12 November 2026 By Edmond Tran Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra developers reassured amid cancellation rumours - report. In brief: * Leadership at Skydance Games have reportedly informed employees that the studio's in-development project, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, has not been cancelled. * It comes amid widely circulating but now-deleted posts speculating that it had been scrapped. * The game was revealed in 2022 and notably features the involvement of Uncharted creator, director, and writer Amy Hennig. It has had two public delays. Leadership at Skydance Games have reportedly informed employees that the studio's in-development project, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, has not been cancelled. It comes amid widely circulating but now-deleted posts speculating that it had been scrapped. Per Kotaku sources and corroborated by Bloomberg report Jason Schreier, messages in the company's communications platform Slack saw executive producer Lu Gigliotti share with employees that he had spoken "directly" with the "executive leadership team" and confirmed that there was "no truth to these claims." The Skydance executive leadership team named by Gigliotti reportedly included Dan Prigg, Head of Games; Shawn Kittelson, Head of Creative & Production; and Andrea Benavides, Senior Producer, New Media Division. "They asked me to make sure you all hear that directly," Gigliotti said, while indicating that the studio was "monitoring the situation" and would address things "through the appropriate channels." Further to these clarifications, Kotaku reports that the game is soon approaching an "Alpha" milestone, with one source saying it is "close to done" following years of development hurdles and two public delays. Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra was officially revealed in 2022 as a historical action adventure game set in World War II, revolving around Marvel superheroes Captain America and Black Panther, alongside supporting characters Gabriel Jones of the Howling Commandos, and Nanali of the Wakandan Spy Network. Its full title was revealed in 2024 along with a publishing deal with European company Plaion. It notably features the involvement of Uncharted creator, director, and writer Amy Hennig, who joined Skydance Media in 2019. Hennig was also announced to be working on a Star Wars game. Kotaku suggests that Rise of Hydra was originally pitched as a Netflix game, suggesting a title playable on mobile and smart TVs, before pivoting to a PC and console game. "As a result, its current rendition is light on gameplay, primarily using only one button and lacking significant interaction," the publication claims. "It is also well over budget, and has been significantly cut back from its original vision both in terms of length and content." The news follows approximately 26 layoffs at Skydance's games division, following the US $111 billion merger between parent company Paramount and Warner Bros. A separate Black Panther videogame in the works at EA and subsidiary Cliffhanger Games was cancelled in May 2025, with the studio being shut down completely amid wider layoffs at the publisher. This Week in Videogames is funded entirely by readers, which lets This Week in Video Games resist advertising and commercial interests. Become a paid supporter today and get access to original feature articles, comments, a community Discord, newsletters, and more while backing truly independent games coverage. Image courtesy of Skydance New Media

Tech moves: Wizards of the coasts names president; new execs at Skydance, Pulumi, Marchex and Syndio. by Lisa Stiffler on Nov 11, 2026 at 10:24 am - Dan Ayoub, the past head of Dungeons & Dragons, has been named president of Wizards of the Coast & Hasbro Digital Games. Ayoub joined the Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast in 2022 and counts himself among the longtime players of D&D and Magic: The Gathering. "D&D is 52 years old. Magic is 33. Brands don't last that long because of any one leader; they last because generations of creators and fans keep choosing them," Ayoub said. "We owe it to them to protect what makes these worlds special." Earlier in his career, Ayoub spent more than a decade at Microsoft, primarily with its 343 Industries video game studio, now called Halo Studios. - Farah Ali has joined the media company Skydance as vice president of engineering, based at its Bellevue, Wash., office. She previously spent a decade at Electronic Arts over two stints, most recently as vice president of AI transformation and technology. Ali has also served as an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, teaching courses in software entrepreneurship, and as a technical advisor for Madrona Venture Labs. She was co-founder and chief technology officer of FreightWeb, a Seattle-based logistics technology startup. Paramount Skydance last month completed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), with the combined company taking the name Skydance. Shortly after, the company announced the departure of two WBD leaders from the Bellevue site: Avi Saxena and Tyler Whitworth. - Irene Chang has joined Pulumi as chief revenue officer. The Seattle startup automates cloud infrastructure tasks such as managing networks and databases, optimizing costs and ensuring compliance. Chang said Pulumi's culture and product won her over. "We automate deployments so teams can provision resources in seconds and scale from simple apps to enterprise architectures without losing control or compliance," she wrote on LinkedIn. Chang was previously Postman's VP of corporate sales for the Americas and before that held VP roles at Cloudflare. Pulumi is No. 15 on the GeekWire 200, a ranked index of the Pacific Northwest's top startups. - Marchex, the Seattle-based, publicly traded call and conversation analytics company, has named Travis Fairchild as president. The news was disclosed in an SEC filing. Fairchild was previously with Marchex for 18 years in strategy and business development roles. He left in 2021 to become CEO of Archenia, a Las Vegas-based customer qualification and acquisition company, which Marchex acquired in July. Troy Hartless, who in September 2025 added president to his role as chief revenue officer, will return to serving solely as CRO. - General Fusion has named David Janashvili as chief financial officer, effective Nov. 30. The Vancouver, B.C.-based company is developing fusion energy devices and became the first fusion venture to go public, through a SPAC. It trades on Nasdaq as GFUZ. Janashvili joins from Surami Partners, which provides financial services for clean tech companies, and previously led climate tech investment banking at CIBC Capital Markets. Across numerous roles, he has advised boards and management teams of public and soon-to-be public companies. - Gravity Payments has appointed CEO Tammi Kroll as chairman of its board of directors while she continues to lead the digital payments company. "Her appointment as Chairman recognizes more than a decade of leadership at Gravity and her role in helping the company grow while remaining focused on the independent businesses and employees it serves," the company said. Kroll joined the company in 2015 as CTO, chief operating officer and chief information officer. She took over as CEO in 2022 after founder Dan Price resigned while facing assault and reckless driving charges. That case and a second were dropped, and Price maintained his innocence. - Syndio, a Seattle-based pay equity startup, has two more leadership changes following the addition of seven new executives in April: * Nicole Edwards has been promoted to VP of revenue marketing after joining the company in February as senior director. Based in London, Edwards previously worked at Aries Global, Clari and VMware Carbon Black. * Emma Duisberg has been promoted from regional VP of sales to VP of revenue for the U.S. Based in the Denver area, Duisberg joined Syndio in 2022 from Sense. Syndio is No. 45 on the GeekWire 200, a ranked index of the Pacific Northwest's top startups. - Seattle-based real estate brokerage Redfin has named Andy Swanton as general manager of rentals. He returns to the company after a short stint in 2022 as VP of properties. Swanton has also worked for Opendoor and BYD. - Seattle cybersecurity company ExtraHop has appointed Rupert Clayson as head of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). The company reports growth in sectors including financial services and energy, and offers defense against AI-assisted security attacks. Clayson, who is based in London, joined from TeamViewer and was previously with Fortinet. - POSaBIT Systems, a Seattle-based company providing point-of-sale and payments technology for the cannabis industry, has named Emily Eagon as CFO. Eagon joined POSaBIT last year as vice president of finance and has more than 25 years of experience in finance and accounting roles, including leadership at Verdigris and predictis. - Benjamin Mullins has returned to Amazon as head of program management for the Devices Brand Studio. Mullins spent four years with Prime until 2019, when he left for a role at Oracle. He then joined Meta, where he was head of product for Reality Labs. - Debra Bouchegnies has announced she is retiring from the University of Washington's CoMotion Labs at the end of the year. Bouchegnies is CoMotion's associate director of marketing and has been with the program since 2018. A replacement has not been named. - Aman Dhingra has been appointed to the Technology Alliance board of directors. Dhingra has been with McKinsey & Co. for 17 years and serves as a partner.