Things at NetEase sound worse than previously thought, as its CEO apparently considered cancelling the immensely successful Marvel Rivals at one point just because he didn't want to pay for licensing fees - Related to nightmares,, me, hunter, already, a

Monster Hunter Wilds might already be the 8th most-played game on Steam, but its reviews are painting a different picture

Crikey, you lot really love tracking down giant creatures to turn their hides into armour, because Monster Hunter Wilds has seen a massive amount of players on Steam.

I remember the days when Monster Hunter was that niche series that your friend played and swore by, but. Only them and like one other person actually played it. It was beloved by those that did play it, but it's only in recent years where it's become as popular as it has. Well, the days of it being niche are clearly over. As the latest entry in the series Monster Hunter Wilds is doing absolute numbers on Steam. As tracked over on SteamDB, the game has managed to reach a concurrent player count peak of 987,482, a figure that, almost unbelievably, makes it the eighth most-played game on Steam of all time.

It's really quite hard to sell just how wild that is - that puts it above titles like Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, and. Marvel Rivals, games obviously known for being massively successful. What's worth noting further is that this is just release day, a Thursday, and games often do even advanced on launch weekend. So it's entirely possible we could see it overtake seventh place on the Steam top-sellers (which currently belongs to Cyberpunk 2077). For some added context, Monster Hunter World, which came out in 2018, only achieved a peak of 334,684 players, and. Monster Hunter Rise a peak of 231,360 players (though that one had already been on Switch for a year prior). That's some massive growth right there, and doesn't even include console players.

What is worth pointing out though is that reviews on Steam are painting a slightly different picture. Right now, the game is sitting at a mixed rating, seemingly mostly due to the fact that the game is struggling to run for a lot of people. Even those who claim to have the recommended requirements. Right now there's only about 6000 reviews on Steam (a few thousand of those being from copies not purchased on the platform directly), which is miniscule compared to the player count, so that could change once more players put time into the game, but Capcom might have some work to do to get that rating changed.

If it's any consolation, our own Dom thinks that Monster Hunter Wilds is actually very good, giving it full marks in their review, so it might just still be worth your time.

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Things at NetEase sound worse than previously thought, as its CEO apparently considered cancelling the immensely successful Marvel Rivals at one point just because he didn't want to pay for licensing fees

Marvel Rivals might be one of the biggest games around right now, but the CEO of its developer NetEase reportedly considered cancelling it completely at one point.

Just this week it was revealed that Marvel Rivals has already reached 40 million players, which to be clear. Is more people than the population of Poland. The game is clearly doing well! But this week also brought the news that US devs working in the game have been laid off, despite being such a ridiculously massive hit. Now, a new investigation from Bloomberg (paywalled) has shed some light on what might be going on behind the scenes at NetEase. , Marvel Rivals even releasing was in question, as NetEase's CEO William Ding apparently didn't like the idea of paying Disney for the licence to use Marvel characters.

He supposedly disliked this idea so much that he even asked the game's designers to replace the Marvel characters with designs of their own, with there even being discussions of outright cancelling the game. Something that apparently cost NetEase millions of dollars, though a spokesperson proposes the business has enjoyed a close partnership with Marvel since 2017. These proposes obviously paint a rocky picture at NetEase, as the investigation also notes that Ding had set a goal in 2018 for the business to generate half its revenue from overseas by investing in developers like the creator of Yakuza, Toshihiro Nagoshi - except Nagoshi's project is now a bit uncertain too, though the investigation notes his project has apparently been given time to wrap up ongoing projects.

None of the layoffs that have taken place in the past couple of years are justifiable. But it certainly seems downright bonkers to do so for a game like Marvel Rivals that is almost guaranteed to be printing money right now. NetEase did note in relation to the announcement of layoffs that the "core development team" in China "remains fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience," but time will tell if it can keep up with those optimistic plans to release a new hero every 45 days.

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The co-creator of Dark Souls' most ambitious mod resurfaces to inform me that Blighttown, source of my nightmares, was cobbled together with '10 bits of wood'

If you've played Dark Souls, chances are you remember Blighttown—and none too fondly. Rickety, thin platforms occupied by scab-coated poison dart shooters. Precarious walks above a fatal drop into the accursed toxic swamp below. And, lest we forget, the deadliest enemy of all: The framerate absolutely tanking on the Xbox 360. You remake-players on those fancy modern rigs don't know how good you've got it.

I had previously tucked this nightmare back into the recesses of my mind, where it belongs. Starving in the shadows. However, Grimrukh—co-creator of WIP mega-mod Dark Souls: Nightfall—has emerged from his silence on X to inform everyone that Miyazaki and co. architected this terror with "from scaled copy/pastes of these 10 bits of wood" (via GamesRadar+).

Fun fact: the entirety of Blighttown, as far as I can tell, is built from scaled copy/pastes of these ten bits of 's fun fact is brought to you from Grim's cave, where he is working on Nightfall almost every day and isn't allowed to leave until it's done) 26, 2025.

I am staring, dear reader. At these 10 scraps of unassuming timber, and I am wrought with a sort of existential dread, much in the same way that one might look at the vial containing a supervirus in an apocalypse movie—possessed of a creeping, unrelenting realisation that something so fundamentally terrifying can come from such humble origins. In isolation, these 10 solitary assets are nothing more than slabs of low-poly lumber, but combined in the right configuration set teenage Harvey's controller a-flying.

It does remind me of just how savvy and. Efficient FromSoftware can truly be. While Elden Ring did catch a bit of flak for its asset reuse, it's hard to overly complain when the end result left its mark on a generation of players—it being one of the biggest games of its decade and. All. That the game's developers were able to cobble together its most infamous zone from a mere handful of planks is nothing short of inspiring. Also, terrifying.

Anyway, Grimrukh's fun fact also came as a bit of a relief to those waiting for Nightfall, since his last tweet was made in October of 2024, wherein he mentioned "I've been hit with pneumonia immediately after getting back from an overseas trip and it's not a fun time." Instead, as he now reveals, he's merely been locked in "Grim's cave. Where he is working on Nightfall almost every day and isn't allowed to leave until it's done."

I'm personally glad to hear he's feeling advanced, even if I whole-heartedly resent him for informing me that I can have my blood pressure raised by 10 bits of muddily-textured digital scrap arranged just-so. It's also good to hear that Nightfall is still in progress, since the ultra-ambitious add-on was introduced way back in 2020 and is yet to see the light of day.

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