Thief designer Randy Smith Evergreen, whose credits also include System Shock 2 and Dark Messiah: Might and Magic, thinks we need to chill out a bit when it comes to the graphics arms race. Specifically, he reckons the race should have stopped 16 years ago with Remedy's original Alan Wake, which was quite a looker back in the day.

"The fidelity curve has become outrageous," he tells us. "It's become a spectacle. I remember it was back when Alan Wake came out that I was like, 'OK, this is relatively photoreal. I know 100% that I'm on a ferry. I see that I'm going to an island in the Pacific Northwest. Why do we need more graphics? Because they just cost a ton.' Like, I 100% get it. I've got the vibe. It feels right. What else are we doing with this graphics arms race, right?"

Quite a lot, it turns out. We had high-fidelity graphics that started to look photorealistic, but then it was decided that we needed lighting and reflections that looked better than real. None of these things serve any practical purpose, but now most games that fall into the AA or AAA categories feature ray tracing and a level of fidelity that's not possible to enjoy—for most people—without DLSS trickery.

"I think Alan Wake is the fidelity everything needs to hit," Smith Evergreen says. "Where you're like, I get it. I get your vibes. I can tell what's going on, and everything beyond that is gravy. Sure, would they prefer an immersive sim that's got insane spectacle and gorgeous, Arkane Lyon quality vistas? Of course they would like that. But is it necessary for what you came to an immersive sim for? I'm not sure that it is."

This ties into his belief that immersive sims shouldn't be aiming for AAA—it misunderstands the audience, specifically its size. It's just not enough to justify the cost of development.

"Like, you just have to put more money into them," he said, "make a bigger and bigger immersive sim. It's got to be AAA, and it's got to sit right alongside Ghost of Tsushima and GTA 6, and it's got to be a game that's big enough to capture the public's attention. But I think that might be a misread for the audience size of immersive sims."

This isn't something anybody is worrying about when it comes to Nightdive's Thief remaster, which won't be yassifying The City. Judging by what we've seen so far, it looks a lot like OG Thief.

"I'm super excited to see what they do," says Smith Evergreen. "Nightdive seems very trustworthy, very passionate. I like the projects they're choosing to remaster. So that's going to be awesome to see.

"In a way, I'll be able to play Thief again for the first time ever. I used to say that when I played Dishonored, that was the first time I ever played a Thief game. Because when you make a game, it's just a totally different experience than having played it. But I feel like enough time has passed since I played Thief: The Dark Project that playing a remaster will probably feel very fresh for me. So I'm excited about that."

We're still waiting for a Thief: The Dark Project Remastered release date, and Smith Evergreen is currently working on a project that "you'll hear about before too long".

EA's new Saudi Arabia owners are reportedly looking to shuffle the publisher into a new gaming giant that would combine and spearhead the country's gaming strategy.

Bloomberg reports that early considerations at Saudi Arabia, the supermajority owner in a new consortium of investors that took EA private in a deal that closed August 4, would see EA merged with Savvy Games, a group established by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) in 2021 as the bedrock for yet more billions in investment.

EA and PIF representatives evidently declined to comment on the report.

The report stresses that final decisions have not been made and are unlikely to come until, at the very least, Savvy can close the $6 billion acquisition of Chinese studio and Mobile Legends maker Moonton.

On the Public Investment Fund website, Savvy Games' stated goal is "achieving leadership status in the games industry by 2030."

"Savvy has been growing rapidly since being established, with ESL FACEIT Group, the world’s #1 esports company, and Scopely, the #1 mobile games company in the United States, under its portfolio," it adds.

If such a merger goes through, and passes regulatory scrutiny, it would put EA's sports franchises and Scopely's Pokemon Go – not to mention Monopoly Go! – in the same place.

Buying one of the largest game publishers in the US for $55 billion and then almost immediately pushing it into a merger with your other company – which you pumped $38 billion into in order to acquire some of the biggest players in mobile gaming – would, perhaps, raise an eyebrow in an antitrust case.

The considered merger appears mobile-heavy, but the PIF didn't snatch up EA just for phone games, and this move could land it one of the world's biggest gaming companies altogether.

It could also spell the end of EA as we've known it for years, if you generously assume that this takeover hasn't already settled that. The EA deal stoked fears of mass layoffs at the company, even as EA leadership insists "our creative freedom and player-first values will remain intact," and being wholly merged with Saudi Arabia's very own mobile foothold surely wouldn't settle those fears.

EA staff fear new Saudi Arabia owners will police their games: "Projects just won't get signed because they don't align explicitly with what the Saudi government wants."