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(Indie Deal) Improvisation Under Pressure: Shock & Awe
1 Minute of Survival in NO CLEAN START
When stealth fails, survival becomes a matter of split-second geometry. In this brief look at the current build of NO CLEAN START, watch how a routine chase escalates into a frantic, high-stakes tactical scramble. Every bullet counts, but environmental awareness counts more. Watch the sequence unfold:
The Zap: Surrounded and outrun, the player shoots an active electrical panel, turning the environment into a lethal lightning trap that stuns and drops multiple threats. The Blast: With the remaining enemies still aggressively pursuing, a precisely aimed shot at a fire extinguisher clears the choke point in a devastating explosion. The Finish: Out of breathing room and face-to-face with the final persistent threat, a desperate melee kick sets up a brutal, definitive head-stomp execution.
In the facility, you use whatever is left behind. Or you don't survive.
Over the past few months, we've been sharing the systems behind NO CLEAN START through our development posts. Today, we'd simply like to show a small glimpse of the game in motion.
The short clip above isn't a trailer, and it doesn't try to tell the whole story. It's just a brief look at the atmosphere, the pacing, and a few moments taken directly from the current build.
Since our last update, we've continued refining virtually every aspect of the experience: enemy behavior, encounters, weapons, visual feedback, balancing, performance, and, above all, replayability.
Our current focus isn't adding as many new features as possible. It's making sure the existing ones work together consistently and provide an experience that feels rewarding over repeated runs.
We know many of you have already requested access to the upcoming Steam Playtest, and we're genuinely grateful for the interest the project has received so far. The first playable build is getting very close. This September is the goal.
We'd rather spend these final weeks polishing, balancing, and fixing than rush a build out the door. We want your first experience with NO CLEAN START to represent the direction we've been working toward over these past months.
Thank you for your patience, your feedback, and your continued support. We look forward to letting you step inside the facility very soon.
News - Horizon Multiplayer Game Being Rebooted To Remove Live-Service, Next Mainline
A major development has come to light regarding Guerrilla's long-in-development live-service Horizon game, Horizon Hunters Gathering. After negative player feedback from the game's various tests, the Amsterdam-based studio has been "working to reboot the game since June," Bloomberg reported.
The plan to reboot the game involves removing its live-service elements and shifting it to become "more of a traditional cooperative multiplayer game with a story mode and far smaller scope," the report said.
The report went on to say Guerrilla now has through December to "impress executives" in order for development to continue. Due to the paring down of the scope in the reboot, some developers working on Horizon Hunters Gathering are being "reassigned to a different project" that is due for evaluation by higher-ups by the end of the year.
What that other game is remains a mystery, but the report added that a "tiny team" at Guerrilla is now "plotting out the next single-player Horizon game." This game is, however, "years away" from being done, sources said.
What is Horizon Hunters Gathering?
Announced in February this year, Horizon Hunters Gathering is a multiplayer game set in the Horizon universe, allowing up to three players in a group.
It features a markedly different look from the main Horizon series, sporting more vibrant visuals and giving off Fortnite energy in terms of its looks.
Players will work together to fight the deadly, animal-like machines that the Horizon series is known for. Guerrilla has said the game’s combat is “tactical, reactive, and deeply skill-based.”
This was how the game was described upon its announcement, at least. It remains to be seen exactly how Horizon Hunters Gathering could change, beyond stripping out the live-service elements, given the reboot.
Sony's struggles in live-service
Like many other companies, PlayStation pushed into the very popular, potentially lucrative, and very competitive, live-service market by making a number of bets, and not all of them have paid off.
There have been successes, too, mostly notably Helldivers 2. The game sold more than 20 million copies. Sony’s multiplayer game Concord, on the other hand, failed to find an audience and was quickly taken offline, with its studio shuttered. Many are also wondering about the fate of the live-service game Fairgame$, following a number of key staff departures.
News - PS6 Is Still A Mystery To Sony, Including When It’s Coming Out
The PlayStation 5 console will celebrate the sixth anniversary of its launch in November, but what does the future hold in store for Sony's gaming ambitions? Current expectations are for a PlayStation 6 to eventually hit the market, but when it'll arrive is another question entirely. Analysts can only guess as much, but don't expect Sony's top brass to have answers either.
Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Sony CEO Hiroki Totoki confirmed this, saying that the company has yet to set a date for the launch of the PS6. It's not hard to see why Sony is hesitant to do so, given the current tech climate and the vocal feedback to its plans to move to an all-digital future for game releases on its platform. This echoes previous statements made by Totoki, who said back in May that the PS6 release date and price were still up in the air. Several months later, it looks like there's still no concrete answer on how much a PS6 will cost or when it'll be released.
The biggest challenge right now is navigating the trade wars and the disruption to supply chains, as the all-consuming demand for critical components by AI companies has helped create a massive global shortage of high-tech parts that were once easily available and affordable to buy at scale. The situation is already looking dire for 2027, with three of the biggest PC memory manufacturers reportedly already sold out for next year and no plans to manufacture additional components.
Over the past few months we've been sharing the systems behind NO CLEAN START through our development diaries.
Today we'd simply like to show a small glimpse of the game in motion.
The short clip below isn't a trailer, and it doesn't try to tell the whole story. It's just a brief look at the atmosphere, the pacing, and a few moments taken directly from the current build.
Since our last update we've continued refining virtually every aspect of the experience: enemy behavior, encounters, weapons, visual feedback, balancing, performance and, above all, replayability.
Our current focus isn't adding as many new features as possible. It's making sure the existing ones work together consistently and provide an experience that feels rewarding over repeated runs. We know many of you have already requested access to the upcoming Steam Playtest, and we're genuinely grateful for the interest the project has received so far.
The first playable build is getting very close.
We'd rather spend these final weeks polishing, balancing and fixing than rush a build out the door. We want your first experience with NO CLEAN START to represent the direction we've been working toward over these past months.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 08-19-2026, 04:45 AM - Forum: Lounge
- No Replies
News - Rideshare Stimulator Outlines AI Usage After Contentious Exchange With Ex-Wri
After Saber Interactive unveiled its upcoming title Rideshare Stimulater, former lead writer Stella Sacco came forward and said that she had been replaced by ChatGPT during development. Saber CEO Matthew Karch denied Sacco's allegation that she had been replaced by AI, but the company has now shared previously undisclosed details about Rideshare Stimulator's AI usage.
Rideshare Stimulator casts players as a driver who can pick up a seemingly infinite number of passengers and interact with them while getting them to their final destinations. According to the new disclosure on the game's Steam page, Rideshare Stimulator uses AI tools for "voice generation and some localization" and AI-generated passenger missions that can be skipped if players only want "human-written narrative content."
It also adds that the game will have radio stations with "human-made music and AI-generated music," with the latter being clearly labeled in-game. However, Saber flatly states that "the main campaign story, characters, and dialogue are written by a team of human writers."
Earlier this week, Sacco said that she was replaced as the game's lead writer by AI "midway through development."
"They took me off the project to use ChatGPT to write the rest of the text, including planned live updates," Sacco told PC Gamer in a subsequent statement. "If they changed plans in the intervening years, that's great. But again: I was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn't once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game."
Karch released a statement of his own with This Week in Videogames that added greater controversy to the story by claiming that Stella "violated" her agreement with the company.
"Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set. Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready."
Karch added his belief that "our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower-priced title, [will be a plus] for consumers." So far, the game's potential players don't appear to share that sentiment. The discussions page on Steam has several comments calling out Saber for its AI use on this game.
Rideshare Stimulator will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. This game doesn't currently have a release date.
Earlier this summer, Netflix-owned developer Night School released Unhinged, a horror game that was playable on televisions/screens through the streaming app. Unhinged was met with acclaim by players, and Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters recently called Unhinged one of "our two most successful cloud game debuts" during an investor call. Regardless, Night School has been shuttered by Netflix's latest round of cuts.
As reported by Game File, Night School and Moonloot are the latest gaming developers to be closed down by Netflix. According to the outlet, Netflix justified the closures by noting that the streamer is narrowing its focus to games for kids, party games, story-driven titles, or "games with mainstream hooks."
"We see an opportunity to be more focused in our execution, so we are making organizational changes to the business to match those priorities," said Netflix in a statement to Game File. "Games continue to be an opportunity for us to expand the variety of entertainment we offer Netflix members."
This isn't the first time that Netflix has made gaming cuts at one of its developers after praising its work. Earlier this month, Netflix laid off 85% of the staff of Refactor Games, the developer behind a FIFA World Cup title that Netflix identified as the other most-successful cloud game debut alongside Unhinged.
Over the past few months we've shared many of the systems that make up NO CLEAN START: encounters, enemy behaviors, player classes, weapons and progression. https://store.steampowered.com/app/4339590/No_Clean_Start/ Most of those systems are now in place.
Our focus has gradually shifted from building new features to refining the experience as a whole.
A significant part of our work is currently dedicated to balancing encounters, tuning weapon handling, refining visual and audio feedback, improving enemy variety, and making sure that all these individual systems work together consistently.
One area receiving particular attention is replayability.
Because NO CLEAN START is designed around repeated runs, every playthrough should feel familiar enough to reward learning, while remaining unpredictable enough to encourage different decisions. Much of our recent work has been about finding that balance: adjusting encounters, refining progression, improving enemy combinations and ensuring that no single strategy becomes the obvious answer.
At the same time, we're continuing to optimize performance and eliminate issues that could interrupt the experience. Many of the changes made over the past weeks are not immediately visible, but they are essential to making the game stable across a wide range of hardware.
Our next major milestone is the first public playtest.
Rather than rushing toward a wider release, we'd like to gather feedback in a more controlled environment first. This will help us validate balancing, identify technical issues that are difficult to reproduce internally, and continue improving the overall experience before making it available to everyone.
We're getting very close.
As always, thank you for following the project and for the thoughtful feedback you've shared over the past months. Every development update brings us one step closer to putting the game in your hands.
