Jake Solomon has announced he’s leaving Firaxis after over two decades, during which he helmed the excellent reboot of XCOM: Enemy Unknown and its sequel, before most recently directing Marvel’s Midnight Suns (which is also excellent, if you’re the kind of person who wants to take yoga classes with Blade). Firaxis announced the news with a bit of a consolation prize: A new Civilization game is on the way.

Firaxis’ current COO, Heather Hazen, has also been promoted to studio head, replacing the departing Steve Martin (no, not the comedian), who’d been at Firaxis for 25 years and oversaw the launch of more than 30 titles. Hazen joined the studio in 2020 after a stint as executive producer on Fortnite, but previously worked at Popcap when Popcap was good and was involved with titles like Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled. And Hazen’s wasted no time in telling folks what to expect.

Designer American McGee is best known for his striking videogame adaptations—though adaptation may be too weak a word—of the children’s classic Alice in Wonderland. The last game, Alice: Madness Returns, was released in 2011 and is still available on Steam (opens in new tab), though 2000’s American McGee’s Alice is much harder to get a hold of (opens in new tab).

McGee has in recent years made his intentions clear and public: He wants to make a third game, Alice: Asylum, and has a Patreon dedicated to funding the game’s development (which has 3,224 paying subscribers (opens in new tab)). Thing is, though, the game isn’t actually in development: It’s still in pre-production. McGee released a draft script for the game back in 2021, but now he’s gone all-in on trying to get old publishing partner EA interested in funding it.

Wild Hearts is Koei-Tecmo’s new attempt to get in on that sweet monster hunting action and, while it’s not perfect, there’s lots to like. PCG’s Wes Fenlon mostly enjoyed his time with the game, but a dearth of monsters and terrible issues with performance saw the game limp off with a 63% score (opens in new tab).

I’ve been playing Wild Hearts and, yep, this thing runs badly and suffers from constant frame drops and stuttering. It’s a sentiment shared by the wider community, with the game’s Steam reviews currently sitting at mostly negative and summed up by this devastating one-liner from Katsummie (opens in new tab): “The price is higher than the FPS you will be able to pull in this game.”

“Had a busy day at work cause we are preparing for the release, and I just came home, there’s no electricity yet again due to another Russian bombing,” says one of the team as the video begins. “I’d like to make something to eat, but instead I’ll sit in the darkness and stare at the wall.”

The game was chosen as a more modest project than the studio’s last few games—it’s a remake of a game it first released in 2007, and a linear adventure, rather than an open world like Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One (opens in new tab) and The Sinking City (opens in new tab) were. But that said, I was impressed by a recent demo (opens in new tab), which to me didn’t seem small or underwhelming despite the difficult circumstances.

Due to Russian attacks on power infrastructure, the Ukrainian government has had to institute scheduled blackouts. The developers are forced to work where and when they can get electricity—some shifting ad hoc between remote working and the office based on where the power is, some working evenings and even nights when there’s less strain on the grid. 

“There’s still a lot of work ahead of us: finalising the game, fixing the bugs, and preparing the releases on multiple platforms,” says another developer. “All complicated things that are made extra difficult by this whole situation.”

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It’s surreal watching shots of the team hard at work in the office interspersed with footage of the war: destroyed buildings, minefields, and explosions. Frogwares remains defiant and bullish, calling Russian strategies “brain dead and pointless”, but it’s clear the experience is taking an enormous toll. 

“I have to be honest, we are all exhausted,” says the first developer, still sitting in darkness. “This war started 8 years ago with the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas. We then had two years of severe Covid restrictions, and now an all-out invasion in 2022. I think a lot of us can no longer even remember what normal feels like.”

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Moving from a February release to March or April is hardly a dramatic push, and fans are clearly happy to wait, with the video’s comments full of outpourings of support. 

Even if the game’s not on your radar, the video is well worth a watch. It’s a real window into the remarkable endurance and persistence of ordinary people in an extraordinary situation, and it’s clear that, to Frogwares, the project has come to mean far more than just another detective game.