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Frank Pearce, one of the co-founders of Blizzard Entertainment, is leaving the game developer after 28 years at the company. Pearce announced his departure from Blizzard in a joint statement with J. Allen Brack, the president of the company. “The time has come for me to step away from Blizzard and pass the torch to the next generation of leaders,” Pearce said on Friday. He recounted the formation of Blizzard, originally known as Silicon and Synapse, with co-founders Mike Morhaime and Allen Adham, saying, “Looking back, I know how incredibly fortunate I was to have been a part of what Blizzard has become.” Pearce was a programmer on Blizzard’s earlier titles, including The Lost Vikings, Blackthorne, Diablo and StarCraft. He later took on the role of chief development officer at Blizzard. Pearce’s departure comes less than a year after Morhaime announced his departure from Blizzard. The other co-founder, Brack, left Blizzard in 2004, but returned to … [Read more...] about Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce leaving studio after 28 years

Godhood is a turn-based strategy game about creating a new religion and conquering the world. It’s available on Steam Early Access by Abbey Games, a developer best known for 2013’s god game Reus. Being a fan of god games — and noting that the game had done well on Kickstarter — I spent a few hours in its company. Unfortunately, I find myself disappointed. Godhood fails to make me feel particularly powerful. It’s more like the sort of repetitive drudgery experienced by, say, a medieval acolyte, endlessly passing their fingers over a set of holy beads, one after the other. In the beginning, I choose the name of my religion, and its general direction; pacifistic, hedonistic, whatever. I get to dictate how I am referred to by my followers, so I choose “Oh Mighty One.” The religion that I gift to the world is “Total Obedience.” So far, I’m having fun and the game seems to have a good sense of humor. It’s time for me to … [Read more...] about Religion sim Godhood promises the world, but delivers much less

The popular Plants vs. Zombies series is coming back with Plants vs. Zombies 3, publisher Electronic Arts announced this week. The announcement didn’t reveal many details on the game, so no news yet on whether our lawn defense in this version will be pollinator-friendly or not. All we know is that the pre-alpha version of Plants vs. Zombies 3 launched this week on the Google Play store. EA hasn’t given a final release date yet. Per PopCap, the pre-alpha is free-to-play with no microtransactions. The official release will also be free-to-play. EA didn’t comment on whether the final game will include microtransactions, but the Google Play store entry lists in-app purchases. “PvZ 3 is under early construction and is not representative of the final game,” EA said. “Pre-Alpha is focused on getting feedback on combat features only. We’re saving a lot more for later!” Plants vs. Zombies first came to audiences in 2009 on Windows PC and OS X. It … [Read more...] about EA announces Plants vs. Zombies 3

Nintendo is updating the original version of the Switch to offer better battery life — up to nine hours on a single charge, according to the official Nintendo of Japan website. Otherwise, the Switch appears to be unchanged in terms of system specs and features; this is the same launch version of the Nintendo Switch, just longer lasting. The system looks identical and is identically priced as the launch model (29,980 yen in Japan). According to Nintendo’s website, the new Switch revision will last between 4.5-9 hours per charge. Nintendo estimates that players will get about 5.5 hours of playtime with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the updated model. On the original Switch, Nintendo estimated 2.5-6.5 hours of playtime, depending on the game, with about 3 hours of playtime in Breath of the Wild. Nintendo signaled a change to the original Switch model last week, when it filed a notice with the Federal Communications Commission that it was changing the … [Read more...] about New Nintendo Switch model will have much better battery life

Sony has rolled out a new firmware update for all PS4 owners. Today’s PS4 firmware carries version number 6.72, meaning it’s not the 6.80 update many expected. 6.80 is currently in limited testing, a process most major updates go through. The reason being that it brings significant upgrades to parties on PS4, expanding the total to 16 players and improving the audio quality. Unfortunately, 6.80 remains in beta, but Sony is happy to push out another incremental update in the meantime. Subscribe to the VG247 newsletter Get all the best bits of VG247 delivered to your inbox every Friday! Enable JavaScript to sign up to our newsletter As you’d expect, today’s 6.72 update doesn’t bring anything notable to the table. In what’s become custom at this point, Sony only included the familiar “update improves system performance” patch note. The download is at 442.4MB as per usual, and like all updates, it should automatically download and … [Read more...] about PS4 firmware update 6.72 released