Electronic Arts responded to the tragic death of George Floyd, and broader racial injustice, with a plan to donate cash and employee time toward finding a solution.
In a letter to employees this week, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the company will donate $1 million to several organizations, including the Equal Justice Initiative and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Wilson said the balance of the donations will be given to other organizations, which have yet to be selected, that fight racial injustice in the U.S. EA will also double the funds employees donate to organizations through the month of June.
Wilson’s letter comes amid a growing crisis around the U.S. as Black Americans seek a solution to racial injustice after Floyd’s death last month. Protests have sprung up across cities in the U.S., with calls for change and justice.
The video game industry has proven especially active in its support of that effort. EA planned to unveil Madden NFL 21 on Monday but delayed the announcement so the world could focus on addressing racism. Sony planned to hold a PlayStation 5 event this week to unveil games slated for the console but canceled the event for the same reason. Many other game companies have taken to Twitter to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement.
In addition to donating money to the effort, Wilson said EA will also be giving employees an additional paid day off each year that they can use to volunteer for charities in their communities.
“With all of our employees around the world, that will represent more than 75,000 hours applied to the change we can make,” Wilson told employees. “In the coming days, we’ll share a list of volunteer activities focused on fighting racial injustice, most of which can be undertaken from home while we still follow pandemic health guidelines.”
On June 9, EA plans to hold a Community Conversation, where employees can share ideas for battling bias, discrimination, and injustice, Wilson said.
“Black Lives Matter. Racial justice matters,” he wrote. “We’ve long held equality, inclusion, and diversity at the center of our beliefs at Electronic Arts. Let’s stand together, act together, and drive change together.”
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.