GYGO Cosy: Entire Annapurna Interactive Staff Team Resigns

Hi friends, it’s Zainabb, freshly returned from visiting the raccoon capital of the world for my birthday. I met several raccoons, a skunk, and even a possum, and I’m already planning next year’s raccoon celebration. If you have tips for reliably finding (and/or petting) raccoons in the wild or at ethical sanctuaries, please let me know.

Here’s your reminder to take action for a free Palestine. Resources include The Palestine Academy, the Palestinian Feminist Collective’s amazing action toolkit and my own newsletter, Crips for Palestine. If you’re able, please donate to Medical Aid for Palestinians or Crips for eSims for Gaza.

Annapurna Interactive Staff Team Resigns en Masse

The entire 24-person team at Annapurna Interactive resigned last week after trying to establish the team as an independent entity. Annapurna Interactive is the video game arm of Annapurna Pictures, a film and media company owned and founded by CEO Megan Ellison. Since its establishment in 2011, Interactive has published popular games like What Remains of Edith Finch, Donut County, and Kentucky Route Zero.

According to Bloomberg, Interactive staff had been negotiating with Ellison to spin off the publisher into an independent entity but collectively resigned once conversations broke down. In a joint statement, former staff members described the move as “one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make” and that “we did not take this action lightly.” As of the time of writing, resigned team members have not shared any further information.

Annapurna has already replaced former Interactive president Nathan Gary, and has promised developer partners with the publisher that their contracts will be honoured. Annapurna has stated that existing games and projects, like Wanderstop and Mixtape, will stay with the company, and that new staff will be hired at Interactive.

In other news…

Kind Words 2 will be released on October 7 for PC and Mac. The sequel to Kind Words, which enabled players to write supportive anonymous letters to each other, features an expanded world to explore. Watch the release date trailer below.

 

On October 31, the next The Sims 4 expansion pack drops, titled Life and Death. EA hasn’t revealed many details yet because, before Life and Death releases, two other DLC packs are dropping on September 19. The Artist Studio Kit comes with artistic decor and paint-spattered Create-A-Sim items while the Storybook Nursery Kit brings luxe kids items for your bougiest Sims. All the upcoming DLC packs will be available for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One.

In other Sims news, 2007 spin-off MySims will be remastered for Nintendo Switch as part of a bundle with its follow-up, MySims Kingdom. Both games originally came out for Nintendo’s Wii and DS consoles, and featured farming sim-style gameplay more akin to Animal Crossing than The Sims but with a decent amount of customisation. The remastered bundle will be released on November 19. You can watch the trailer below.

 

Speaking of, mobile game Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is shutting down on November 28, to be replaced by a paid version at some point in the future. The paid version will allow players to download their save data from the mobile app, and Nintendo has stated it won’t contain “any in-app purchases” but further information is expected to be announced in October.

Hobbit life sim Tales of the Shire has been delayed from its original release of some time in the second half of this year. The game is now expected to drop in early 2025, although there will still be a showcase on September 22 (also known as Hobbit Day) which you can watch on Twitch or YouTube.

Shrek alert! PowerWash Simulator is getting Shrek DLC which will let players hose down Shrek’s swamp and other environments from the franchise. There’s no release date yet but you can watch the announcement trailer below.

 

DONTNOD’s next game, Lost Records: Bloom & Rage, is releasing in two parts next year. The first section drops on February 18 and the second comes a month later on March 18, both for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. You can watch the first gameplay trailer below.

 

After recently learning that Cozy Grove 2 is only available on Netflix, I’m heartbroken to learn that upcoming puzzler Monument Valley 3 will also be a Netflix Games exclusive when it releases on December 10. Watch the announcement trailer below.