Tag: Bungie

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Streamer wins $20,000 for completing ultra-difficult LASO Halo 2 run

Twitch streamer JerValiN has accomplished something many people thought was impossible for the past 18 years: a complete “LASO” run of Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty with all skulls enabled (except for the Active Camouflage Envy Skull, because that would make things too easy).

This means that JerValiN took home the $20,000 USD ($25,731 CAD) bounty offered up by Twitch streamer MoistCr1TiKal. The bounty was initially set at $5,000 USD ($6,432 CAD) in late June but was then raised to $20,000 in July.

In total, the run took six hours, 29 minutes and 44.17 seconds. It involved the use of several glitches and what is best described as a slow, very methodical approach to Halo 2’s campaign. Some of the skull effects include giving enemies permanent cloaks, limited ammo, removed HUD elements and more, making Halo 2’s campaign on ‘Legendary’ far more difficult than it would typically be.

It’s important to note that to qualify for the $20,000 USD bounty, JerValiN also needed to finish the entire game without dying once. Almost 50,000 people watched as the streamer accomplished what at one point seemed entirely impossible.

MoistCr1TiKal is reportedly preparing a new ‘Goliath’ task tied to Halo 2’s campaign that requires the player to finish the game’s campaign “without shooting.”

Image credit: Microsoft

Source: JerValiN, MoistCr1TiKal Via: Dexerto, Eurogamer 

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PlayStation says it still has acquisitions planned after Bungie, Haven

PlayStation says it’s planning more acquisitions following a slew of gaming studio purchases over the past few years.

Appearing on Episode 427 of the Official PlayStation Podcast, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan confirmed that the company is looking to continue to grow both organically through existing studios and through acquisitions.

“We acquired five studios during the course of 2021. We’re in discussions with Bungie and we have more planned. This is getting us into a cycle, a virtuous cycle where success begets success.”

The five studios Ryan is referring to are Finland’s Housemarque (Returnal), Netherlands’ Nixxes (PC port of Marvel’s Avengers), England’s Firesprite (The Playroom), the U.S.’ Bluepoint (Demon’s Souls remake) and Valkyrie Entertainment (contributed to 2018’s God of War). Of course, Bungie — the Destiny studio and original creators of Halo — is the highest-profile acquisition, a $3.6 billion USD (about $4.9 billion CAD) deal that was announced in January 2022.

The company’s most recent purchase, though, was Montreal’s own Haven, a studio founded by Canadian-born games industry Jade Raymond and several members of her former Google Stadia team. That was a particularly noteworthy purchase for PlayStation since Haven was only just founded last year and hasn’t yet released a game. The team’s first project is a brand-new multiplayer IP, although further details have yet to be revealed.

With all of these acquisitions, PlayStation Studios now consists of 18 teams around the world. While it’s currently unclear exactly what most of these studios are working on, this year’s God of War: Ragnarok from Sony Santa Monica is PlayStation’s next big first-party title. MLB The Show 22, from PlayStation’s San Diego Studio, was also just released this week on PlayStation, Xbox and, in a series’ first, Nintendo Switch.

Image credit: Bungie

Source: PlayStation Via: IGN

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PlayStation will use Bungie to help launch more than 10 live service games by 2026

Earlier this week, Sony made significant waves in the gaming space by announcing that it will acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion USD (about $4.6 billion CAD).

Now, the company has revealed more about its plans for the Destiny studio during its latest investor call.

“The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space,” said Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki. “Through close collaboration between Bungie and PlayStation Studios we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 2026.”

This makes a lot of sense for PlayStation. While the studio has built up a reputation for delivering massively successful single-player games like The Last of Us, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ghost of Tsushima, it hasn’t had a major standout multiplayer title. By contrast, rival Xbox has lacked the same strong single-player output but has had multiple ongoing popular multiplayer titles, including Sea of Thieves and, most recently, Halo Infinite.

To compensate for that, PlayStation has largely relied on exclusive content and marketing deals with popular multiplayer games like Destiny or Call of Duty. Therefore, Bungie’s extensive history in creating successful online titles should prove invaluable in PlayStation’s efforts to expand its catalogue.

As for what those 10-plus live service games will be? Well, we have a few ideas.

In terms of Bungie, job listings from last year suggested that the developer’s new IP will be a multiplayer “character action” game, although it’s not expected to come before 2025.

Meanwhile, Naughty Dog is confirmed to be working on multiple projects, including a standalone multiplayer suite for The Last of Us Part II. The 2020 action-adventure game was originally supposed to have multiplayer like its predecessor, but it was scrapped in favour of focusing on the campaign.

And finally, Horizon Zero Dawn developer Guerrilla and PlayStation VR Worlds developer London Studio have been hiring for unknown online games.

Via: The Verge

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PlayStation to acquire ‘Destiny’ developer Bungie for $3.6 billion

Sony has announced plans to acquire Bungie for $3.6 billion USD (about $4.6 billion CAD).

Bungie is the studio best known for Xbox’s original Halo games and, in recent years, the Destiny series.

In a press release, Sony confirmed that Bungie will remain “an independent subsidiary” of the company. Current Bungie CEO and chairman Pete Parsons will continue to lead the developer alongside the rest of the studio’s management team. Further, Sony says Bungie will have the option “to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play.”

Adding to that, Parsons said the following of the acquisiton:

“We remain in charge of our destiny. We will continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games,” he said. “We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.​”

As it stands, Bungie is continuing to support Destiny 2 as well as other Destiny-related projects and new, yet-to-be-revealed IP. While it seems safe to assume that Destiny will remain multiplatform (at least to some capacity), it remains to be seen whether future Bungie titles might become PlayStation exclusive.

The Bungie deal is the latest in a string of high-profile gaming acquisitions. Earlier this month, Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive announced plans to purchase Farmville maker Zynga for $12.7 billion USD (about $16.1 billion CAD). At the time, that was believed to be the biggest-ever acquisition of a gaming studio, but that didn’t last long. One week later, Microsoft revealed that it will purchase Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard for a staggering $68.7 billion USD (about $82.7 billion CAD).

Image credit: Bungie

Source: PlayStation