We had not heard from Rare about the development of Everwild for Xbox for a long time. So far, the game has kept a low profile, and the British studio has continued to work on its development while supporting Sea Of Thieves, which has become a real success.

Everwild continues with its development little by little, as explained by the director of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty. Booty has not gone directly to address the reasons that made the game change director in the middle of development. Still, he wanted to reassure fans by explaining the current situation.

This is how Everwild’s development progresses.

The guys at Rare are known for their ability to create new worlds and new IPs. I know well what they are working on and concepts like ‘development from scratch’ or ‘IP restructuring,’ expressed by outsiders at this title, are too short and extreme to describe what they are doing.

They are just trying to make sure they develop something unique. We’ve already shown a glimpse of that world, its art style, and all that, but we want everything to be done right, and if any changes are made to the gameplay, they will come as part of a more extensive creative process.

A development like a roller coaster

A roller coaster gaming experience. One day you might be surprised and wonder how the game is played. It might never work, but the next day you might be delighted with the progress of the adventure. I understand that people will want to see more of Everwild, but we’ll only share more details when Rare feels ready.

As you can read, we will have to wait for Rare to show the game. Booty has defined development as a roller coaster, so we have to be patient and only watch the game when the time is right.

Last week, the free trial program of selected games was launched on PlayStation Store in the UK and Canada. Although this functionality may cause radical changes in the functioning of Sony and the purchasing habits of players, the global giant has not yet formally referred to the tested functions.

Exposed problem with returns

PlayStation Store suffers from a few issues with refunds on digital titles that are not to the liking of gamers. What can I say – PlayStation’s return policy is not pro-consumer. If you bought a product and downloaded it – you don’t have to count that the company will give you back your money if your purchase turns out to be wrong. This means that the only transactions that have a 100% chance of a refund are random purchases from PlayStation Store, after which the player has not installed the title. And that’s not the point.

The problem was perfectly exposed by the premiere of Cyberpunk 2077, which, as we well know, turned out to be a total flop. Most sellers returned money for a virtually unfinished product. It was no different with Sony, which exceptionally also gave back the money for the pre-order and removed the game from PlayStation Store until it was patched to an acceptable level.

However, this situation showed that the corporation needs to think carefully and make changes to the way digital titles are sold and distributed on PlayStation Store. Otherwise, she could face a huge loss again when the next big title cuts a similar number to Cyberpunk 2077.

Free Trials – The Perfect Remedy?

The free trial versions of the games seem to be an excellent solution to the problem of the PlayStation Store’s unattractive refund policy. This allows you to keep the current rules while treating customers better – finally, players will not buy a pig in a poke and will not be left on the ice when the product proves not to meet expectations.

At the moment, however, it is not a perfect solution. Players from the UK and Canada can download for free from PlayStation Store and test for six hours the Death Stranding: Director’s Cut and Biomutant trials and a five-hour trial of Sackboy: A Big Adventure. The problem is that the time is counted from the moment the download starts, which works to the disadvantage of people with poor connections. In addition, this feature will disappear from the platform on October 28.

For now, it is not known how the new functionality will affect the future of players and PlayStation, and whether the corporation will officially introduce the new system to PlayStation Store.

Activision already announced work on a new security system a few months ago, which would shorten the life of cheaters on Call of Duty: Warzone servers and the upcoming Call of Duty: Vanguard. We finally got to know the details of new technology with the catchy name “Ricochet”.

Ricochet as a recipe for cheaters?

CoD’s biggest problem has long been common and less common scammers who frustrate honest players by spoiling their fun. In Call of Duty: Warzone, the problem was so acute that the creators themselves finally spoke, announcing a fight with cheaters:

Today, the official info about the new security has already appeared:

The RICOCHET Anti-Cheat Initiative is a multi-faceted approach to fighting fraud, featuring new server-side tools that monitor analytics to detect fraud, improved investigations to eliminate fraudsters, updates to strengthen account security, and much more. RICOCHET Anti-Cheat security features will be introduced with Call of Duty: Vanguard and later this year with the Pacific update coming to Call of Duty: Warzone.

Ricochet is a new kernel driver. This is to translate into faster cheater identification and better server security. The driver will only work on PC, but the developers reassure you – this will also translate into more comfortable gameplay on consoles (in duels between console and PC players).

The players have concerns

There have already been a lot of concerns on the web that the new security system will also hit fair players, which will result in other bothersome problems in the game or updates weighing several hundred GB. Others, in turn, believe that this type of security will be quickly broken anyway, and cheaters, as they were, will be.

There are also voices that the very name “Ricochet” obliges and the whole thing will certainly have a backlash on everyone – cheaters, players and the company.

Call of Duty: Vanguard will hit the market on November 5. This is the 18th instalment of one of the most popular FPS series. In this part, players will move to the fronts of World War II. The game offers a single-player campaign and a multiplayer mode (currently consisting of as many as 20 maps). The creators also added the so-called zombie mode, which is a kind of skill test before the actual game.