4 years after its first announcement, Avalanche have posted a statement. They said that “active development has now stopped” on the game.
Contraband was described as an open world, co-op heist game, Set in the 70’s. It comes from the developers of the ‘Just Cause’ Game series. However, in the 4 years since its initial teaser trailer, almost nothing has been heard about it.
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Contraband joins a growing list of games cancelled by Microsoft, titles such as ‘Perfect Dark’ and ‘Everwild’ are such named victims of these cutbacks, it comes as Microsoft continues heavy lay-offs, despite continuing to be a financial powerhouse, recently pledging spending $80bn (£68.6bn) in massive data centres to train AI models.
What are your thoughts on the cancellation? are you surprised with all these recent cuts? Let us know below in the comments!
Obsidian has released the first Patch for Grounded 2. Let’s review the Fixes and changes made.
Just over a week ago, Obsidian launched the highly anticipated sequel to Grounded. They brought a plethora of new content and challenges for us to experience. Now with the first Patch out, let’s have a look at what’s changed!
A Few Key Points:
Acorn Tops are now a guaranteed drop
Wearing Wolf spider Armour will no longer apply venom on regular attacks with all daggers
Bee’s now follow proper sleep behavior at night
That means If you’ve been searching high and low for those Acorn tops, you now will get more regular drops! Useful considering just how many you will end up using, whether it’s in building or for Armour.
And what’s better than the Bees getting some proper sleep?
Check out the Full List Below
QOL & Community Requested Features
Acorn tops are now a guaranteed drop
Created a flow for Steam players to access Crossplay
Updated character icons in the HUD and map
Removed “explore” and “go to entry” where it wasn’t possible to use
User can now hot deposit their haulable on a buggy
Wolf spider fur polish
Major Bug Fixes
Various Performance Improvements (We don’t expect this to fix the performance problems as a whole, but various optimizations are underway behind the scenes. We will continue to work on optimization throughout all of development).
Fixed the issue where the ORC Bee by the blueberry bush was above the skybox and was unable to be hit
Fixed a bug where ORC Creatures did not return to their intended locations after being pulled away (This fix is not retroactive to the save file – Please note you are not softlocked, please go to where you died last to find the ORC Creature Missing).
Various Stability Improvements (Major Stability Improvements were made – in our estimates were expecting a 40%- 60% improvement from 0.1.1.3).
Fixed a bug where Shared Worlds Crashed after prolonged gameplay (Also fixed a bug on the backend that would cause Shared World saves to be lost indefinitely).
Opening Photo Mode no longer causes clients to lose functionality during multiplayer sessions.
Resolved an issue where the sizzle effect persisted indefinitely after saving and loading the game.
Fixed a progression blocker that occurred when saving/loading after defeating tutorial mites.
Addressed a bug where clients could fall beneath the terrain textures during multiplayer gameplay.
[Redacted] now properly descends during the [Redacted] encounter.
Corrected instances where Park terrain failed to render for players.
Key mappings now remain intact after exiting a session, preventing unwanted resets
Multiplayer Bug Fixes
Various De-Sync Improvements
Fixed a bug where clients joined with improved stats
Building Improvements
Various Improvements preventing building on dirt piles around The Park (We don’t expect this to be fixed completely – but improvements have been made).
Fixed an issue where the “S” key wouldn’t respond during build mode.
Corrected naming inconsistencies across various building structures.
Resolved a problem that prevented decoration blueprints from being placed on walls or furniture.
Buggy Improvements
Buggies can now be summoned from greater distances without issue.
Fixed a bug where the Red Ant Buggy incorrectly spawned as a hostile Red Soldier Ant.
Addressed a controller issue where RB wouldn’t function after mounting the Orb Weaver Buggy.
Resolved a visual glitch where Eggs stored in inventory became invisible after saving and loading.
Fixed a scenario where players could become stuck beneath a buggy after dismounting.
Prevented Eggs from disappearing in storage following a save/load cycle.
Eliminated overlapping UI elements for clients loading into a save while mounted.
Fixed a bug that caused buggy loss after entering the cooler.
Hotel Galactic entered its early access just over 2 weeks ago on July 24th. It was met with heavy criticism from its community due to a high amount of bugs and errors being encountered.
With any Indie release entering early access, bugs are expected. Things go wrong. It is a part of the journey. How the developers respond to this matters. It determines how long a game will survive.
Some Devs choose to simply move on, leaving the game as it is, whilst others, like Ancient Forge, roll out patch after patch to repair the damage
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On July 26th, Ancient Forge announced their “Repair Roadmap”
Well we’re now a week on, so Lets have a look at what they’ve managed to achieve!
“4 patches (0.5.1 to 0.5.4) in just 7 days”
“fixing and improving over 90 different things across quests, systems, visuals, saves, and AI behavior.”
“Still deep in the Repair Roadmap, but we’ve also started internal planning for future production content too, to deliver our Early Access content roadmap as planned.”
For The first week, you cant say they haven’t been putting in the hours!
Highlights from this week
Guests no longer get stuck during orders if daybreak happens
Farming tasks can now be cancelled properly (seeds, fertilizer)
Safe validations added for broken dish delivery and farming tasks
Greta no longer gets stuck on benches
Workers don’t drop luggage if dismissal is cancelled mid-task
The Crusher station works again
Guests won’t spam new orders without clearing the old ones
Autosave now triggers after cutscenes, dialogue, quest steps, and phase changes
Guest ship population and kitchen orders now have hard caps
Research tree softlocks and Sell Zone bugs fixed
Textures restored across Raven Lobby, farming island, arcade rooms, and research zone
UI and controls improved in the research tree
Quest guides added for research objectives
Quests updated
We made multiple improvements to the multiple quests, like:
Simple Life
Sleeping Dragon
Farm Empire
Sparn’s Birthday
Law is Law
and many more.
These now flow better, reward correctly, guide the player, and behave more reliably across saves.
Current Goals
Further elimination of loading screen issues based on delivered cases
Polish all quest interactions further into Act I
Improve stability in longer play sessions
Continue improving rendering performance
How Do You think Ancient Forge has done? Have you played Hotel Galactic yet? Let us know below in the comments!
InsideXO is leveling up, and now, we’re diving headfirst into the world of film and TV. Our brand-new XO Screen section is where you’ll find reviews, recommendations, and hot takes on the latest movies and shows, all brought to you by our very own Ben, InsideXO’s Lead Publicist (Film).
Whether it’s a big-screen blockbuster, a hidden streaming gem, or a series that everyone’s talking about, XO Screen is here to give you honest, entertaining, and spoiler-safe coverage.
📽 First reviews drop tomorrow – grab your snacks and join us in the comments, or Our Discord!
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Imagine a high-stakes art heist, but instead of sneaking through lasers, you’re racing against the clock to sloppily recreate iconic paintings using only your mouse, a timer, and sheer panic. That’s Sloppy Forgeries, and after getting a chance to play it early, we’re absolutely hooked.
Developed by the indie minds at Playful Systems LLC, Sloppy Forgeries is a fast-paced, competitive art game that mixes creativity and chaos.
You’re shown a classic painting and challenged to recreate it as closely (or wildly) as possible. The catch? You only have a short amount of time, and so every stroke counts.
As you can imagine this can lead to some pretty hilarious attempts, of which I will show some of mine in this article!
We’ve been playing an early build thanks to a Steam key from the dev (huge thanks again!), and the experience has been equal parts hilarious and genuinely addictive. There’s something oddly satisfying about trying to replicate a masterpiece while the timer ticks down, and everything just falls apart (At least for me!)
I had the chance to Ask some Questions to the Dev about the game, which will be included in a separate article below, be sure to check it out,
“There might be artists out there who aren’t great at traditional video games who will REALLY excel at this.”
The game plays very well, for an unreleased game it feels solid, and it does the job, i was given a painting to copy, and I did my best, there’s a good selection already of over 30 classic paintings, and there’s so much more potential, I can already imagine the competitions to get your artwork in the game, or Merch to be able to get your best (or worst) paintings on a small canvas for your own keeping! There are so many different directions this game could go, it’s incredibly exciting to follow its Journey!
The game Particularly Shines in multiplayer, and with it’s mouse v mouse local multiplayer, it makes it even easier to play with those around you, (although there will be a standard multiplayer option as well)
The game scores you on how accurate your painting is to the real thing, so this creates some very funny moments of panic, trying to get those last few brush strokes in before time runs out.
There’s a healthy amount of Strategy involved here too, Do you go for the broader shapes quickly, or focus on those smaller details that may boost your score? Either way no two matches really felt the same when I was playing, as I was trying different ways to optimise my accuracy score
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Why It works🧠
Beyond the laughs, Sloppy Forgeries taps into that same accessible creative itch games like Drawful or even Skribbl.io do, but with a surprisingly artful twist. It manages to celebrate fine art while also absolutely butchering it in the most amazing way,
The Dev clearly has a strong love for art, combined with some absurdity in a perfect blend, the game also seems to sharpen your mind, you think quick and really tap into your inner artist, i’ve never been good at art, in fact, even in school my worst nemesis was shading a circle! (story for another day) but this game made me actually enjoy it, and want to see how good I could actually be!
As you can see… Not Very!
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So When Can You Play it?
The game is currently unreleased, but it’s already making waves in indie circles. No hard release date just yet, but it’s one of the most uniquely fun party games we’ve played in a while. It’s expected in 2025, so be sure to add it onto your wishlist, and keep your brushes at the ready, this is absolutely one to keep a close eye on!
We’ll be watching this one closely here at InsideXO, and we’ll update as soon as more info drops.
Let us know Your Thoughts below in the comments, or Join the Official XO Discord, and come chat!
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