Marathon game director Joe Ziegler has announced an "experimental feature" that's currently in development for Bungie's latest shooter. That feature? A duos mode that will see players able to squad up with just one other player, rather than the game's standard trios format.

Ziegler recently posted on X, explaining that he'd like players to test this new feature.

"Alright everyone, we're going a bit rogue here," Ziegler wrote. "We have a bit of an experimental feature that's in development we want to test and we'd love for you to help. As of Wednesday morning 3/18 at 10 AM PT, we'll be enabling a limited time duos queue on Perimeter only to test how the game plays with crews of two at a wider scale."

Last summer, the ousted leadership team at Subnautica 2 developer Unknown Worlds launched a lawsuit against its parent company Krafton alleging wrongful termination and an attempt to bypass a previously negotiated multi-million dollar bonus. Now, a ruling has come down in favor of the plaintiffs that orders Krafton to reinstate CEO Ted Gill to his former position and return control of Subnautica 2's release plans. The judgment also calls out Krafton's decision to use a ChatGPT-inspired legal strategy to avoid paying Unknown Worlds co-founders Charlie Cleveland and Max McGuire, as well as Gill.

The judge's decision has been released online, and it features a detailed timeline of Krafton's alleged actions, particularly Krafton CEO Changhan Kim, who consulted with ChatGPT to find a way out of paying the performance bonus that the company had internally calculated would be between $191.8 million and $242.2 million. Krafton's internal legal team cautioned Kim against following the strategy laid out by ChatGPT, but those words of caution were apparently ignored.

According to the ruling, Krafton followed some of the steps laid out by ChatGPT, including removing Unknown Worlds' ability to release Subnautica 2 on Steam. It also notes that Krafton's actions had the desired effect of bringing Unknown Worlds' leadership team to negotiations over a potentially lesser amount for their bonus. But when those negotiations stalled, Krafton fired Cleveland, McGuire, and Gill.

There's been a lot of demoralizing news about the game industry lately, with a constant stream of headlines about mass layoffs affecting several publishers coming one after the other for weeks on end. So when a company like Atlus, developers of Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, and Etrian Odyssey--among many other titles--notes that it's actively putting efforts in to try to make its workplace better, it's like a sweet, soft song amongst a cacophony of misery.

As first mentioned in a press release and reported on by Automaton West, Atlus plans to make improvements to its working environment starting in April of this year. New recruits will have their monthly salaries raised by 10%, going from 300,000 yen of pay each month to 330,000 yen. Longtime employees and independent contractors working on their titles will see a raise, too, aiming to increase yearly salaries by around 15%.

Japanese companies are notorious for often-harsh overtime demands, though in recent years government legislation has made conditions better for workers and helped curtail the abuses of so-called "black companies." Meanwhile, the global video game industry is notorious for its "crunch" practices that require lengthy overtime from workers to complete a game. Atlus, however, is attempting to reduce fixed overtime for its employees, slashing the hours from 30 to 20 each month.

HBO's The Last of Us adaptation has picked up a prolific Hollywood actor for a pivotal role, casting Patrick Wilson as Jerry, the father of Abby, played by Kaitlyn Dever.

The casting was first reported as a rumor by Jeff Sneider, and Deadline confirmed the news in a subsequent report. Wilson is best known for his work in the 2009 film adaptation of Watchmen, The Conjuring and Insidious franchises, and the Aquaman movies. On television, Wilson starred in HBO's 2003 adaptation of Angels in America and Season 2 of FX's Fargo.

The show also cast Matlock actor Jason Ritter as Hanley, a Washington Liberation Front (WLF) soldier. Ritter's also married to actress Melanie Lynskey, who portrayed the villain Kathleen in the show's inaugural season. Deadline also reported that Season 2 cast members Ariela Barer (Mel), Tati Gabrielle (Nora), and Spencer Lord (Owen) have been promoted to main cast members.

As the war in Iran continues, Pope Leo has called on journalists to "show the face of war and tell it through the eyes of the victims so as ​not to turn it into a video game."

The first Pope from the US said this during a meeting with newspeople from Italy's TG2 TV show today, March 16, according to Reuters. Meanwhile, Cardinal Blase Cupich took direct aim at the videos that the White House has posted recently featuring footage of video games and movies, calling them "sickening."

Pope Leo, for his part, said, "In the dramatic ​circumstances of war, such as those we are experiencing, information must guard against the risk of turning into propaganda."

A free game on Steam is looking to take some of the stress out of World of Warcraft raid nights, allowing players to practice upcoming boss mechanics from WoW's latest Midnight expansion.

Midnight Season 1 will introduce three raids for WoW players to overcome, and the free game Vellum: Raid Night Study Hall wants to help make sure players are prepared. The game features eight practice encounters from across WoW's upcoming Voidspire, Dreamrift, and March of Quel'Danas (or, as Vellum: Raid Night Study Hall calls them, the Annoyed Spire, Gleamdrift, and Starch for Quail-Ganache) raids.

The game comes from developer Alvios Games, creator of the spellcasting co-op roguelike Vellum, and uses many of the same assets from the indie game to teach players Midnight's new raid mechanics. While players play, dynamic tips appear to help teach each fight, and an in-game codex (similar to WoW's dungeon journal) gives additional insight and information.