The Next Segment Ep.6 – Maxis, Division, Metal Gear, Engines and Final Fantasy XV

Another week has passed and since there was a convention, namely GDC 2015, there was tons of tech news. In fact, there were so many virtual reality (VR) announcements that it sort of becomes white noise at some point.

Instead, the major thing to remember from last week is that EA decided a convention when everyone is at peak excitement was the opportune time to close down the Maxis Emeryville studio. The developer of The Sims and SimCity sees its main office closed after well over a decade of service.

Whether the Maxis names and franchises will live on or not, it sort of seems ungrateful or just incredibly poor timing on EA’s part.

Ubisoft had to deal with its own issues, hashtag major publisher problems. A leak showed extremely poor footage for The Division, though it might just be the capture quality or the outdated build fooling our eyes. We’ll need to wait and see.

Publisher Konami also broke some hearts by announcing that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the last in the saga. Luckily, we got a release date for PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360, as well as a separate date for PC.

Tracing back to all that tech news, however, both Unity 5 and Unreal Engine 4 have come out with a free build. There’s even some friendly competition between the two, with Unity talking smack about Epic Games. Ex-EA John Riccitello is a loose cannon!

Be absolutely certain to check out the video, since publisher Square Enix released some gameplay for Final Fantasy XV, which will have a playable demo for anyone who picks up a copy of Final Fantasy Type-0 HD. You’ll be able to take a sneak peek at some of the game world, as well as real-time combat in a dark dungeon.

Tell us what other big news you had fun talking about this week in the comments. We’re always excited to know.

Daav has been playing games since Atari was a thing and still likes games that look old, but also new stuff. There's no allegiance to platforms or genres; anything big and small can make a ...