’re committed to delivering an incredible, completely original Avengers experience to our gamers, and that means we are always looking to add amazing developers to our existing best in class studio talent,” said Scot Amos, the Co-Head at Crystal Dynamics. “As development progresses, our studio continues to grow. The tremendous progress we’ve made on The Avengers Project further drives us toward our goal of crafting something all Marvel fans will be proud of, and will play for years to come. We can’t wait to show you what we mean in the future.”
Crystal Dynamics added a total of 15 new faces to the Avengers Project team, and in addition to Escayg, they also hired Stephen Barry (formerly of Visceral Games), as well as veteran developers from Eidos Montreal and DICE.
“We recently hired fifteen world-renowned industry veterans, spanning production leadership, animation, design, art and engineering, who have previously worked on games such as Batman: Arkham Origins, Dead Space, Star Wars: Battlefront, and many more.” said Ron Rosenberg, the Co-Head at Crystal Dynamics. “Their AAA experience adds to an already deep roster, making us well-positioned to deliver on the ambitious goals we’ve set for ourselves with The Avengers Project. It’s a stellar addition of many people who fit incredibly well into our wheelhouse of building game experiences we all love.”
If all goes according to plan, we should learn more about The Avengers Project later this year.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged The Avengers Project
John Cena might star in a Duke Nukem movie
Duke Nukem’s brash and cocky persona (which was borrowed wholesale from Bruce Campbell’s appearance in Army of Darkness) made him the quintessential 90s hero. But even though we’re more than two decades removed from the character’s heyday (Duke Nukem 3D was released in 1996), Hollywood has finally come calling for Duke.
A film adaptation is currently in the works at Paramount, and The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that the WWE’s John Cena is in talks to play the intergalactic alien hunter:
The wrestler-turned-actor is negotiations to star in Duke Nukem, a big-screen adaptation of the popular video game franchise featuring the politically incorrect action hero that is set up at Paramount.
Platinum Dunes, the company run by Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller, will produce the movie.
Cena certainly looks the part, I’ll give them that much. But giving Duke the same outdated shtick in 2011’s oft-delayed Duke Nukem Forever definitely didn’t win him any new fans.
That said, any Duke Nukem movie adaptation is likely years away because there’s currently no script or director attached to the project.