Weekly Retro: 2/25 – 3/1

PlayStation

• Ni No Kuni II is receiving new changes in the upcoming Tale of a Timeless Tome DLC. This brand new chapter of the RPG adventure includes new characters, missions and battle content to continue building your kingdom. The new content will be available March 19. There is no word on the price.
  • March’s PlayStation Plus games have been revealed:
    • The Witness
    • Call of Duty Modern Warfare Remastered
• Two years after release, Guerrilla Games announced Horizon Zero Dawn has surpassed over 10 million sales worldwide.

Nintendo

• Capcom revealed three Resident Evil games (Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil 0, and Resident Evil 4) will be available on Switch May 21 digitally from the eshop.

• Dragalia Lost may not be huge here in The States, but it sure is in Japan with over $75 million in worldwide revenue—65% of which comes from Japan—the title has surpassed Super Mario Run at $68.6 million and Animal Crossing Pocket Camp at $70.8.

• Generation eight of Pokémon is officially here! This week Nintendo announced Pokémon Sword and Shield which is set to release this fall on the Switch. The pair of games are 3Dand cel-shaded, looking better than any Pokémon we’ve seen before. Everyone here seems to really like the aesthetic.

Xbox

• Sony may have decided to skip E3 this year, but Microsoft plans to be back at E3 2019 in full force, and now, French gaming news outlet JeuxVideo is reporting that Microsoft plans to discuss its next-gen Xbox lineup as well. We likely won’t get pricing details or product names, the report states, but we’ll certainly get some official confirmation of the two devices Microsoft is planning to release next year. The news lines up with the company’s slow and steady approach to unveiling its future console roadmap following the launch of the Xbox One X in fall 2017. Oh, and Halo Infinite is said to be a launch title for the new Xbox consoles.

• According to an article from Thurrott, there’s a chance Microsoft is setting up their own emulation environment that will allow Xbox One games to play directly on Windows 10 instead of needing to be ported to the store. At the start of the month, Xbox Wire posted about ‘helping gaming’ by playing State of Decay. People in the Windows Insider program who had Windows 10 build number 18329 or higher could take part in a playtest for the game. But what was the playtest for, exactly? Thurrott writer Brad Sams, with help from NazmusLabs and Rafael, dug a little deeper. Upon downloading State of Decay, Sams noticed that the game’s assets were downloading from assets1.xboxlive.com instead of the usual Microsoft Store server (serverdl.microsoft.com). This implies that Microsoft is using the Xbox installation frame/service plumbing instead of porting each game one by one. The game installer is also an .xvc file format, which was introduced by Microsoft back in 2013 and used particularly for Xbox One games. The .xvc file format can be installed using PowerShell in 19H1. Lastly, WalkingCat found the new GamingService app installs elements of the Xbox One File system on Windows 10.

• Microsoft revealed March’s Games with Gold titles:
  – Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
  – Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2
  – Star Wars: Republic Commando

General Game Gossip

• I’m admittedly hot and cold when it comes to Anthem. You’ll be able to read a bit more of my thoughts on a piece releasing on Monday, but I gotta hand it to BioWare—they’re listening and making swift changes fast. Not even a week after launch the studio has made changes to the loot system.
  – remove common and uncommon loot drops if you’re max level (level 30)
  – inscriptions are actually relevant to the weapon or ability they’re placed upon.
  – ember requirements for masterwork crafting have been reduced from 25 embers to 15

• Epic is betting big on Fortnite in regards to eSports this year by setting aside a cool $100 mill for Fortnite’s prize pool in 2019. Thirty million of that is allocated toward the Fortnite World Cup in late July, where two hundred players will compete in the World Cup (100 solos and 50 duos teams), and everyone will earn a minimum of $50,000. The Solo Champion will take home $3,000,000.
  The remaining $70 million will be split up between smaller, but more frequent, events.

• According to analytics firm SuperData, Fortnite supposedly suffered a 48% drop in revenue for the month of January 2019 compared to December the month before. The drop was across all platforms and comes at a time when Epic Games had a lucrative month with the launch of it’s popular Battle Royale title Apex Legends.

• One of the most coveted cereal-box prizes in the ’90s was Chex Quest, an honest-to-god video game. I remember popping it in my PC and playing through it and now that I look back on it, the advertising move was ahead of its time, both as a promotional product and as a non-violent take on the Doom formula. You played as the Chex Warrior and your goal was to teleport (not murderize) green blobby aliens who are causing trouble for human colonists on the planet Bazoik. Naturally, you were armed to the teeth with a literal Gian spoon and armor that was a giant piece of Chex cereal. Now the title is getting the HD treatment in Chex Quest HD thanks to a passion project from lead artist Chuck Jacobi with the help of volunteers and the blessing of General Mills. There’s no release date yet, but once the game’s ready, it’ll be free.

• Blizzard revealed the lates character coming to its hero shooter: Baptiste, a damage-oriented support with a heavy reliance on gadgets. Jean-Baptiste Augustin is described as a “combat medic” who hails from Haiti. He was orphaned during the omnic crisis, and joined a military group called the Caribbean Coalition to make the most of his situation.

• Pixelrater-favorite farming sim Stardew Valley is coming to Android on the Google Play Store on March 14 for $8 .

• Final Fantasy VII is regarded as one of the best Final Fantasy games ever made, if not the best. While there’s a Final Fantasy VII Remake in the works, the original is coming to Xbox One and Switch very soon on March 26 for $16.

• Overkill’s The Walking Dead will soon be little more than a distant memory. The IP has had its share of disappointing video game adaptations over the years, and a co-op zombie shooter developed with a rushed production schedule wasn’t what Walking Dead fans wanted. The game wasn’t good enough to stand out in today’s crowded market, and Starbreeze is feeling the repercussions. Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment announced that it has “terminated” its contract with Starbreeze Studios and “will discontinue all efforts on Overkill’s The Walking Dead.” Just last month, the console ports were “postponed” so Starbreeze could reevaluate. The company released a statement saying

  Our creators and their stories are the core of Skybound, and since 2014 we have worked hard to expand the world of The Walking Dead into an exceptional Co-op Action FPS. We did our best to work with Starbreeze and resolve many issues that we saw with the game, but ultimately Overkill’s The Walking Dead did not meet our standards nor is it the quality that we were promised. We are exceedingly sorry to our fans and share their disappointment in the game.

• Square Enix has a recent history of waiting to see if games are a hit before they develop DLC (the responsible thing to do), and when they do decide to pull the trigger, they go hard—I’m looking at you Final Fantasy XV. Perhaps not surprisingly then, the publisher is doing it for Kingdom Hearts 3. They plan on adding free DLC over time, as well as “a paid DLC with several elements all in one batch.”

• HumaNature Studios announced that Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone) was brought on as an executive producer for ToeJam & Earl: Back in the Groove. Culkin and his team at Bunny Ears Games provided “crucial input to ensure the game is a hella good time” with their “wry wit and penchant for satire”. Culkin also “knew exactly what would – and wouldn’t – appeal to the thousands of Kickstarter backers that funded the sequel.”

• Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the forthcoming action adventure game from Respawn Entertainment, will be revealed at Star Wars Celebration during a special panel on Saturday, April 13.

Word on the Street

• Obsidian is working on an interesting looking new sci-fi RPG called The Outer Worlds. The title looks like great judging form its initial trailer and development is full steam ahead with the title expected to launch later this year. Interestingly enough, the game’s Steam page was updated last week with a release date of 6th August 2019 before it was quickly removed the same day. Confirmation? Hardly. Possibly? Definitely.