2 To attract more players, Horizon Zero Dawn adds easier 'story' mode In a win for general accessibility, Guerrilla Games has patched in a new game mode that drives down Horizon Zero Dawn's difficulty.

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  The Dawn of War developers are making a new Age of Empires game Once again, Microsoft is turning to a Sega-owned strategy game company to produce a strategy game sequel.

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  Video: Polishing your indie game to shine bright like a diamond What's the right way to polish your indie game? Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell shares some tips for making sure your game stands out from the crowd.

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  Opinion: Exploring feminist game design in role-playing book #Feminism #Feminism: A Nano-Game Anthology is a collection of 34 short RPG experiences. The collection demonstrates the similarity between feminism as an academic lens and feminism as a game design method.

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  Get a job: Join Pixelberry Studios as a Product Manager Pixelberry Studios is looking for a talented Product Manager to help it make data-driven improvements to its mobile game, Choices: Stories You Play.

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  Sony put the kibosh on cross-console play, says Ark: Survival Evolved dev Though the dev team has it working internally, Ark: Survival Evolved won’t launch with cross-console play at Sony’s behest.

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16 Don't Miss: What went right (and wrong) during the development of Bioshock In this classic 2008 postmortem, the developers behind the original Bioshock share the process of bringing the now decade-old game to life.

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2 Blog: Using data science to understand your players How can you use data science to maximize the success of your game? Adam Fletcher of Gyroscope Software gives an overview of what data science is, and how it can be applied.

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  THQ Nordic picks up Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams dev Black Forest Games Both the developer and a number of its properties have been acquired by the Austrian publisher for an undisclosed sum.

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1 Mass Effect: Andromeda single-player development comes to an end There's been another twist in the tale of Mass Effect: Andromeda's rocky development, with the dev team explaining there'll be no more single-player updates or story DLC.

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  Blog: How we brought Tiny Rails to PC In early 2017, Tiny Titan Studios decided to bring its mobile title Tiny Rails to Steam. Game producer Glenn Stanway explores the process and challenges behind that process.

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  Over 100 'enhanced' titles are heading to the Xbox One X Microsoft kicked off Gamescom 2017 by revealing over 100 "enhanced" titles will be heading to its supercharged Xbox One X console. 

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  HTC Vive gets hefty $200 price cut The discounted package comes with the headset, two motion controllers, and two wall-mounted sensors that're used to deliver "room-scale" virtual reality. 

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3 Blog: In case of emergency, make Burrito Bison 3 We finally broke the glass to get our secret weapon. Here's why and how we made Burrito Bison: Launcha Libre.

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  Playerunknown's Battlegrounds surpasses 8M sales Early Access battle royale title Playerunknown's Battlegrounds has now sold over 8 million copies on Steam. 

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  Blog: Why we made a game to make a game We made a clicker game to support the studio financially and use it as a platform to keep 100k+ players updated about what's going on at Berzerk's. It's like a Kickstarter, but with more explosions.

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2 Q&A: Bloodstained creator's keys to making a great 'Igavania' game Koji Igarashi, who created and gave name to the 'Igavania' subgenre, discusses designing the perfect jump, the drawbacks of combos, proper game pricing, and why his new game will have a female lead.

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  Video Game Deep Cuts: Vectoring In On The Hellblade Observer This week's articles/video highlights include multiple features on Ninja Theory's Hellblade, the enduring micro-indieness of Vector Unit & the cyberpunk strangeness of Observer.

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  Prettying up the Zergling in Starcraft Remastered The Blizzard art team explains how they learned that Zerglings have grubby, horrifying little hands at the end of their spikes.

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  Gamasutra plays Sonic Mania The Gamasutra editorial crew tries out Sonic Mania to see why game developers are raving about it.

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  Get a job: Sucker Punch is hiring a Systems Designer Looking for a new gig? Sucker Punch Productions is hiring a number of designers, programmers, and artists for its Washington-based game development team.

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  Twitch's new filtering options are fueled by automatic live video indexing Twitch has implemented a deep learning-based video indexing platform that filters live gameplay into categories based on in-game factors without any additional input from streamers or staff.

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1 Don't Miss: Painful PR lessons learned on the way to Guacamelee! Developers, how do you best maximize your game's exposure with a limited marketing budget? Drinkbox Studios' (Guacamelee!) Chris McQuinn shares his advice and lessons learned in this GDC 2014 talk.

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5 Give me a break: Atari suing Nestle over alleged Breakout-themed Kit Kat ads Atari has filed a federal lawsuit against Nestle, arguing that the candy maker's short-lived Kit Kat: Breakout commercial made unauthorized use of Atari’s classic brick-breaking arcade game, Breakout.

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  We're streaming Sonic Mania today at 3PM EDT We're playing Sonic Mania and talking about what makes it a successful Sonic game at 3PM EDT.

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