Gameplay designer Manveer Heir spent a long time - seven years - working for Electronic Arts at BioWare Montreal, making Mass Effect 3 (mostly multiplayer) and then Mass Effect Andromeda, and he had some illuminating information about the company's mindset to share with Waypoint at the weekend. It was to do with EA's recent closure of Visceral Games and the "pivot" in direction of the Star Wars game in development there - but it also tied into Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot crates as well.

The following is a survey of more than 200 registered Steam developers, concerning their opinions about the platform in 2017 and what they would most like to see improved. It comes out to nearly 100 pages, including quotes and survey results about Steam reviews, the volume of games on Steam, and more. For a breakdown of the major issues—including why only 39 percent of the surveyed developers believe Valve currently earns its cut of sales on Steam—check out our article here.

Today, Phoenix Labs have rolled out the first major content update for Dauntless, their free-to-play brawler where players team up in groups of four to fight giant monsters. Forge Your Legends brings a new tutorial, a Halloween-themed event, and—not least of all—the transition away from its current loot box-based microtransaction model. On Thursday, Phoenix Labs hosted a roundtable to talk about the new update and announce their plans to drop loot boxes in favor of a system they feel is more "player-first."

TL;DR: Developers, revoke the Steam keys you supplied to Indie Game Stand! I'm the developer of a game called Airships: Conquer the Skies. It can be bought through a bunch of platforms, including Steam, and, until it shut down earlier this year, Indie Game Stand.

The Deus Ex series may be dead and buried (until such time as some studio decides to revive the franchise again), but there's no keeping the Sunglasses At Night crew down. You might not have asked for it, but Deus Ex Revision might be just what you need for your immersive sim fix. An ambitious fan-made remastering of the original Deus Ex, officially publisher-endorsed and even praised by the original developers.

The 2017 Steam Winter Sale is brimming with PC game deals. These are some of our favorites.

If true, you can file this under "u" for "unsurprising." According to a report (via GameIndustry.biz) sources from within EA's BioWare studio have claimed that Anthem has been pushed back to 2019, after being announced as a fall 2018 title. The same report claims that BioWare is feeling intense pressure due to events revolving around Mass Effect Andromeda and Star Wars Battlefront II, both of which were notorious for disappointment.

The team behind psychological stealth FPS Deceit are using our SpatialOS platform to make a revolutionary survival-combat game with CryEngine.

Indie developer 11 Bit Studios announced earlier today that its newest game Frostpunk has sold 250,000 copies in 66 hours since its release. The bleak survival simulator came out on April 24 for PC and pits players against the elements as they try to build a city and society that can endure the bitter cold of a global ice age. Due to its success, the studio has committed to updating the game with expansions and more scenarios in the future.

City of Brass puts me in mind of a 3D, Arabian Nights-themed version of Spelunky. As you sprint through its shiny, procedurally-generated metropolis you'll grab treasure, buy items, lay traps, whip enemies and slash your scimitar, avoiding permadeath at all costs. It's been in Early Access for just under a year and now it's out on Steam, with the 1.0 update adding the final boss fight.

Cloud Imperium Games has taken heat the last few days for moving the goalpost on Lifetime Insurance (LTI) once again. The small, vocal fan base that helped grow Star Citizen into the large project it is today has been in an uproar. But that vocal minority, the ones who created the discussions that perpetuated Star Citizen’s success, is becoming an increasingly smaller percentage of Cloud Imperium’s sales base, and CIG is now clear of a financial obligation to appease their backers. Their moral obligation is up for debate.

Eidos Montreal is the third developer I've spoken to in a week that's devoted to creating single-player narrative-driven video games. It's purely coincidental. Yet what's interesting is that all three (the first was Play Magic, and the third interview goes live next week) are expanding significantly. Even as our chat with Eidos Montreal boss David Anfossi began, he was forced to apologise for the noise created by a mammoth refurbishment project going on around him.

Valve today announced it would be releasing two new apps for Android and iOS — both of which would allow you to access your Steam libraries from your phones or tablets. Don’t get too excited, though, as that’ll come with a few limitations. The bigger of the two apps, Steam Link, would allow users to stream games from their PC or Mac to devices ranging from phones and tablets to Apple TVs. They could be controlled with either Steam controllers or MFi controllers, with the company implying more forms of control would also be available.

The Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 reveal event confirmed, as rumored, that the game will not have a "conventional campaign", but will instead feature a large-scale battle royale mode, Blackout, complete with land, sea, and air vehicles from the previous games. In an interview with Eurogamer, Treyarch's co-studio head Dan Bunting responded to fan feedback, and confirmed that a "traditional campaign" had never been planned for the latest Black Ops title. He also detailed what activities were going to be available to players who still want to play alone.

Apple has blocked the plans of the biggest distributor of PC-based video games to extend its reach into iPhones, according to the game distributor, a sign that Apple is serious about protecting its ability to take a cut of digital purchases made inside games on its mobile devices. Steam, the dominant online store for downloaded games played on Windows PCs, had planned to release a free mobile phone app called Steam Link so that gamers could continue playing on their mobile phones while away from their desktop machines.

A video game allowing players to play as an "active shooter" is drawing backlash from parents.

With a peak of 212k concurrent players back in August 2016, No Man’s Sky had one of the biggest launches of any game over the past few years on Steam. Sadly, shallow gameplay and missing features like multiplayer resulted in the player base instantly declining. And within 1 month, there were under 1k concurrent players left playing No Man’s Sky. Sean Murray and his team at Hello Games stayed silent during the games troubled launch. But surprisingly, as players requested refunds and even threatened lawsuits, the dev team kept working on adding more features, believing that their actions would eventually speak louder than words.

BioWare has confirmed that while the team is hard at work on the upcoming Anthem, there are still teams working on the beloved franchises of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. In BioWare's Mid-Summer Update, general manager Casey Hudson stated, "we hear loud and clear the interest in BioWare doing more Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so rest assured that we have some teams hidden away working on some secret stuff that I think you'll really like - we're just not ready to talk about any of it for a little while."

A fair wind favors the Sword Coast today as the 2.5 update arrives in Baldur’s Gate! After weeks of waiting on becalmed seas, our swashbuckling team of developers have released a patch filled with features and fixes. Beyond the city gates, adventurers will find enhancements to the Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition expansion, Siege of Dragonspear!

Today, we’re announcing that Battlefield V will have a new launch date – November 20, 2018. I wanted to give you a little bit of insight into how we arrived at this new date. Over the summer, we’ve had tens of thousands of players get their hands on the game during our Closed Alphas and at E3 and Gamescom – where we were honored to receive the awards for Best Multiplayer Game at both shows.