Main Events of the Weekend (May 17-18)

Forbes has discovered that morale at Bungie is at an all-time low, Activision has ceased support for Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile a year and two months after its release, and the online presence of House Flipper 2 on Steam has grown nearly 12-fold — here's a recap of the major events in the gaming industry over the past weekend.

Marathon

Bungie employees are deeply concerned about the future of the extraction shooter Marathon and the studio itself, reports Forbes, citing sources. The initial cause for concern was the negative feedback from the game's alpha test, followed by a scandal over design plagiarism. According to Forbes, the studio cannot afford a failure with Marathon. Therefore, in early May, they decided to cancel a major marketing campaign that was supposed to start in June with the launch of pre-orders and completely overhaul their approach to promoting the title. It is also expected that Bungie will cancel the planned beta test in August and instead conduct a series of public tests at another time. Whether they will delay the release is unknown. According to Forbes, the studio's rank-and-file employees don't even joke about a delay, but it's quite possible such discussions are happening among management.
Activision announced that Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile attracted fewer players than expected. As a result, the company decided to discontinue support for the project — it will be removed from mobile stores today. Users who already downloaded the game will still be able to play, but they will no longer receive new content and will lose all social features. Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile launched on March 21, 2024. According to AppMagic data, since then, the shooter has generated $17.1 million in net IAP revenue and garnered 43 million downloads.
The French publisher Microids announced Syberia Remastered — a remaster of the first installment of the iconic adventure game by Benoît Sokal. Microids is working on it in collaboration with Virtuallyz Gaming. According to the company, the game will feature improved graphics, reimagined puzzles, modernized controls, and an updated user interface. Syberia Remastered is set to release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series in the fourth quarter of 2025.
The renovation simulator House Flipper 2 broke its all-time high for concurrent users on Steam — on the evening of May 18, the number of simultaneous players reached 21,945. For comparison, the previous record was slightly over 18,000, set on the game's release day on December 14, 2023. Notably, in recent months, the daily online presence of the Steam version of House Flipper 2 rarely exceeded 2,000–3,000 players. For instance, on Wednesday, May 14, it was only 1,873 players — 11.7 times below the new record. This sharp increase in popularity was achieved thanks to a free weekend event and the introduction of a cooperative mode.