Weekend Highlights (November 15-16)

Bungie resolved a dispute with a writer over plagiarism, Escape from Tarkov was released on Steam with "mostly negative" reviews, and over 2 million people played the global edition of Where Winds Meet in a single day — here's a rundown of the major events in the gaming industry over the past weekend.

• Bungie settled a conflict with writer Kelsey Martineau. Last year, Martineau sued the studio, accusing it of unlawfully using story elements from his works in Destiny 2, while Bungie denied the plagiarism. The parties have now decided to reach an agreement and end the dispute. The terms of their agreement remain undisclosed.
• On November 15, Escape from Tarkov reached its full release and became available on Steam. Its debut was less than ideal. As of the time of writing, the extraction shooter received over 17,000 reviews on Steam, but only 30% were positive, resulting in a "mostly negative" rating. Most of the complaints about Escape from Tarkov pertain to technical issues: gamers are actively voicing concerns about poor optimization and trouble connecting to servers. As for the online presence, the Steam version of Escape from Tarkov attracted only 47,800 people at its peak.
• The Chinese action RPG Where Winds Meet received a much warmer reception. On November 14, Everstone Studio and NetEase released the game beyond China, opening it up to a global audience. By Monday morning, the Steam version of the new game gathered 79% "mostly positive" reviews, and its peak online presence exceeded 193,800 people. According to the developers, over 2 million people played the western edition of Where Winds Meet in its debut day. In China, Where Winds Meet was released last winter — on December 27, 2024, for PC and January 9, 2025, for mobile devices — and has since attracted over 40 million gamers there.