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Washington state saw one of the first outbreaks of COVID-19 in the United States and it was this early glimpse at the looming pandemic that spurred Bellevue, Washington-based studio Bungie into action. Located just across Lake Washington from Seattle, as events began to worsen the Bungie team knew a drastic change in how the studio worked was almost certainly imminent.

Over the past several weeks many developers and publishers around the globe have transitioned their operations to have staff working from home. Bungie, however, was one of the quickest, pulling the trigger on its new remote work arrangements admirably quickly.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=We%20probably%20started%20earlier%20than%20a%20lot%20of%20folks”]“We probably started earlier than a lot of folks,” explains Bungie chief operating officer Patrick O’Kelley. “Part of it is we have colleagues at NetEase in China and we were talking to them, and I was really looking at how they were impacted.”

“I was looking at what was happening in other countries; what was happening in the early stages in Italy. I knew that we’d had an early case in Washington state, and I started to read a lot: CDC, other places, about how this might unfold. Part of the role in operations is you’re always doing this kind of scenario planning and the risks seemed pretty significant that we would be in a position that we would follow the path of one of these other countries.”

Early conversations about Bungie’s plan to deal with the crisis happened back in mid-February and the whole studio was informed very quickly.

“I think that’s been really important,” says O’Kelley. “Just to help people understand so it’s not a surprise.”

According to O’Kelley the geography of Washington state meant Bungie already had framework in place to support studio operations in the event of bad weather and the like, but nothing specific to the scale and duration of the response required for the US COVID-19 outbreak.

“We live in an earthquake zone, we have snow days – all those kinds of things – so from that sense we have this fundamental preparedness that we have to have to be ready to work remotely,” he says. “For a while our Bungie network operations centre has been able to work entirely remotely, so that entire team is set up so that, if they needed to work anywhere else, then they can do that.”

“And most of our employees have VPN, remote desktop networks set up; we’ve done that in the past for when we have snow days and so on. That’s really set up to do short bursts of work from home. But when you’re talking about long periods of time, and again we’re still in the early days so we don’t know how long exactly, we’re planning that, ‘Hey, this could be the way that we need to work on our games for a while.’

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=This%20could%20be%20the%20way%20that%20we%20need%20to%20work%20on%20our%20games%20for%20a%20while”]“Then you really have to get into the more intensive workloads that are involved in making games. The workloads, the tools that are needed by artists, animators, engineers, and making sure that they have the set-up in their home to be productive. Fully productive for that long period of time.”

O’Kelley concedes that the process hasn’t all been easy but is full of praise for how the team achieved it in such a narrow window of time.

“First of all I should say our IT and operations team and our people team and some of the folks on the Destiny team have been extraordinary in collaborating,” says O’Kelley. “I wouldn’t say it’s surprising but it’s just wonderful to see how this team rallied and you see the IT team really carrying the studio on their back. We have this kudos tool internally and just see this flood of kudos going to the IT people who have been, person by person, attending to the needs [of staff] and provisioning laptops.”

“We’ve set up these beefy laptops – we call them developer-grade laptops – for people to work from home so they’ve been working really, really hard to get those set up so that we have that basically full-on, workstation capability at home for people. So that’s been one of the hardest things – literally just getting a couple hundred of these machines set up for people to take home.”

O’Kelley explains that ramping up the use of tools for remote collaboration and video conferencing has gone quite smoothly, between what the studio has already learned from having members of its global publishing team based outside the US and the enthusiasm of certain team members who have rapidly put together support documentation and FAQs to help keep communication as strong as possible.

“Another thing I’ll throw out is Google Stadia: it looks like that’s going to be our test solution,” says O’Kelley. “Getting playtests at scale is a hard thing to do – a lot of bandwidth involved – so they’ve been collaborating with us to set that up and that looks like it’s going to be a really amazing solution for us. It’s not something we necessarily thought about initially but it looks like it’s going to be a great way for us to keep getting regular playtests and do it pretty easily.”

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Ultimately the goal for Bungie is for players to not notice the upheaval on its end, but also to help other studios establish their own contingencies for tackling this crisis.

“Yeah, our goal absolutely is delivering on our 2020 product goals,” says O’Kelley. “All the things that we’ve been working on on the operations side is to set up our team to be able to do that. Making sure we get what we need from our community and then also put us in the position to support other studios too.”

“Part of the why I leap at the chance to have a discussion like this is we really want to be out there to help anyone else – I have a bunch of colleagues in this industry.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=We%20really%20want%20to%20be%20out%20there%20to%20help%20anyone%20else”]“We’re gonna have to take it a day at a time, and I’m sure there are certain things where – if we stay locked down for months and months – there are obviously certain types of things that you can’t do, like a motion capture shoot. We can’t have people come in and do motion capture, so that will limit some things that we can do. But we have agility… [and] our focus is on making sure we can keep delivering, absolutely.”

“Obviously it depends on the organisation and what kind of thing they’re doing – and I certainly feel for people in the entertainment industry where they just can’t. There are certain kinds of work that require that entirely in-person work, and that’s tough; I feel for that. I’m on the board of directors for a non-profit local arts organisation and they’ve had to completely scrap their season. It’s heartbreaking to watch that. We feel really blessed that we have an opportunity to keep going.

“I’d say that if you’re in the world of digital entertainment there’s a ton of opportunity to keep working at it and I would say take it in pieces, understand what your priorities are, really radically prioritise, and then do one thing at a time the best you can every day. And then the other thing is take it seriously. The big thing for us was up-front saying, ‘This is serious, folks; we need to actually have people pivot from their job that they were working on yesterday and focus on solving this.’ You don’t have to have the entire staff on this, obviously, but some dedicated people who are entirely focused on problem solving. And it’s hard work; kudos goes to the individuals who literally made a list of every single person in the studio and what their technology needs are, and they’ve been grinding through that list day by day to solve with them. That took time.”

Bungie recently published a post on Bungie.net outlining its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, its plans, and advice for other studios on maintaining staff wellbeing and business continuity.

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Luke is Games Editor at IGN’s Sydney office. You can find him on Twitter every few days @MrLukeReilly.

An all new Nintendo Direct was released today, filled to the brim with new trailers for games on the Nintendo Switch. During this direct, the new Fantastic Four DLC pack, Shadow of Doom, for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, was given a release date.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order released halfway through last year on the Nintendo Switch, with over a million copies sold world wide. While two other DLC packs, Curse of the Vampire and Rise of the Phoenix, have already been released, Shadow of Doom is an all new addition to the base game.

Shadow of Doom takes place after the main story line, with all new characters, the Fantastic Four, facing off against Doctor Doom.

In our review, Richard described Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order as more than its predecessors, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order excels because of its character diversity and the ways its disparate heroes work together…. While it falters in places, but there’s still nothing quite like the Ultimate Alliance series, and this long-awaited third entry makes it a triumphant return for a superhero brawler that feels more relevant than ever.

Shadow of Doom is available now on the Nintendo Eshop, along with an Expansion Pass that contains all three DLC packs.

Full spoilers follow for Star Trek: Picard Season 1.

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Now that Star Trek: Picard’s first season has come to an end, the CBS All Access series has resolved its major plotline revolving around the ban on synthetic humanoids and the search for a new race of Data-like androids. It’s also now firmly established Jean-Luc Picard’s new crew — the Picard Squad — as they head out for new adventures in Season 2 and beyond.

I spoke with Season 1 showrunner Michael Chabon about the return of Patrick Stewart’s iconic character, the decision to kill off the beloved Data (again), balancing classic Next Generation castmembers like Riker and Troi with the new crew, and — of course — whether or not we’ll see Picard’s housekeepers/Romulan super-spies Laris and Zhaban again. Read on for all that and more…

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The Death of Data

In a surprising turn of events, the Picard season finale bring back Brent Spiner’s Data — or his consciousness, anyway, via a VR simulation — only to kill him once and for all. Many fans had been expecting this season to end with Data being restored to life in some way (after his other death in the film Star Trek: Nemesis), and perhaps even joining the regular cast for year two. But that was never in the cards according to Chabon.

“I suppose you could imagine scenarios where, I don’t know, he became sort of a holo like the Doctor on Voyager or something like that,” says Chabon. “Maybe that would have interested Brent, I don’t know. But we understood from pretty early on, in breaking the stories, that in some way it was going to culminate with an encounter between Picard and Data, but that encounter was going to be constrained by what also pretty quickly emerged as this idea that it was only going to be possible in a sort of stimulation. That Data really is dead. That Data did die.”

It turns out Spiner did not want to undo his character’s original death in Nemesis, and so the story of Picard unfolded from there.

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“I guess what I’m remembering as a directive, or as a kind of guideline from Brent, was that he didn’t want us to un-kill Data,” says the showrunner. “That Data shouldn’t be undead, that he died and he really died. And he’s going to stay dead, and don’t try to undo that. So we had a pretty clear sense from the beginning it was going to be some version of what you actually see in the last episode.”

As for that other death that happens in the episode — the end of Picard himself, who is reborn shortly thereafter in a synthetic body — Chabon confirms that there was never any plan to permanently kill the admiral (retired) since a Season 2 of the show was always intended.

“Although it wasn’t announced until fairly far along in the process, for no doubt really sound reasons of marketing and publicity and everything, we’ve always known we had Patrick for at least two seasons,” says Chabon. “So there was always going to be a second season with Patrick playing Jean-Luc Picard. So no, that never… It was not like we were part way through and suddenly we were like, ‘Oh s#!t, we can’t kill him because he’s coming back.’ We knew we had him for two seasons from the start.”

Walking That Next Generation Line

One of the challenges of making this show was to focus on the title character while not simply retreading The Next Generation. That was a mandate of Stewart’s in signing on to the show, and it meant bringing in a whole new cast and setting, ditching the Starfleet uniforms and ships, and essentially charting a new course for Jean-Luc Picard. But Chabon admits that, as a self-proclaimed fan, it wasn’t always easy to leave the Enterprise behind, or to not fill in the blanks of what happened to all our favorite characters in the years since we last saw them.

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“That’s a fan’s impulse, and we’re fans,” he laughs. “So we had that impulse every five minutes. Anytime we reached a question of ‘And then what happens?’ or ‘And who do they go to?’ or ‘Who helped them, or who hinders them?’ or ‘What’s the next stop?’ The answer, in any kind of group discussion that we had — especially in the earliest iteration of the group when it was at its smallest and we were all just rabid Star Trek fans — somebody was guaranteed to say, ‘It’s Geordi! It’s the Doctor from Voyager! It’s Sisko! It’s Jake Sisko!’ It’s whoever. That was constant. It’s inevitable. And it’s totally understandable.”

So the staff would ask themselves, “Is that actually the coolest answer, or the most fun answer? Or is it actually the best answer?” The goal was to always lean into the new and different rather than the familiar when possible. Of course, the practicalities of television production — casting, schedules, budget and so on — also meant that implementing fan service was rarely realistic.

“You couldn’t make the show that would sort of fulfill every fan of every series — not just the TNG fans but our Voyager fans and Deep Space Nine fans,” says Chabon. “There are so many reasons why you can’t make that show on a practical basis. And you’d always be compromising, you’d always be leaving people out, and therefore you’d end up with something that would still be disappointing to some people, who didn’t get to see the return of Odo or whatever.”

Chabon said he would sometimes be surprised by some of the fan requests for character returns that they’d hear — Captain Janeway from Voyager and Dr. Crusher from Next Generation were two frequent ones — before he realized that the impulse comes in part from the kind of crossovers fans are used to seeing in the many official Star Trek novels out there (not to mention fan fiction).

“It doesn’t cost anything,” he laughs of the book crossovers. “There’s no scheduling issues.”

The showrunner points to the episode “Nepenthe” as an example of how difficult such things are when shooting a season of television. That’s the hour where Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis returned as Riker and Troi, but as Chabon puts it, “we killed ourselves” to get it made because Sirtis was performing in a play in London and had a very limited window to shoot in. And that was just to get two legacy characters in one episode, let alone any kind of Avengers: Endgame-scale epic.

As for that episode, which is a highlight of the season, Chabon — who penned it himself — says it came with “surprising ease” when it was time to sit down and write it.

“I think maybe just it was always meant to be a kind of a respite episode, a pause,” he says. “A chance for Picard to recharge. That notion fed into the nature of Nepenthe, the planet itself, and what it is known for. Which in turn led to the story element of the Rikers, the Riker/Troi family having lost a kid, and that’s why they’re there. And in the middle of a long production and shooting season that was in many ways as complex as the plot of the series itself, I think writing it was kind of a little bit of a respite too.”

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Seven and Raffi

One interesting tidbit in the season finale was a shot of Jeri Ryan’s Seven holding hands with Michelle Hurd’s Raffi. It comes as something of a surprise as the characters had not had much interaction up until that point, but Chabon says that the seeds were planted for a potential relationship between the two back in the fifth episode of the year, “Stardust City Rag.”

“That’s something that really emerged through a kind of collaboration, I would say, between the writers and the actors,” he explains. “I think Jeri and Michelle picked up on something that was present in Episode 5 when Raffi is handcuffing Seven, but like stage handcuffing her because it’s all part of this elaborate grift they’re trying to run. And there was just that suggestion of a kind of instant connection there, I think that was on the page and was intended. But the nature of that connection was maybe left a little open and they both picked up on it and it emerged. I could just feel it on the set when they were doing the scenes. It was something they clearly seized on as a key to that scene for both of them.”

At the same time, Chabon admits that there wasn’t much time to develop romantic subplots this season, and Seven and Raffi are basically separated after that episode until the end of the season anyway. But what does that final moment mean then?

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“I think it’s sort of they’re just taking steps at the end, in that last episode, towards exploring something that they haven’t had the chance to explore so far, because things have been so crazy,” he hints.

In other words, check back next season! Speaking of which…

Laris and Zhaban, Where Have You Gone?!

You remember Picard’s housekeepers Laris and Zhaban? Of course you do! They were breakout characters at the start of the season, with their bickering interactions, their kick-ass secret-super-spy fight movies, and their constant doting on Jean-Luc. Unfortunately, they disappeared from the show after Picard left Earth in the third episode — somebody needed to look after the grapes! — but many fans loved them and hoped they might return in the finale. That was not to be, alas.

“I mean, we loved them,” laughs Chabon. “And it was really fun to write for them. And we expanded, particularly, Laris’ role sort of on the fly as we were writing, because she was so awesome. But the degree to which those characters just so quickly became seemingly so beloved was a surprise. Definitely.”

So the question remains: Will they be fecking back in Season 2?

“We have no plans to ignore that enthusiasm,” Chabon responds. “Let me say that.”

Star Trek: Picard Season 1 is available to stream now, and Season 2 is currently being written.

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Talk to Executive Editor Scott Collura on Twitter at @ScottCollura, or listen to his Star Trek podcast, Transporter Room 3. Or do both!

Welcome to Nintendo Voice Chat! Nintendo dropped a Mini Direct this week, and Tom Marks, Brian Altano, Zach Ryan, and Seth Macy are here to talk about all of the announcements. Hear about the latest Smash Bros. DLC tease, new footage of Bravely Default II, and much more.

Then, Casey DeFreitas is joined by Brian Altano, Zach Ryan, and Nintendo of America’s Bill Trinen to talk about their early experiences with Animal Crossing: New Horizons. All this, and more, on the latest episode of NVC.

Timecodes!

• 00:00:00 A quick update from Tom!
• 00:01:17 Welcome! Breaking down the Nintendo Direct Mini
• 00:35:04 Talking Animal Crossing with Nintendo’s Bill Trinen

Also, the special NVC 500 shirt is still available on the IGN Store! You can get 10% off using the code nvc10.

NVC is available on your preferred platform!

• YouTube
• Spotify
• Apple iTunes
• Stitcher
• Podbay
• PlayerFM
• Podbean

You can also Download NVC 501 Directly Here

You can listen to NVC on your preferred platform every Thursday at 3pm PT/6pm ET. Have a question for Question Block? Write to us at [email protected] and we may pick your question! Also, make sure to join the Nintendo Voice Chat Podcast Forums on Facebook. We’re all pretty active there and often pull Question Block questions and comments straight from the community.

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Logan Plant is the Production Assistant for NVC. You can find him on Twitter at @LoganJPlant.

Microsoft has released a statement regarding the impact of COVID-19 on its upcoming exclusive Xbox and PC games. In short, no projects have been officially delayed, but Microsoft has acknowledged that its teams are facing “unique challenges and constraints” as they shift to a work-from-home setup.

2020 is a crucial year for Microsoft and the Xbox brand, as the Xbox Series X is lined up to release this holiday with Halo Infinite as a launch title. Microsoft remains committed to launching the Xbox Series X this year–the company doubled down on that earlier in March. But what impact COVID-19 has on in-development games–such as Halo Infinite, Grounded, and Everwild, among others–remains to be seen.

Echoing Xbox boss Phil Spencer’s previous statements, Booty said the health and safety of its development teams is Microsoft’s “top priority” currently. Additionally, the types of challenges that Microsoft’s development teams are facing are also impacting other developers around the world, he said. Just recently, Bethesda delayed the much-anticipated Wastelanders update for Fallout 76 due to the coronavirus.

Regarding specific titles, Booty said his team is support studio leaders to “make the right decisions” for their games and teams during this tumultuous time. You can read Booty’s full statement below.

Matt Booty Statement On COVID-19 Impact On Xbox Games:

“We know that gaming connects people during times of social distancing, and we are committed to delivering the highest quality Xbox Game Studios games for our global community of players. At the same time, the health and safety of our XGS development teams is our top priority. Each studio is facing unique challenges and constraints depending on its particular location, and many of our external development partners around the world are similarly affected. We are supporting our studio leaders to make the right decisions for their teams and their individual games during this challenging time.”

The statement comes in the wake of Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries acknowledging that the coronvirus situation may get worse before it gets better.

“We’re removing all the obstacles in our path and tracking well, but need to be mindful of our current limitations and understand that the coronavirus situation may get worse before it gets better,” 343 said in a blog post. “Rest assured that every single one of us is doing everything in our power to continue developing and delivering quality Halo experiences while we adjust to this new way of life.”

A spokesperson for Microsoft tells GameSpot that Microsoft has never announced a release date for Halo Infinite, so there is no change to report on for the game’s launch timing. It remains on schedule to release in Holiday 2020, the company re-confirmed to GameSpot.

The latest update for Grand Theft Auto V Online is available now until April 1, and as usual it’s offering a range of big in-game discounts and extra XP. The headliner for this week’s update is a huge 60% discount on the Mammoth Avenger air vehicle, which is stocked at Warstock Cache & Carry. This flying fortress has vertical take-off, turrets, and is very sturdy, so you can get up to some real mischief with it.

Other discounts have been applied across the game. You can currently save 50% on Facilities for your crew to hang out in, as well as the TM-02 Khanjali tank, the Mammoth Thruster jetpack, and the Dewbauchee Vagner vehicle. There are also currently 60% discounts on Facility modifications, the Avenger Weaponized Vehicle Workshop, and the Annis Elegy Retro Custom. Hopefully you’ve been saving your $GTA.

Meanwhile, triple rewards are active on Motor Wars mode, which is like a battle royale with a car focus. If you manage to survive, you’ll get triple $GTA and triple XP this week, so expect quite a few other players to be vying for victory.

Over at the Diamond Casino and Resort, the Ubermacht Zion Classic is up for grabs on the Lucky Wheel. As always, you’ll have to be…well, lucky to nab this speedy new car. If you’re a Twitch Prime member, you can also get a huge 80% discount on the Maze Bank West Office and Mission Row Nightclub properties, as well as claiming a free Pixel Pete’s Arcade (which you can get a rebate for if you already bought it).

It’s a good time for Grand Theft Auto Online, as for once going outside in-game is less dangerous than going outside in real life.

Rockstar’s teams are currently working from home, but they have promised that this will not impact their online games.