The analysts have seen enough: Call of Duty‘s having a bad year. Also Helldivers 2 is sending players into lava pits and a major Elder Scrolls fan game gets another understandable delay. It’s the latest edition of Morning Checkpoint, our daily roundup of gaming news and culture. It’s a big day for new game releases with Metroid Prime 4, Octopath Traveler 0, and Routine all coming out at the same time. I wish I could find the time! Instead, I’ll be busy facing new bosses in Elden Ring Nightreign‘s first DLC and muddling my way through a good but all-too-brief new Destiny 2 Star Wars campaign called Renegades.
The biggest Elder Scrolls mod project going gets another delay
Skyblivion, to almost no one’s surprise, won’t make its planned 2025 release date after all. The long-standing fan project that recreates The Elder Scrolls IV inside Skyrim using the latter’s engine needs a bit more time to cook. Considering it’s the work of over 70 unpaid volunteers, I think the wait is understandable. Plus, it will give it more of a buffer from Bethesda’s own Oblivion Remastered launch earlier this year.
Sony is publishing JJ Abrams’ production company’s first game developed by Left 4 Dead’s director
It’s a buzzy mouthful indeed. Here’s the press release: “Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) today announced a partnership with video game studio Bad Robot Games, a division of Bad Robot, the film, television and theater production company founded by JJ Abrams, for SIE to produce and publish the studio’s upcoming project, an unannounced four-player, cooperative shooter directed by Mike Booth (Left 4 Dead).”
The game will come to PS5 and PC, but there’s currently no other information known about it. Maybe a tease at The Game Awards?
“Fewer people are playing Call of Duty this year than they have been before”
That’s according to Chris Dring of The Game Business who spoke to Eurogamer about the relative crickets around Black Ops 7‘s launch. Activision hasn’t shared any hard data on player counts or sales figures, though the metrics analysts are tracking and estimating sound much worse than usual.
“But actually, I track daily active users, and all year Call of Duty‘s numbers have been quite low-lower than usual. There have been some exceptions though, January was great coming off Black Ops 6, there was a boost in April / May, but generally speaking, fewer people are playing Call of Duty this year than they have been before,” Dring said. “That’s despite Black Ops 6 as the previous game being brilliant in people’s eyes. In fact, in September, it was the lowest point I’ve seen Call of Duty since the launch of their Call of Duty HQ.”
He and Alinea Analytics’ Rhys Elliot blame a lack of innovation, a bad, always-online campaign, poor marketing, lots of competition in the shooter space, and general franchise burnout for the lackluster response. Will any of that actually stop Black Ops 7 from being one of this year’s top-sellers? Probably not.
Helldivers 2 just got lava planets
The extraction shooter’s latest “Into the Unjust” update has taken players into a fight with the automatons on Helldivers 2‘s version of Mustafar. “Too hot for humans, too unstable for farming, too explosive for tourism—yet rich in minerals,” reads the description. “Minerals the Automatons steal with every drill. Their unsanctioned mining not only threatens humanity’s expansion, but the very survival of managed democracy itself.”
The AI bubble continues to threaten gaming
SSD and RAM maker Micron announced it’s getting out of the consumer business to focus on manufacturing for companies’ AI computing needs. “The AI-driven growth in the data center has led to a surge in demand for memory and storage. Micron has made the difficult decision to exit the Crucial consumer business in order to improve supply and support for our larger, strategic customers in faster-growing segments,” said Chief Business Officer Sumit Sadana in a statement.
The news comes as wider RAM shortages seem poised to jack up the prices of PC and console gaming even further, with pricing pressure hitting companies like AMD which is already the confirmed tech partner for PlayStation 6, Steam Machine, and the next-gen Xbox.
Hideo Kojima will talk about going indie at GDC 2026
The Death Stranding 2 director was named the keynote speaker for a talk titled “Restarting from Zero: A Message to Creators Considering Independence.” Scheduled to kick off GDC’s revamped “Festival of Gaming” taking place March 9 through 13, the presentation is expected to detail the famed developer’s journey after leaving Konami and the “pitfalls” his team overcame after starting from scratch.
