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Ubisoft has made a big-name hire at its Quebec office, the studio that most recently led development on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. The Canadian developer has hired former EA veteran Mike Laidlaw, who worked at BioWare on the Dragon Age franchise and others.

Laidlaw takes on the role of creative director at Ubisoft Quebec, but Ubisoft did not say what he’ll be working on. In a blog post, Ubisoft acknowledged that Laidlaw had been consulting with Ubisoft Quebec on an “unannounced new project” for the past nine months, so it could be that Ubisoft has now brought him on full time for it.

Laidlaw was the creative director of BioWare’s Dragon Age franchise for eight years, most recently leading the team on 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition. He also worked on BioWare games like Mass Effect, Jade Empire, and Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood.

“We are thrilled to welcome Mike into the Ubisoft Quebec family,” Ubisoft Quebec managing director Patrick Klaus said in a statement. Senior producer Jeff Skalski added, “We’re excited to have him onboard. He’s the perfect fit for our project and I can’t wait for everyone to experience the results.”

In his own statement published on LinkedIn, Laidlaw said his current project at Ubisoft Quebec is so compelling that it convinced him to move halfway across Canada from his former home in Edmonton to Quebec.

Laidlaw left BioWare in October 2017. He went on to contribute to the Kickstarter-funded RPG Waylanders, but he’s stepping back now that he’s joined Ubisoft. In his place, the Waylanders team has brought on former Telltale Games writer Emily Grace Buck to take over “many of the parts” that Laidlaw was contributing to.

Beyond hiring Laidlaw, Ubisoft Quebec is expanding in a major way. The studio recently opened a second office in the Saint-Roch neighbourhood, while it has also talked about its plans to hire 200 more people over time.

No new Dragon Age games have been announced, but just recently, BioWare teased that it might have some news to share very soon. This week, VentureBeat reported that Dragon Age 4 will be revealed at The Game Awards on Thursday evening, so keep checking back with GameSpot for more.

Season 7 of Fortnite is upon us. The new season kicks off on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile this Thursday, December 6. Ahead of that, developer Epic Games announced that it will be taking Fortnite servers offline early in the morning at 1 AM PT / 4 AM ET / 9 AM GMT as it rolls out the big Season 7 update.

Epic hasn’t provided an estimate for how long Thursday’s downtime will last, although previous maintenance periods have typically run a couple of hours. In any event, the new update looks like it’ll be a significant one, as Epic has been teasing that some major changes are in store for the hit battle royale game.

Just as it has every season, Epic will offer a new Battle Pass for purchase beginning Thursday, which gives you access to weekly challenges and can be leveled up to unlock new cosmetics and rewards. This time, Battle Pass holders will get another incentive; they’ll have early access to Fortnite Creative. The new mode will be available to everyone on December 13, but those who purchase the Season 7 Battle Pass will be able to jump in beginning December 6.

Beyond that, we don’t yet know what awaits in Season 7, although Epic has dropped some clues. The developer has been sharing teaser images each day leading up to the start of the season, confirming some sort of snow theme for the new season. The images have also depicted characters snowboarding and ziplining, while the latest featured a biplane hidden in the background, suggesting that an aerial vehicle may be on the way.

With Season 7 just around the corner, there’s only a little more time to finish any remaining challenges from Season 6 and unlock the final Battle Pass rewards. You can find tips and guides for all of the season’s tricker tasks in our complete Season 6 challenges roundup.

Authorities in Sweden raided the offices of Payday 2 and Overkill’s The Walking Dead developer/publisher Starbreeze today, detaining one person on insider trading charges. Multiple news outlets in Sweden reported today that the country’s Economic Crime Authority conducted a surprise raid of Starbreeze’s offices in Stockholm, seizing computers and other documents from the premises.

ECA communications rep Niklas Ahlgren confirmed to GI.biz that the organisation conducted a raid of Starbreeze’s office. “This morning officals from the Swedish Economic Crime Authority raided the offices of Starbreeze in Stockholm. One person was arrested and items were seized,” Ahlgren said. “The raid is part of an ongoing investigation involving suspected insider trading.”

The identity of the detained person was not disclosed, nor are further specifics about the charges against this person.

For its part, Starbreeze released a statement confirming that the raid took place “due to suspicions of insider charges.” Starbreeze said the company as a whole is not under investigation, however. Starbreeze also said it is cooperating fully with the ECA in this matter, adding that this raid “does not affect” Starbreeze’s plans to restructure its business in the wake of troubling financial times for the company.

Earlier this month, Starbreeze filed for “reconstruction” with the Stockholm District Court as a means to help itself secure its future financial position, though whether or not that happens remains to be seen. During the reconstruction period, Starbreeze will continue to pay salaries to its employees, and overall, its operations will “continue as usual.”

As part of the reconstruction, Starbreeze CEO Bo Andersson resigned from the company, while other members of the Board of Directors also left.

At the end of November, Starbreeze acknowledged that sales of its latest major game, the poorly received shooter Overkill’s The Walking Dead were lower than expected. The game launched in November for PC, but its Xbox One and PS4 editions were delayed. As a result of this, Starbreeze will not be able to recognise the $10 million license fee this quarter that 505 Games is paying Starbreeze for the console edition, which it is publishing.

In the wake of these financial challenges, Starbreeze announced it was launching an internal review of its business operations with the aim of reducing costs and focusing more on the core pillars of its business. Starbreeze said it’s expecting to see “significant cost savings” as a result of the re-focus. However, Starbreeze shared no specifics on how it would go about cutting costs, or if this move would result in any job losses.

“We have initiated a review of our costs to ensure better alignment with our revenues. We are designing a program towards that end, naturally while keeping a careful eye on revenue development. We must focus on our core business and ensure delivery of the company’s important games,” Starbreeze said.

Developer David Goldfarb, Payday 2’s former game director, responded to the news in a statement on Twitter. He called the situation a “disaster,” noting that he suspects management is responsible for the tough times.

GameSpot’s review of Overkill’s The Walking Dead scored the zombie shooter a 3/10. It’s getting mostly low review scores across the board.

“From its restrictive mission structures, unbalanced difficulty and frustrating means of progression, The Walking Dead struggles to justify the time it requires from you,” Alessandro Barbosa wrote. “It’s a collection gameplay blueprints stacked upon one another without thoughtful consideration on how they might cohesively work together, wrapped up in a dull presentation and mundane combat that very rarely excites. The Walking Dead is a mess of scattered ideas and a lack of direction, and there’s no reason to make sense of it all.”

It may have begun in an entirely different era of filmmaking, but the Predator franchise is still going strong over 30 years later. The latest entry, simply called The Predator, finds a vicious alien on Earth’s soil with a few genetic upgrades. Now it’s up to a group of former soldiers to stop it. It’s a delightfully violent action flick that Rafael Motamayor called “a bloody, funny mess” in our Predator review. The movie is available now on digital and is coming to 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD on December 18.

If you’d like a copy of The Predator to call your own, you probably have a few questions. Among them: when does it come out, where can you buy it, and how much does it cost? We have answers to all of those queries below, so let’s dive in.

Digital

If you want to watch The Predator at home right now, you can do so buy purchasing a digital copy. But if you can wait a few days, most of the disc-based versions also come with a digital copy.

The Predator 4K Ultra HD

This version of The Predator comes with 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and digital versions of the film.

The Predator Blu-Ray

The Blu-ray edition of The Predator also includes a DVD and digital copy of the movie.

The Predator DVD

Unlike the pricier editions, the DVD version of The Predator just comes with a DVD version of The Predator.

Predator 4-Movie Collection

Those in the mood to marathon the series (or pick it up as a holiday gift for the action-horror movie fan in your life) can grab the 4-movie collection. It comes with the 1987 original film, its 1990 sequel, the 2010 film Predators, and this year’s The Predator.

Digital

4K UHD

Blu-ray