Hasta La Gadget!

A group of former CD Projekt Red developers is working on a new online action that will take players to feudal Japan. This week, Dark Passenger co-founders Jakub Ben and Marcin Michalski announced the formation of their studio and put out a call for talent in a series of tweets spotted by PC Gamer. Ben and Michalski were part of the art team that worked on The Witcher 3 and later went on to do contract work on Cyberpunk 2077.

Dark Passenger’s first game doesn’t have a name yet, but the studio’s website provides some details on the project. Ben and Michalski say they want to create an online multiplayer game with support for both competitive and cooperative play. They describe a title that sounds like it will borrow elements from games like Titanfall and Absolver. “Our locomotion system will allow players to perform incredible [feats] such as running on arrows that were fired by other players, fast climbing on vertical surfaces with the use of shuko claws or using [a] yari spear like a pole to jump over obstacles,” the studio said. “Engaging [in] close-ranged combat will demand as much dexterity as tactics and close cooperation with teammates.”

The news of the founding comes after former CDPR executive Konrad Tomaszkiewicz announced at the start of the year he was creating a studio named Rebel Wolves. He said his team would release its first project, a dark fantasy role-playing game built in Unreal Engine 5, sometime in 2025. After directing the critically acclaimed The Witcher 3 and contributing to Cyberpunk 2077, Tomaszkiewicz left CDPR in May 2021 amid allegations he bullied coworkers. Before his departure, it came out that work on Cyberpunk involved a lengthy and brutal crunch period for many of its developers.

As PC Gamer points out, Dark Passenger’s careers page alludes to some of the criticisms of CDPR. “We create a prejudice-free environment based on tolerance, support and understanding. We treat individual needs as seriously as the group’s expectations,” the page states. “We provide all amenities, private medical care and paid overtime. With an emphasis on work-life balance, we offer flexible working hours and holidays.” As for when you can expect to play the studio’s first game, Dark Passenger has not shared a release date.

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Contrary to what you may have heard in the past few days, Google says it’s not shutting down its Stadia gaming service. The company issued the statement after a rumor began circulating earlier this week that suggested it would sunset the platform later this year. “Stadia is not shutting down,” the official Stadia Twitter account told a concerned fan in a tweet spotted by PC Gamer. “Rest assured we’re always working on bringing more great games to the platform and Stadia Pro.”

Some Stadia fans were convinced Google would finally pull the plug on the service after Cody Ogden of Killed by Google fame, a Twitter account and blog that keeps track of the company’s constantly expanding graveyard, shared a post from a Facebook fan group. According to the message, an “old coworker and friend” told the poster Google had recently held a meeting to discuss Stadia’s future — or lack thereof. They claimed the company would shut down the platform by the end of the summer and would do so using the same strategy it employed with Google Play Music.

At the time, the only commentary Ogden, a self-proclaimed shitposter, offered on the post was a popcorn emoji. However, that wasn’t enough to stop the rumor from sending much of the Stadia community, including the official subreddit, into freefall. To its credit, Google responded to the episode with a bit of humor.

That even a thinly sourced rumor caused upheaval among the Stadia community isn’t surprising. The service has been on an extended deathwatch ever since Google shut down its first-party studios. The incident highlights the unhealthy parasocial relationships people can sometimes have with tech companies like Google. “Communities that are confident in their continued existence don’t respond like some of the things that have been hurled at me in public and in DMs the past couple days,” Ogden said after the dust settled. “If even the suggestion that a piece of technology could go away affects you so deeply that it brings you to threats, maybe you need to reevaluate your relationship with the tech?”

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