Welcome back, gamers. I can call you that, right? Cool. Anyway, this is Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku’s daily round-up of news and other stuff you might care about. Today, we have more layoffs, Unreal Engine 5 optimization information, details on how Black Myth: Wukong runs on Xbox, and someone claiming Capcom has tried to remake Dino Crisis a few times, but keeps failing. Oh, and congrats, internet, you bullied Cracker Barrel hard enough that it’s not changing its logo after all.
Capcom leaker claims the publisher has been trying and failing to remake Dino Crisis
Fans have been begging Capcom for a new Dino Crisis for many, many years, and it just hasn’t happened. Even when Capcom publishes a game with dinosaurs, it’s not actually the one fans really want. But it sounds like the lack of Dino Crisis isn’t because Capcom has given up on the series. According to reliable Capcom leaker Dusk Golem, Capcom has actually tried twice before to revive the dinosaur-themed horror franchise.
The leaker claims that Capcom Vancouver, the studio that developed all of the Dead Rising sequels, was working on a remake of Dino Crisis before the studio was closed. Another version was apparently being worked on by an unnamed studio at a later date, but was canned because it “wasn’t turning out so good.” So Capcom is reportedly trying, but struggling, to make more Dino Crisis. Hopefully, in the same way Capcom got Resident Evil back on track with RE7, the publisher can get Dino Crisis going again.
Black Myth: Wukong‘s Xbox port is very different than the PS5 version
Here’s something odd: Black Myth: Wukong on Xbox Series X and Series S looks quite different from the PS5 version. According to a new analysis video from Digital Foundry, Wukong on Xbox can look extremely different due to the fact that the game doesn’t use frame-gen tech like the PS5 does in some modes.
This can create a cleaner image. But it also lacks some of the fancier lighting techniques seen in the PS5 port, which can result in a drastically different image as well. The Xbox version also has other quirks that, in some modes, lead to a softer image. Yet the much weaker Series S appears to have rock-solid performance numbers. It’s an odd situation in 2025. These days, most games run and look about the same across the PS5 and Xbox. Not so with Black Myth: Wukong.
Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
On August 27, Crystal Dynamics, the studio currently working on the next Tomb Raider game for Amazon, announced another round of layoffs. The news came via a post on the company’s LinkedIn page, which didn’t specify how many people lost their jobs during this round of cuts. The studio says that “the future of Tomb Raider” is “unaffected by this decision.” This is the second round of layoffs to happen at Crystal Dynamics this year, coming after some employees were previously let go in March.
“Today we made the very difficult decision to part ways with a number of our talented colleagues as the result of evolving business conditions. This decision was not made lightly. It was necessary, however, to ensure the long-term health of our studio and core creative priorities in a continually shifting market,” the studio posted.
Epic boss says devs need more Unreal Engine 5 education to avoid optimization issues
There has been a lot of criticism aimed at video game development engine Unreal 5 over the last year or so, as some believe it isn’t optimized properly. Epic boss Tim Sweeney pushed back on these claims during an interview that happened at the recent Unreal Fest in South Korea. The boss blamed “order of development” for games running poorly on consoles and PC.
“Many studios build for top-tier hardware first and leave optimization and low-spec testing for the end,” said Sweeney. “Ideally, optimization should begin early—before full content build-out. We’re doing two things: strengthening engine support with more automated optimization across devices, and expanding developer education so ‘optimize early’ becomes standard practice. If needed, our engineers can step in.”
Laid-off Black Panther game devs join Wizards of the Coast
Wizards of the Coast president John Hight revealed, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, that a team of developers who were previously working on EA’s Black Panther game, which was canned earlier this year, have joined the company to work on a new project. The team of former Cliffhanger devs is led by creative director Michael de Plater, a veteran dev whose resume includes Shadow of Mordor and Rome: Total War.
“We were actually able to bring [de Plater] and 14 key people that he’s worked with there – and many of them at Monolith – to incubate a new game for us,” Hight told the outlet. “He’ll be starting concept development on something very cool and new – and that part I can’t tell you yet.”
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