Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Testament
In 2016, Arrowhead started to work on their first ever AAA game - a project that would require not only the attention of the entire team, but also to grow the studio way beyond the 35 employees that worked on Arrowhead around that time. That's why in 2017 they moved into a bigger office where they could accommodate all of their staff - both old and new.
Then in 2018, Arrowhead's co-founder stated in an interview that they were making a third-person game this time around and, due to the change in perspective, moving the focus from local co-op to making it purely online co-op. Friendly fire is confirmed to be making a return.
In early 2019, some Arrowhead developers were spotted at GDC wearing jackets with a "Testament Dev Team" written in the back. While recapping 2019, it was stated on the Arrowhead website that they had made a "butt-ton of progress" on the game and that by the end of the year the studio had already grown to roughly 60 people.

Days Gone
Days Gone ends on a cliffhanger, but so did The Order 1886 and, well, we all know how that ended up - so let's delve a bit deeper into why Days Gone 2 will be a thing.
In 2019, a couple of weeks before the game's launch, a Sony PR guy said that Days Gone was seen as a "franchise" in Sony's eyes, stating that "the goal is always to make a game that people love and want more of". One month later, the game came out and delivered some surprisingly solid numbers not only at launch but also throughout the year, thanks to the good word-of-mouth it had amongst the community.
According to snort_cannon, the success of the game came as a surprise even to Sony, who was expecting Days Gone to be the disappointment and Death Stranding being the one doing crazy numbers.
Later that year, Bend Studio managing director Chris Reese kind of teased that a sequel was in the works when asked about it during an interview: "This is a world that we want to keep breathing more life into, and explore many, many different avenues. So who knows, we'll see!"

Bloodborne Remastered
In May 2020, NeoGAF user Celine.D.Sykes - who previously discussed this project in February 2019 on the ResetEra forums - talked about the Bloodborne remaster in greater detail: "During my time on ResetEra, I only knew that From Software wanted Bloodborne to release on PC. Unfortunately, a PC port would need a lot of work […] and reworking Bloodborne's engine would take a great amount of work. The game logic is tied to framerate, among many other baffling decisions. The last time From Software tried to change the inner logic of an engine; it resulted in the infamous PC port of the first Dark Souls."
"Making a long story short, Sony said they were interested in a potential Bloodborne remaster for PS5, with a lot more work done, like some QoL added and some cut-content being introduced. Both From Software and Sony agreed to not just up the resolution and the framerate, but to make something great. FromSoftware has been authorized to release the game on PC, but only some months after the remaster hits PS5."
"Last time I heard about it, Bloodborne remaster would be part of PS5 line-up, but I don't quite believe it since I think the spotlight will be stolen by another similar title [Demon's Souls] that should be announced in June. I think they might save the Bloodborne remaster for some months after PS5 release, but I could be wrong about that particular point."
According to another report by a different source, the game is being developed by both QLOC - the studio behind 2018's Dark Souls: Remastered - and Bluepoint Games. Now that Demon's Souls is out and considering how far along Bloodborne Remastered has been reported to be, I wouldn't be surprised if it is currently planned to be revealed at The Game Awards.
Unannounced
On November 20th 2020, in response to a user who claimed that the rumored Bluepoint acquisition by Sony would be very boring as far as hype goes, KatharsisT said: "If you knew what Bluepoint is on at the moment, you wouldn't say that (Yeah, it's a hype post [and] you'll have to wait to know what it is)". Shortly after that, a mod stepped in to say that "KatharsisT has shown sufficient evidence to support this claim."
A couple of posts later, MarsipanRumpan - the guy behind the Bluepoint acquisition rumor - also backed the statements made by KatharsisT "I’m totally on your side. Talked with my source, I think we have the same info regarding their next remake. People who aren’t hyped for Bluepoint don’t know what their next project is as you said. Because that shit is [mindblowing]."
Regarding the rumors of a Metal Gear Solid remake, all I'm gonna say is: don't listen to what Moore's Law is Dead and other youtubers are saying, it is all bullshit; but at the same time don't lose faith, as chances of Bluepoint's next remake being MGS are high, considering how it seems they're working on a bigger and more prestigious title than Demon's Souls and also the good relationship Sony currently has with Konami.

Unannounced
A couple of weeks ago, MarsipanRumpan - the guy who recently reported about Bluepoint's acquisition on ResetEra - said that he has heard that Sony is in talks with From Software regarding the making of a new PS5 exclusive directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki. This would be the third game From has currently in their pipeline, with Elden Ring and a new Armored Core being the other two.
MarsipanRumpan also clarified that it will be a while before we see this new game in motion anyway.

Unannounced
In February 2018, Simon Larouche - former multiplayer designer on Killzone 2, R6 Patriots and Splinter Cell: Blacklist, as well as game director on R6 Siege - joins Guerrilla as game director, starting to work on an unannounced project completely unrelated to the Horizon sequel (now known as Forbidden West), which was also in development at the time. Then in July, Hermen Hulst announced plans for Guerrilla to move into a new, bigger office where they could expand their staff count from 250 to 400 people, allowing them to make games faster and release a new title every two to three years.
In October 2018, Chris Lee - former multiplayer designer on several SOCOM titles at Slant Six Games and on Ubisoft's R6 Siege - joins Guerrilla as principal game designer on Larouche's project. Apart from the fact that Lee's hiring makes it pretty clear that Guerrilla's second team is working on a shooter game of some sorts, it's worth pointing out that Lee lists "cooperative and competitive multiplayer, open world systemic gameplay and online social experiences" as his current interests on his LinkedIn profile - with the open world bit being especially interesting as it was also mentioned in certain job listings for the project in 2019.
In August 2020, Guerrilla finally moved to their new office, which means the studio is now ready to begin large-scale recruiting on its second project once they see it fit - although I don't expect to hear about this project until after the release of Forbidden West in the second half of 2021.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2
The recently released Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales entered development in May 2018 under the direction of Brian Horton, while Bryan Intihar was finishing up his work on the original Marvel's Spider-Man, which came out in September of that year. So right after wrapping up the first game and with Miles Morales in the hands of a separate team, Intihar started preparing the next main entry in the series as teased in January 2019 when he posted on Twitter "Few things are more nerve-wracking than sharing your first story draft to others."

RaySpace
Sometime in spring 2014, a couple of weeks before E3, Reddit user Ruin4r leaked a number of titles in development exclusively for PS4, including a new God of War, The Last Guardian, a The Last Of Us sequel, Dead Don't Ride (later confirmed to be Days Gone's codename) and an "unnamed space game" - which by the way wasn't Santa Monica Studio's cancelled new IP for PS4, as that project was axed earlier that year.
A year later, Shuhei Yoshida stated in an interview at E3 2015 that "Japan Studio is now producing a really great project that I'm really excited about" - which also wasn't Gravity Rush 2, as that title was referenced as a different project later in the interview.
In April 2016, Ruin4r said that all the games previously teased by him were still in development and clarified that many of them - God of War, TLOU2, Days Gone and the "unnamed space game" - were in early stages when he first talked about them.
Then on June 6th 2016, during a livestream in celebration of Famitsu's 30th Anniversary, SIE's Yasuhiro Kitao teased a a new title to Famitsu's editor-in-chief Katsuhio Hayashi by letting him read some text from his tablet, as Kitao didn't have any images to show. Hayashi was blown away by whatever thing he read and stated that "this will definitely be worth waiting for."
In December 2017, SIE trademarked "RaySpace" in Canada - which most probably was the final title for the "unnamed space game" mentioned by Ruin4r. That same month, Japan Studio's award-winning creative director Tsutomu Kouno stated in an interview "I have not been able to announce a new title in a long time, but in 2018, I would like to announce what I am preparing". Japan Studio producer Teruyuki Toriyama - who has been teasing this project since 2015, describing it in multiple occasions as an "ambitious title" - also promised an announcement in 2018.
Sometime in 2018, an interview to a Japan Studio employee was posted on the SIE website; in it there was an image that contained shots of two upcoming games in the background: the Demon's Souls remake (top right corner) and some sort of sci-fi first-person game.
But 2018 went by without any sort of reveal regarding this project and in December, Toriyama once again teased an announcement for the coming year "In 2019, we are preparing for the debut of unannounced title(s) currently in production". It is worth noting that Japan Studio didn't reveal any new games in 2019.
I doubt that RaySpace was cancelled, as you don't pull the plug on a project that has been in the works for four or five years and was so close to being revealed. So what I believe is that they decided to move it to PlayStation 5 - just like they did with other projects such as Sackboy: A Big Adventure or Horizon: Forbidden West - and maybe even bring it back to the drawing table a little - which would explain why we haven't seen it this year during the PS5 reveal events.
Silent Hill
In 2018, Konami reached out to various developers to pitch ideas for two Silent Hill games: one a soft-reboot of the franchise; the other an episodic Telltale/Until Dawn-style game to go alongside the reboot. In fact, one of the studios contacted by Konami was Supermassive Games, creators of Until Dawn, although they ultimately didn't get the job.
Japan Studio's creative director Keiichiro Toyama, who had been wanting to work on a new horror game for quite some time, was developing a new entry in the Siren franchise at the time. Sony, who weren't fully keen on the idea of investing on a niche series such as Siren, decided to pull the plug on the project as they started negotiating a deal with Konami for getting Japan Studio to work on the Silent Hill soft-reboot - a prestige project for the PS5 lineup based on a globally renowned IP, something that would allow Toyama to have a bigger budget and more resources at his disposal.
Eventually the deal would get finalized, putting Sony Interactive Entertainment in charge of developing, funding and publishing the title in exchange for keeping the exclusive and most of the revenue, with Konami being indirectly involved by outsourcing the IP against an 8% of the revenue. And that way, the game entered development in early 2019, salvaging as much from the technological work done for the Siren game as possible.
At some point in 2019, an interview to a Japan Studio employee posted on the SIE website showed a developer working on a handgun model - something that, if we consider the other projects Japan Studio has in the pipeline, would only align with Silent Hill.
On January 21st 2020, Rely on Horror reported that they've heard from a source of their own that a new Silent Hill game was in development. A day later, movie industry insider Emre Kaya posted on Twitter that he has learned that Sony is working on a new horror game for PS5.
On March 12th 2020, Rely on Horror stated that Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka and creature designer Masahiro Ito are returning alongside the series creator Keiichiro Toyama to helm a soft-reboot of the franchise developed by Japan Studio, just called Silent Hill. Both of their sources mentioned Sony as the driving force behind bringing the series back. That same day, Emre Kaya said on Twitter that this was the Sony horror game that he talked about back in January.
In April 2020, ResetEra user KatharsisT backed Rely on Horror's information regarding the Silent Hill soft-reboot and confirmed a third-person perspective and that the game was playable already. She also said that it is planned to be announced before PS5's launch, with a release in spring 2021 - although these reveal and release windows were from before COVID started to fuck up their schedule. Shortly after, a mod stepped into the discussion to state that they've verified her information on the subject.
In May 2020, Reddit user snort_cannon, who had already discussed the game months ago, said that "the game was planned on being shown off this summer. Unless something bad happens, it should happen. The plan at first was just to do a CG trailer to announce that the game exists, but I personally think at this point [they] might delay the reveal and add some gameplay footage as well". When asked about his sources, he answered "Same source that told me about the Sony deal, albeit last update came in early February and COVID didn’t rampage as hard as it’s going now."
On August 3rd 2020, ResetEra user Navtra, who leaked a list of games that went on to be present on both PS5 events days in advance to June's The Future of Gaming, commented on the Silent Hill rumors "I can only confirm one thing: it was never on the table for June's event. FFXVI and Marvel's Avengers Spider-Man character announcement were among other things that were supposed to be there and were moved last minute. Silent Hill never was". If we look at both KatharsisT and snort_cannon's comments in regards to the reveal window for the game after having learned this, it becomes clear that the reveal was initially planned for the second PS5 event, that being September's PS5 Showcase - an event that the game missed because of delays in production related to the COVID pandemic.
On October 31st 2020, KatharsisT stated that something had just made her expect a reveal at The Game Awards. A couple of days later, Rely on Horror reported that recent rumors of a Silent Hill announcement at The Game Awards line up with some information they received a while back but choose not to report on.
On November 21st 2020, KatharsisT once again teased a Silent Hill reveal at The Game Awards "You'll celebrate it before the end of the year if everything goes as planned" while also stating that she thinks the game is still planned for 2021.

Horizon VR
On October 2019, VR consultant Callum Hurley posted on Twitter that he had learned about an "exciting new PlayStation VR game coming out of London Studio" through someone who had just playtested the title. He also vaguely implied it was a Horizon VR game and, when news outlets started to report on his tweets, he apologized to the development team as he didn't expect such coverage.
Same as the unannounced VR titles from Supermassive Games, I do expect this Horizon VR game to be a cross-gen release sometime next year.

In July 2018, we've learned thanks to a job listing that MediaVision was working on a new PlayStation 4 RPG. It is worth noting that a year earlier Sony stated that, even though their investments have been mainly focused on titles aimed to a global audience do to the soaring in development costs, the success of recent titles such as Persona 5 or Nier Automata amongst overseas audiences has made them consider a return to first-party JRPG development.
Then in June 2019, DasVergeben posted on Reddit "Something I have heard for a while now is that a new Wild Arms game is in development but it has been over a year long journey getting that verified. I still struggle to get definite enough confirmation but I think it might have been because I heard about it too early". In a separate post, Vergeben added "I don't know much other than that it apparently is in development by Media Vision for PS4. I haven't been told anything specific yet at least. I do wonder if Sony might try and shift over to push it as a PS5 launch game or something if they don't reveal it this year [...] but that's simply speculation on my behalf."
At this point I expect the game to be a cross-gen release, as it wouldn't make sense to leave the PS4 users behind with a title that surely won't be a technological showcase unlike native PS5 games such as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

The Last Of Us: Factions
On September 26th 2019, Naughty Dog posted a statement on Twitter in which they basically announced that the multiplayer mode they had planned for The Last Of Us: Part II had grown beyond an additional mode that could be included alongside the game's enormous singleplayer campaign, so they decided to turn it into a standalone game in order to not compromise on the ambitions of the studio's multiplayer team.
Then in April 2020, a short gameplay clip from a March 2018 build of the multiplayer leaked online as part of a bigger leak that revealed tons of story spoilers and cutscenes from The Last Of Us: Part II. Assuming that this TLOU multiplayer game is planned for a release on both PS4 and PS5 sometime next year, we would be in front of a title with over four years of overall dev time - meaning that the project might be greater in scope than what most of us are expecting it to be.
Unannounced
On October 10th 2018, movie industry insider Daniel Ritchman reported that Naughty Dog was in the process of casting an actor to play the lead role on an upcoming game. According to the casting description, the studio was looking for a "Black/African American male, 40s to 60s, short to medium length hair, with a body type similar to those in the images below, strong but not chiseled". But since this doesn't tell us much about the game, apart from hinting at it being a new IP, let's go a little back in time in search of more potential details.
During the The Last Of Us: Part II panel at PSX 2017, Neil Druckmann stated that Naughty Dog will "forever continue to make singleplayer, linear, narrative-based games". He also mentioned during an interview from February 2018 that the studio was totally open to make a first-person game in the future - and, since they seem to be making a new IP, this new project might be the perfect time for them to try a different camera angle in their games.

In April 2018, David Hall - former Double Helix/Amazon Game Studios - joins an unnamed SIE studio in San Diego as game director on an unannounced title. Since then, rumors about a new Sony first-party studio have been circulating due to a job listing - also from April - in which it was stated that "PlayStation is building a new game development team in partnership with the Visual Arts Service Group" to work on a "high visibility project" described as a third-person action/adventure game "developed in collaboration with a major Sony studio."
A month later, Quentin Cobb - former singleplayemultiplayer designer at Naughty Dog on the Uncharted series and The Last Of Us - also joins this new studio in San Diego and in December a new job listing mentions that the team was looking for a lead character artist to work on "the next chapter of cinematic storytelling."
In January 2019, James Martinchek - former cutscene/gameplay animator on The Last Of Us, Uncharted 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2 - joins the studio as a lead gameplay animator. Also in January, Cobb was asked on Twitter why he couldn't even reveal what studio he was working for, to what he replied that "it is difficult to explain why" - further reinforcing the theory that Sony has assembled a secret studio in the San Diego area.
Then in November 2019, Sony announced their plans to set up a support studio in Malaysia and, just a couple of weeks ago, a job listing from SIE Malaysia unveils that they're currently working on "one of PlayStation's [most] well-known and well-loved franchises" for which they are looking for "talented, highly-motivated and creative animators to breathe life into the next chapter of cinematic storytelling."
In November 2020, both Quentin Cobb and John Bautista left the studio and the internet started to speculate that Sony had shut down the studio and cancelled the project, something that Bautista denied by stating that "the studio is still there and the project is still ongoing."

Unannounced
On April 12th 2018, Cory Barlog spoke during an interview about his desire to work on a new IP "I really would love to create something of my own next. Something that really, really is truly 100% coming from my original vision. That would be awesome, but we have to see if I can convince Sony on that one". Over half a year later, in November, film director Duncan Jones - who had just met with Cory looking for his opinion regarding a certain script - said on Twitter that "If you think that God of War is [Cory’s] magnum opus, just you wait!"
Since then, little we've learned about the development of this project, other than the recent news that Alanah Pearce has joined Santa Monica Studio as a junior writer on, apparently, Cory's game. And I say that mainly because, while members of the team behind the next God of War were able to publicly announce their involvement in the making of said title on social media, Alanah is not allowed to reveal what she is working on over at SMS - that being due to the fact that, unlike the upcoming GOW game, Cory Barlog's new project hasn't been revealed yet.

¿Ghost 2?
Look, I haven't played Ghost of Tsushima yet, so I don't know how it ends or if it sets up a sequel or not - but a few weeks ago a job listing from Sucker Punch mentioned that the studio "is looking for a narrative writer for our upcoming projects" and that the ideal candidate would "have previous success as a game writer, outstanding dialogue skills and an excellent understanding of how to tell impactful, character-driven stories within a AAA open-world game" and also "knowledge of feudal Japanese history". That last bit kind of screams some sort of GOT sequel to me.

Unannounced Titles
In November 2018, Supermassive Games managing director Pete Samuels confirmed that the studio was "working on several unannounced PlayStation exclusives" and stated that their relationship with Sony "is still excellent", even though they choose another publisher for The Dark Pictures Anthology as they wanted to reach the widest possible audience.
What that might mean is that they wanna go the multiplatform route with their biggest titles - that being The Dark Pictures Anthology, their response to the requests of an Until Dawn sequel - while keeping the most experimental and smaller stuff exclusive to Google or Sony - meaning that these unannounced titles would probably be cross-gen PSVR games, as Jim Ryan stated that they will not be releasing VR titles exclusively for PS5 until the new headset comes out in a couple of years.

WiLD
During Sony's GamesCom conference in 2014, Michel Ancel took the stage to introduce WiLD, a new PS4 exclusive developed by his recently formed indie studio. It was described as a title with an open-world "potentially as big as Europe", day and night cycles, dynamic weather and seasons, as well as a seamless online system, in which you could play not only as a human but also as any living creature. Ancel also stated that for the past year, the studio had been working very hard on the proprietary technology and tools they would be using in order to create this very specific type of game that was WiLD.
A year later, this time at Sony's Paris Games Week conference, Ancel showed a super early gameplay demo of WiLD. This was the last time we saw WiLD in action, as the information drops regarding this title started to slow down over the years - with most updates consisting of Sony denying cancellation rumors, trademark renewals or off-screen pictures of the game posted on Michel Ancel's Instagram.
The most notable piece of news from this period however, was an interview with WiLD producer Mitsuo Hirakawa from November 2017. During said interview, he stated "We are not going to rush [Michel Ancel] to make something that he doesn't want to compromise on." and then he followed "Even experienced developers make mistakes. We have to make mistakes to find the right choices for the design of the game and we want to provide [Wild Sheep Studio] with all the support necessary, so that's why things sometimes do take a lot longer than we expect but we feel that WiLD deserves the extra time and quality before it comes to public."
A creative that doesn't want to compromise on his vision? Mistakes that lead into things taking longer than expected? Call me crazy, but I think those statements are pointing directly to some heavy project mismanagement on Ancel's part, as we've seen reports of similar things happening during the development of Beyond: Good & Evil 2.
According to snort_cannon "[BG&E2] has been a mess behind the scenes for a pretty long time. To give you a rough idea of how bad it's going, the game was supposedly gonna come out next year [in 2021], but it's not even 50% done. I wouldn't be shocked, if we get an investigation article on its development troubles, soon". Which did in fact happened, as, a couple of months ago, national newspaper Libération published an article on BG&E2's troubled development "Ganesha City, which [he] asked us to do with a completely stupid level of detail, we only just finished it three years later, and we've had to redo it four or five times. Knowing that we have to do several planets, you can imagine the absurdity of this kind of reasoning." "When [Ancel] was spoking to the press, we were taking notes because [...] it could concern points on which we would have been stuck on for months, waiting for directions."
Moving onto something else, in July 2018, both Michel Ancel and Wild Sheep's CEO and art director Celine Tellier visited Guerrilla Games. This is interesting, because considering that WiLD went through some serious development hell difficulties, it is not farfetched to think that one of the solutions proposed by Sony to one of the several the problems the game was facing at the time was to drop the in-house engine that Wild Sheep was using up to that point and move the game over to DECIMA - the Guerrilla Games engine that has powered PS4 titles such as Killzone: Shadow Fall and Horizon: Zero Dawn but also Until Dawn and Death Stranding. Such a change could come in handy, especially when we take into account that, just like Horizon and Death Stranding, WiLD is an open-world title that takes place in natural environments.
On September 18th 2020, Michel Ancel announced his departure from the games industry and regarding Beyond: Good & Evil 2 and WiLD he stated that "since many months now the teams are autonomous and the projects are going super well. Beautiful things to be seen soon". Hopefully we get to see something next year.

Just a couple more days to go.