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Overwatch GM Walter Kong steps up as SVP head of development, live games/mobile
Esports

Overwatch GM Walter Kong steps up as SVP head of development, live games/mobile

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Blizzard’s Walter Kong has been promoted to SVP, head of development, live games/mobile.

Announcing the news on LinkedIn, Kong – who joined Blizzard in 2011 and has most recently worked as general manager of Overwatch for almost four years – said he was “honored and grateful” for the opportunities presented to him over the years.

Despite the promotion, Kong says he will remain leading Overwatch’s “overall strategy” but will be expanding that remit to encompass Hearthstone, Diablo Immortal, and Warcraft Rumble, too.

“When I first walked onto the Blizzard campus as an employee in August 2011, I felt awestruck for most of my first day. It was hard to believe that I had a job working for Blizzard!” he wrote. “Even after fourteen years, I still have to occasionally pinch myself. I’m honored and grateful that I’ve been presented opportunities over those years to collaborate with talented colleagues and to make impact at a company I so love and admire.

“Today, I’m happy to share that I’m stepping into a new position at Blizzard as SVP, head of development, live games/mobile. While I’ll still be leading the overall strategy for the Overwatch franchise, I’m also excited to be taking on Hearthstone, Diablo Immortal, and Warcraft Rumble. I am greatly looking forward to working with these talented teams across a wide range of initiatives, existing and new.

“Additionally, I’m committed to fostering an environment of continuous learning, collaboration, and growth for all of our team members.”

Former Diablo boss Rod Fergusson recently exited Blizzard to take on the beleaguered development of Cloud Chamber’s upcoming Bioshock sequel.



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Defi Development Corp’s Solana Treasury Surpasses 2M Sol
Crypto Trends

DeFi Development Corp’s Solana Treasury Surpasses 2M SOL

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DeFi Development Corp., trading under the ticker DFDV on Nasdaq, has announced that it acquired an additional 196,141 SOL at an average price of $202.76 per token. This purchase commemorates a significant milestone, pushing the company’s total holdings to 2,027,817 SOL, an increase of 11% from its previous accumulation. 

At current market valuations, the firm’s treasury is now worth approximately $427 million, strengthening its position as one of the largest corporate holders of Solana. In its official announcement, the company emphasized that the newly acquired tokens will be held for the long term and staked across various validators, including its own, to generate native yield. This staking strategy not only compounds returns but also contributes to the security and decentralization of the Solana network. 

A Unique Solana Per Share (SPS) Approach

DeFi Development has consistently outlined its mission to provide investors with direct exposure to Solana through its shares, aligning its treasury growth with shareholder value. As of September 4, 2025, the company reported 25,573,702 shares outstanding, giving investors a Solana per share (SPS) metric of 0.0793 SOL. At the average acquisition price, this translates to $16.70 in Solana value per share. 

Notably, the company clarified that the 5.8 million pre-funded warrants issued as part of its recent $125 million equity raise are not included in the current calculations. Upon exercise, the total number of shares will reach approximately 31.4 million. The company’s ongoing accumulation strategy supports the management’s projection that the SPS will remain above 0.0675, despite the potential dilution.

With over 2 million SOL secured, DeFi Development Corp. has further cemented its role as a pioneering Solana treasury vehicle, offering public market investors structured access to one of the fastest-growing ecosystems in the blockchain space. 

Also Read: REX-Osprey May Launch First Dogecoin ETF Next Week: Eric Balchunas



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Ken Levine’s BioShock successor Judas still in development, with a new gameplay system that decides who the villain is based on your actions
Game Updates

Ken Levine’s BioShock successor Judas still in development, with a new gameplay system that decides who the villain is based on your actions

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Image via Ghost Story Games

I almost forgot about this one, but it sounds very promising

|

Published: Aug 27, 2025 03:32 pm

Remember Judas, the first-person shooter and next game from BioShock creator Ken Levine? Yeah, it’s hard to blame you if you forgot.

Similarly to BioShock 4, Judas has not been heard or seen in over a year, but Levine just dropped a new blog post out of the blue detailing what’s been going on with the game’s development. Don’t get too excited, because it’s likely still far off from releasing, but it’s not all bad news.

Along with new, gorgeous key art for the game seen at the top of this article, Levine detailed Judas’s Villainy system, which he says some takes inspiration from Shadow of Mordor’s Nemesis system, but functions quite differently.

“We’ve just finished a major milestone: Villainy,” he said in the post on PlayStation Blog, which also includes a minor glimpse at gameplay. “Villainy is a central feature of Judas. When you play BioShock or BioShock Infinite, the villain is always going to be the villain. Fontaine, Comstock — they’re always going to be the bad guys. In Judas, your actions will attract members of the Big 3 to you as friends. But ignore one of them enough, and they become the villain. From there, they will get access to a new suite of powers to subvert your actions and goals.”

These Big 3 characters (Tom, Hope, and Nefi) will be central to the game, according to Levine, and players will “get to know these characters intimately.” Much of Judas is still being kept secret, but Levine and his new studio Ghost Story Games want “losing one of them to feel like losing a friend,” and they will all be “competing for your favor and attention.”

“In BioShock Infinite, there was a lot of energy invested into developing your relationship with Elizabeth,” said Levine. “By the end of the game, you knew everything about her, her abilities, her hopes and dreams. But the truth is she knew almost nothing about you, the gamer playing Booker. In Judas, the Big 3 observe you as you play, and they have feelings not only about how you approach combat, hacking, and crafting, but most importantly your interactions with the other two characters.”

This sounds pretty awesome in theory, but it must be said that it’s now been over 12 years since BioShock Infinite, which is the last game Levine released at Irrational Games, along with its Burial at Sea DLC. The industry has changed entirely since then, and expectations for this title will be high.

With still no release date in sight, I’m choosing to be cautiously optimistic that Judas will end up being a title that may surprise us all whenever it finally comes out.

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No, Silksong hasn't been in development hell, hype skyrocketed sales of the original game to give Team Cherry financial freedom
Game Reviews

No, Silksong hasn’t been in development hell, hype skyrocketed sales of the original game to give Team Cherry financial freedom

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Earlier today, Team Cherry finally announced a release date for its long-awaited Hollow Knight sequel Silksong. After seven years, it will finally be out next month.

Yet contrary to what you may believe, Silksong hasn’t been in development hell for that time. Instead, Team Cherry’s developers were just having too much fun making it.

In fact, sales of the original game have skyrocketed from 2.8m copies to 15m copies since Silksong’s announcement in 2019, giving the studio the financial freedom to take their time.

Hollow Knight: Silksong – Special AnnouncementWatch on YouTube

What was originally intended as an expansion to Hollow Knight soon ballooned into its own game, with the studio announcing in February 2019 it would be a full sequel.

“Even at that point we were recognising that it was going to become another giant thing to rival the scale of Hollow Knight or probably exceed it,” Team Cherry co-founder Ari Gibson told Bloomberg. “And then because of how we work, obviously the world ended up being just as big or bigger. And the quest system existed. And the multiple towns existed. Suddenly you end up six, seven years later.”

“It was never stuck or anything,” Gibson added. “It was always progressing. It’s just the case that we’re a small team, and games take a lot of time. There wasn’t any big controversial moment behind it.”

That 12m rise in sales of the original Hollow Knight is extraordinary. Somehow, Team Cherry inadvertently created the ultimate hype machine: hype for the sequel led to sales for the original, which meant it could take longer to develop, which fed the hype even more due to silence, which became a meme, which meant it could take even longer.

“We’re very lucky in that regard,” said Gibson. “I don’t ever really think about it that much. Maybe that’s the privilege of it.”

No strict deadline and a flood of financial income meant Team Cherry could take its time. It’s in stark contrast to so many other studios at the moment hell-bent on chasing trends and generating cash in the face of rising development costs, which has inevitably resulted in the mass layoffs across the industry in the last couple of years.

By contrast, Team Cherry has remained lean. What’s more, it’s spent the past seven years enjoying development.

“We’ve been having fun,” said Gibson said. “This whole thing is just a vehicle for our creativity anyway. It’s nice to make fun things.

“We’re very fortunate that we have a development method that is so enjoyable,” Gibson continued. “Not exactly sure how we stumbled into that. Everything comes together quickly. You can see results fast. Ideas turn into something that exist in the game almost immediately before your eyes, and that’s very satisfying. And that allows you to go off on those tangents and meet weird characters because someone’s off-handedly mentioned a weird character as an idea and the other person’s laughed, and that’s enough.”

Will Silksong push the Metroidvania genre to new heights? | Image credit: Team Cherry

“You’re always working on a new idea, new item, new area, new boss,” added co-founder William Pellen. “That stuff’s so nice. It’s for the sake of just completing the game that we’re stopping. We could have kept going.”

Add to that a desire for exceptional polish, and it’s easy to see how development could have continued even longer.

“I think we’re always underestimating the amount of time and effort it’ll take us to achieve things,” said Gibson. “It’s also that problem where, because we’re having fun doing it, it’s not like, ‘It’s taking longer, this is awful, we really need to get past this phase.’ It’s, ‘This is a very enjoyable space to be in. Let’s perpetuate this with some new ideas.'”

“There’s a level of finish that has to be met throughout the entire game,” added Pellen. “All the way the systems interact, all the hidden work that pops up later on. It’s multiplicative. As you add stuff, the process of tying it all back together just increases.”

Of course, it remains to be seen whether Silksong will fully live up to the hype, but with its release date of 4th September it won’t be long until we find out. At the least, it follows games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as a project with a relatively small team and a huge amount of passion finding big success, where so many AAA studios and publishers have stumbled.



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Blackmth2
Game Reviews

Wukong 2 Already In Development, Here’s The Teaser

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Today, at the very end of Gamescom Opening Night Live, Geoff had one more secret to reveal: The developers behind the super-popular action RPG Black Myth: Wukong are working on a new game, Black Myth: Zhong Kui, starring a new mythical hero.

Here’s the very short teaser for Zhong Kui, which doesn’t have a release date yet:

Black Myth: Zhong Kui isn’t a direct sequel to Wukong. On the new game’s official website, the devs explained that they wanted to “build more distinct game experiences, to challenge ourselves with bolder features” and work on “fresh ideas.” However, they did tease an actual sequel or DLC to Wukong, saying: “And to all friends who love Black Myth: Wukong, the westward journey won’t end here.”

It should also be noted that, despite a slick-looking CG trailer showing off the new mythical hero and setting, Game Science admits it doesn’t have much to show because the game is still very early in development, saying that Zhong Kui is “little more than an empty folder at this stage.” However, the devs said they love announcing new things and updating fans on August 20, so they created a CG short to “let everyone know that a new project has kicked off.” But yeah, don’t expect to be playing this game anytime soon.

According to Game Science, Black Myth: Zhong Kui, like Wukong, is a single-player action RPG that will follow “the same business model as before.” That seems to imply that this sequel won’t be free-to-play when it eventually launches.

“However, you won’t be playing a monkey role this time,” explained the studio. “That said, we’re still exploring and experimenting with the concrete differences between Wukong and Zhong Kui. So take it easy—let us impress ourselves first before we serve it to you.”

On August 20, 2024, Black Myth: Wukong launched on PlayStation 5 and PC and quickly became a massive hit. The game saw over 2.4 million concurrent players on Steam alone, beating out popular games like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Elden Ring, Cyberpunk, and many more. It still, to this day, holds the record for second-highest number of players all online at the same time on Steam, only beaten by PUBG’s massive 3.2 concurrent players record. Needless to say, a lot of people are excited for more Black Myth, and I expect that when Zhong Kui eventually arrives on PC and consoles, it will be as big if not bigger.



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Decrypt logo
NFT Gaming

AI Agents Are Taking Over Game Development: Google

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In brief

  • While AI speeds up coding and playtesting, devs worry about privacy, cost, and creative control.
  • Small studios see AI as a chance to compete, while larger publishers struggle to adapt.
  • From smarter NPCs to new jobs, developers say AI is remaking game development.

Nearly nine in 10 game developers say they’ve already built AI agents into their work, according to a new Google Cloud survey. These autonomous programs don’t just generate images and assets; they are inside the game, reacting to players and reshaping virtual worlds.

The survey, conducted in collaboration with The Harris Poll, polled 615 developers across the United States, South Korea, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. It found that 97% of respondents believe that AI agents—autonomous programs that can act without human input—are already reshaping the industry, with most already using them to speed up coding, testing, and localization.

For smaller studios, AI is helping level the playing field, with 29% saying AI is lowering the barrier to entry and allowing them to compete with larger publishers.



“If you’re not on the AI bandwagon right now, you’re already behind,” Kelsey Falter, CEO and co-founder of indie studio Mother Games, told Decrypt. “Being small means we can adapt faster. Bigger studios have legacy codebases and senior engineers resistant to change. For us, AI is baked in from day one.”

In the study, 87% of developers said they’re using AI agents that adapt to players in real time. These agents are being deployed to control non-player characters, guide tutorials, and even moderate online communities. In 2023, Call of Duty publisher Activision rolled out ToxMod, an AI-powered tool that monitors online chat for toxic and hate speech.

Developers say players now expect more dynamic, responsive environments and richer, more reactive worlds, with 35% saying AI-driven tutorials are speeding up player onboarding.

Matias Rodriguez, chief technology officer at Globant, a tech firm that works with major game studios, said gamers are open to AI when it deepens storytelling or immersion—but wary if it feels like a shortcut.

“Gamers are a selective audience when it comes to authenticity,” Rodriguez told Decrypt. “But they’re also some of the most open to innovation when it enhances the immersion.”

AI, he said, is being used as “a creative copilot and a productivity multiplier,” aimed at enhancing—not replacing—the creative process.

Falter agreed that the tools can boost productivity, but said the lack of industry standards means mistakes happen quickly.

“It’s still the wild west,” she said. “A year ago, we saw AI generating soupy code at a faster pace than humans could check it. Without guardrails, you can make a mess faster than you can clean it up.”

Still, most developers are betting on AI’s long-term value. For Falter, the challenge is maintaining human creativity while using AI to unlock new types of gameplay.

“We don’t use AI to generate artwork or churn out clones,” she said. “Our models are trained on scripts written by human writers, and our terrain generators have a specific style unique to our game. It’s about maintaining creative integrity.”

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Stellar Development Foundation Invests in Archax to Boost Tokenization
GameFi Guides

Stellar Development Foundation Invests in Archax to Boost Tokenization

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The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF), the organization supporting the Stellar

blockchain, invested in UK-based digital asset exchange and tokenization firm Archax as part of a broader partnership to boost tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), the firms said in a press release shared with CoinDesk.

Archax has already started using Stellar, integrating the network into its in-house tokenization platform and launching a tokenized Aberdeen money market fund.

The firms didn’t disclose the size of the investment.

The deal comes as tokenization of traditional financial instruments like bonds, funds and stocks, often dubbed real-world assets (RWA), is gathering speed. Global banks and asset managers are exploring this technology to cut settlement times, increase transparency and keep markets open around the clock. The tokenized RWA market has doubled over the past year to $26 billion and is projected to grow into a trillion-dollar market by 2030, according to reports by McKinsey, Ripple, BCG and others.

“The Stellar network was purpose built to enable fast settlement times, low costs, and the tokenisation of real-world assets that is the future of finance,” said Raja Chakravorti, chief business officer at the Stellar Development Foundation. “

Archax acquired BaFin-regulated Deutsche Digital Assets last month in a bid to expand into crypto exchange-traded products in Europe.

Read more: Real-World Asset Tokenization Market Has Grown Almost Fivefold in 3 Years



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