News round-up: Gunzilla drama, FAA recruitment, Sunset Visitor's next game
And the most interesting video games out next week
Note: Today’s newsletter is a bit different. The planned lead item needs a little more time, but the rest was done. So you’re getting a headless edition. Consider it an easy skim to wrap up your week. (And if you like this format, let me know!)
In brief…
🚫 Amazon is dropping some key features of its Luna game-streaming subscription service, per the company’s customer support page.
As of June 10, games purchased a la carte will no longer be playable and no more games will be sold that way.
Luna is also losing support for third-party game stores (such as EA’s), will no longer sell third-party game service subscriptions (such as Ubisoft+) and will no longer let users stream games from any third-party partner platforms.
🤔 Gunzilla, developer of crypto-based multiplayer shooter Off the Grid and reviver/owner of Game Informer, has been accused of not paying some workers for months, according to an Insider Gaming report discussing Gunzilla workers’ social media posts.
Gunzilla CEO Vlad Korolev replied on X/Twitter, calling criticism of the company “FUD” (fear, uncertainty, doubt). He says the company has been “optimizing costs.” He added: “…to not disrupt company operations, some payments may be scheduled in a way that works for the company’s cash flow — not always for everyone individually. That’s the reality of the world we live in.”
📦 Sony Pictures has signed a deal with Final Destination filmmakers Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein to potentially direct a Metal Gear Solid movie, though prior plans for a movie adaptation have gone nowhere, per The Hollywood Reporter.
✈️ The United States’ Federal Aviation Administration, still thousands of air traffic controllers short of its staffing needs, is launching an ad campaign to recruit gamers, something they previously tried to do in 2021 under then-President Joe Biden, The New York Times reports.
In early 2025, the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency cut hundreds of FAA staff, but no air traffic controllers, NBC reported at the time. A contemporaneous March 2025 NYT reported that Trump transportation secretary Sean Duffy accused Musk’s DOGE of trying to fire air traffic controllers (which Musk reportedly denied).
👀 Epic Games is developing an Arc Raiders-style extraction shooter featuring Disney characters, set for release later this year, according to an extensive Bloomberg report on the stresses and next steps at the Fortnite-maker.
💡 The next game from Sunset Visitor, the studio behind 2024’s thoughtful sci-fi hit 1000xResist, is called Prove You’re Human, release date TBD.
The set-up: “Prove You’re Human splits the main character in two, and you drew the short straw. You’re the digital copy of a person who was paid to test a corporate product. But the product is convinced it’s as human as you are. Maybe even more.”
Early footage shows the player solving those security CAPTCHA puzzles where you need to click each square that contains such-and-such object.
Item 2: The week ahead
Monday, April 13
Moves of the Diamond Hand (PC), the latest from surrealist indie developer Cosmo D, is released.
Tuesday, April 14
Mech/cooking game Dosa Divas (PC, console) and cyberpunk sidescroller Replaced (PC, Xbox) are released.
Co-op pirate survival game Windrose (PC) goes into early access.
Thursday, April 16
Mii-based life simulator Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (Switch), cartoony first-person shooter Mouse: PI For Hire (PC, console), and medieval manuscript-writing simulator Scriptorium (PC) are released
Friday, April 17
Hack-robots-while-you-shoot-them action game Pragmata (PC, console) and math-based dungeon-crawler/puzzle game Towers of Scale (PC) are released.
Generation Exile (PC) a city-building game from developers who worked on Gone Home, Firewatch and Far Cry (intriguingly, none of which are city builders!) gets a full 1.0 release.
Obviously love the long form reporting but also really like this quick round up format as well! Maybe once a week or something?
Today I learned Amazon Luna existed!