Weekly Retro: 6.4 – 6.8

PlayStation

• Upcoming PS4 exclusive Days Gone has an official release date as well as a new trailer. The game will drop February 22, 2019.

• Sony’s latest God of War title shifted over 5M copies in it’s first month and is set to become the fastest game on YouTube to reach 1 billions views, which is no small number.

• PlayStation Now’s library of games to stream has reached 650 and to celebrate, you can nab a year’s worth of service for $99 until September 25.

Nintendo

• It’s been confirmed that Pokémon Let’s Go will require gyro controls for aiming while in handheld mode. The titles will not support finger swiping to throw Pokéballs and instead opts for a simple button press.

• After data miners uncovered various updates for unannounced games on the eShop, Paladins developer Hi-Rez Studios officially announced the game for Switch with a release date set for June 12. The title will be free to play while also selling a $25 Founder’s Pack which includes various game bonuses.

• If you’re playing Minecraft on 3DS you now have access to the Super Mario Mash Up Pack along with the in-game store and support for DLC.

• The Switch eShop received a small server-side update that added a “Featured” section. Check it out and see what titles are on offer.

• If you were one of the unfortunate people like Tristan or myself who bought NBA Playgrounds pre-update, you can now grab Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn free of charge on the eShop.

• Nintendo of Europe’s former president Satoru Shibata has now joined The Pokémon Company as the firm’s Outside Director.

Xbox

• Some new Rockstar Classics are now available on Xbox One via backwards compatibility and are:
  • GTA San Andreas
    • Midnight Club: Los Angeles
    • Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis

Industry News

• Super Bomberman R will have the original voices of Master Chief and Ratchet & Clank as guest characters for their PS4 and Xbox One ports, Capcom revealed, with all new dialogue specifically for Bomberman.

• Shotguns have been nerfed on Fortnite with damage output from 90/95 to 80/85. Jetpacks are also being removed as well on June 11.

• Valve said it will now allow everything on Steam as long as it isn’t “illegal or straight up trolling.” Rather than vetting every game submitted, the platform will focus on giving gamers tools to help filter out content they’d rather not see.

• Apple updated it’s App Store guidelines to ban remote mirroring apps (like Steam Link) that display “a store-like interface”.

• Evolve’s servers will shut down on September 3, 2018. Players can still play the game via P2P connections with one another and all purchased DLC and skin packs will remain available. The modes that will still be playable are: Hunt, Nest, Rescue, Defend and Arena, through Quick Play, Evacuation, and any custom games. Single-player Evacuation, Quick Play and custom matches are also still available.

• Roughly a year after its launch, The Elder Scrolls: Legends has been handed to a new studio with original developer Dire Wolf Digital being taken off the project. Pete Hines, the Bethesda spokesman, told IGN the publisher wasn’t unhappy with Dire Wolf’s performance, but it does see a game “with a lot of untapped potential.”

• Chinese developer NetEase has invested $100M in Bungie for a new project. Destiny will remain unaffected. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons released the following statement:

  Really what this partnership is about is bringing the expertise NetEase has, sharing ideas and allowing us to incubate new ideas. There’s no explicit deal to publish our games in China. It’s more that they share our passion for games, our passion for building worlds that inspire friendships and building communities, and that’s the entire focus of it.

• Niantic will be paying out $1.6M to people who attended the clusterfuck that was the Pokémon GO Fest last year.