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Attract mode Interface Toolbox Rated

06. Mineko’s Night Market Meowza Games talk us through their carnival of crafting and cats

10. Tales of the Neon Sea We find out more about a great-looking cyberpunk adventure

12. Devil May Cry 5 Hands-on with Capcom’s latest Gothic hack-and-slash

16. Incoming Dolls with green eyes, grumpy bears and cafés for the dead

18. Sumo: the big little indie We pay a visit to the Sheffield-based makers of OutRun 2 and Snake Pass

24. Interactive: Just Ski Meeting the solo dev who makes physics games in his basement

44. Wizball’s music origins How songwriting experience gave us a Commodore 64 classic

50. Team 17 Exploring the Alien Breed and Worms dev’s early years and games

28. CityCraft Ways to make your horror game locations even scarier

30. Structurally Sound How music and sound intertwine to create atmospheric game worlds

32. Source Code The code behind Missile Command’s unforgettable vapour trails

34. Squeezing the Beeb How to fit a 1kB score attack game onto the BBC Micro

56. Crackdown 3 The orb-hunting open-world series returns in acceptable style

58. Spinnortality Murky morality makes for a solid cyberpunk strategy sim

63. Wargroove It’s Advance Wars, basically, but there’s a very nice dog in it

64. The Hong Kong Massacre John Woo-inspired shooter lacks grace under fire

WELCOMEAs I write this, the internet’s still abuzz with the news that Activision Blizzard has laid off eight percent of its staff – amounting to almost 800 employees worldwide. On Twitter, people who until only a couple of days ago were still staff at one of the giant’s various divisions are sharing their stories of shock and disappointment – unsurprising, given that Activision made the announcement during an earnings call with investors, and staff were reportedly informed of their fate only afterwards.

To add insult to injury, the staff cuts are being made despite the firm’s ‘record’ profits during the latter part of 2018 – according to boss Bobby Kotick, Activision didn’t realise its ‘full potential’ last year and so, as the firm focuses its attention on its biggest franchises, hundreds of staff are being let go.

The news has rightly sparked debate about the way staff in gaming’s largest companies are treated. While job losses in the industry are nothing new, the severity of Activision’s cuts, and the cold way they were reportedly announced (staff had little more than rumours to go on for several weeks, according to Kotaku) is troubling to say the least. Firms like Activision may have to answer to their investors, but they should also, surely, have a duty of care to the workers that make these companies their fortunes in the first place.

Ryan Lambie Editor

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