Project Spark
First up, Microsoft have discontinued the kind-of-popular DIY game creation kit Project Spark. It cannot be downloaded anymore and all services for the game shut down in December. It has also been removed from the Xbox Marketplace and Windows Store.
Support for Project Spark will shut down on the 8th December 2016, meaning no-one will be able to upload their creations to the platform after this date.
It's never good to see a game/platform shut down, especially as this usually means that the people who worked on the game will lose their jobs! But fear not, all the people who worked on Project
Spark will keep their jobs at Microsoft Studios, and will simply be transferred to other projects within the studio!
Spark will keep their jobs at Microsoft Studios, and will simply be transferred to other projects within the studio!
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| Did you ever play Project Spark? |
"This was an extremely difficult decision for our team that we do not take lightly. When Project Spark transitioned away from active development last fall, many of our team members moved to other projects within Microsoft Studios. While this means there have been no layoffs at Microsoft, it also means it's simply no longer feasible to continue the behind-the-scenes work involved with keeping Project Spark up and running with meaningful updates and bug fixes, so we have come to this hard decision."
"We can't thank our creators and players enough, It's been an incredible journey to share with you all!"
Since Project Spark launched back in March 2014, the game has received a whopping 46 content packs and 16 updates since it's launch. Those who bought the game will receive credit to their Microsoft account that was used to purchase the game.
R.I.P Project Spark!
Overwatch
Next up, latest Blizzard title Overwatch had an incredible 9.7 MILLION unique players play the Open Beta last weekend! These 9.7 million player helped total around 4.9 BILLION minutes, or 81 million hours of gameplay, with around 37 million matches being played over the weekend!
The world needed heroes, and an incredible 9.7 MILLION of you answered the call. Here's to our next adventure! pic.twitter.com/YIusT0rCUa— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 12, 2016
That is an incredible number of players! I was one of those 9.7 million and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the experience! The fact that there was so many different classes and characters to choose from meant that it was very difficult to become bored playing. Even if you were on a bad streak of games, you could simply try playing another character and see if that works for you. It provided hours of entertainment!
Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said:
"We're thrilled that such an incredible number of players from around the globe got a chance to check out Overwatch during the Open Beta, our mission was to make sure as many console and PC gamers as possible could experience the full game ahead of its launch—the response was overwhelming, and we hope that everyone had a blast."
We certainly did Mike! Hopefully all the feedback collected from everyone will mean the game will play as smooth as it did in the open beta when it fully releases on 24th May!
Happy hunting!
Modern Warfare
Finally, it looks like we will be getting a Modern Warfare Trilogy sometime in the next week or two! Great news! Well not so much. The trilogy is only being made available to previous-gen users. Boo!
According to a BestBuy listing that emerged last week, The Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Trilogy will hit PS3 and Xbox 360 on Tuesday next week in the US (17th May), with the Trilogy including all three of the Modern Warfare games that have been released.
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| The rumoured cover art for the Trilogy. |
The listing for the Trilogy indicates that only one of the two DLC packages that were released for Modern Warfare 2, the Stimulus Package, will be included in the bundle, which will cost $29.99 (around £20). The Stimulus Package contained the maps; Bailout, Salvage & Storm, with Crash & Overgrown being reintroduced from the first Modern Warfare.
To me this all seems a bit pointless. The likelihood is that most previous-gen users already own the three Modern Warfare games, and probably already have the DLC for all of the games (I know I do!) This might be a ploy by Infinity Ward to get people back on the Call of Duty hype train, ready for Infinite Warfare? Maybe we could be seeing this Triolgy being released on current-gen soon? Who knows?
Aaaand that's it for this week! What did you think of this weeks video game news round-up? Will you Project Spark? Did you get a chance to play Overwatch? Will you be buying the Modern Warfare Trilogy?
Let me know in the comments down below!
As always, thanks for reading!
Connor :)
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