PlayStation
- Board game specialist CMON announced God of War: The Card Game and now they recently launched a Kickstarter for Bloodborne: The Board Game, both of which are officially licensed by Sony. The goal for Kickstarter was $200k…….which wasn’t a problem at all with fans lining up and crushing that goal by contributing $1.6M in the first 20 minutes! You can become a backer and get yours here.
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Sony Santa Monica’s ambitions and risky God of War reboot shook the video game world when it launched on PS4 in 2018, dropping jaws and scooping up awards with alarming regularity. Almost a year after the title’s launch, the studio announced Raising Kratos, a documentary that will go behind the scenes with the studio and detail the thought process and development of the newly reimagined God of War. Keep your eyes peel on PlayStation’s official YouTube channel where the movie will be launching soon.
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Sony of Japan revealed that they would no longer be supporting repairs for the PSP-3000 or PS3 models. The reason for the former? Sony says “repair parts are no longer in stock”. So I guess third party repair shops it is!
Nintendo
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I noted on our podcast that Ark: survival Evolved is fucking horrible on Switch. Like, it’s really really bad and it should literally be a crime to ask hard-working citizens to pay $50 for that pile of trash. Hopefully the more cute and Minecraft-like spinoff, PixARK, fairs much better on Switch….or any current gen system for that matter. The same studio who had the laughable task of porting the original ARK game (Snail Games) is working on the Switch port of PixARK, but given that the title looks like a much easier lift, I’m hopeful it will run much be. We’ll find out soon since the title was just given a May 31 launch date across all platforms.
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A couple years ago at PAX East I played a fun cartoonish Zelda roguelite called The Swords of Ditto: Mormo’s Curse on PS4. Naturally, I asked the developer if a Switch port was in the cards and I got a familiar answer for the time—they’d love to but the game engine didn’t support Switch. Since that time Nintendo’s little system that could has only received more support from third parties, Indies, and game engines and I’m happy to tell you that Swords of Ditto is coming to Switch on May 9. Here’s a brief description of the game:
Roguelite + Adventure RPG: Each adventure becomes its own legend, both distinct from those that came before it and part of a heroic legacy that bind together. The deeds, successes, and failures of each hero’s adventure have implications for those that follow including the ability to find weapons and recover loot from history’s fallen heroes.
- Ubisoft may have discontinued to support for Starlink: Battle for Atlas, but they’re still working on new content. Here’s details on the latest content making it’s way to platforms April 30 with Switch getting exclusive Star Fox DLC:
As part of the free update, players can explore the Crimson Moon, theater of the Outlaw Games. Players will be able to compete in all-new single-player and two-player split-screen racing tracks, fight waves of ruthless enemies in the Crimson Coliseum and see their rank and stats on leaderboards. The Crimson Moon will also impact the entire world of Atlas and let players engage with new faction story missions and weekly challenges. Additionally, players will be able to expand their roster and play through the new Crimson Moon content with five new pilots, three new starships and eleven new weapons available separately for digital-only purchase.
Alongside the Crimson Moon update, prepare to take control of the Star Fox team members Peppy, Falco and Slippy in brand-new content coming exclusively to Nintendo Switch. Hunt down the Star Wolf team in a series of missions with the help of three new Star Fox team pilots, each with their own unique special ability and skill tree. The new Star Fox content will be available separately for digital-only purchase for $11.99 on Nintendo Switch beginning April 30, 2019. - A new trailer dropped for Detective Pikachu and it looks wonderful. You should definitely check it out.
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Video game accessory maker Sweat Proof Gaming noticed the demand for a hands-free VR experience on the Switch and has decided to release a comfort headset strap for the Labo VR goggles. These stretchy and adjustable straps can be attached to your goggles without needing to cut or modify the original cardboard design. The product also includes cushioning for your forehead, nose and the back of your head and will be priced at $13.99 with preorders shipping April 29.
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Nintendo revealed their latest financial results in which we learned the following:
- Nintendo revealed the NES and SNES mini combined sold 5.95 million units.
- The company also revealed Super Smash Bros Ultimate shifted 13.81 million units which is more than the lifetime sales of the Wii U.
- Through March 31, Switch has sold 34.74 million units. That puts it above the N64, which sold 32.93 units in total.compared to the SNES at 49.10 million units and 61.91 million units for the original NES.
Xbox
- Minecraft received a new update across all platforms, including Java, which adds a lot of new features. Too many to list here, but can read them all here.
Industry News
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Assassin’s Creed Odyssey received a new expansion titled The Fate of Atlantis and it fully embraces some of the more weird and far-fetched ideas in the series, from alien gods to holographic prisons.
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So, uhhh, Anthem just got a major kick to the nuts. The entire Anthem roadmap is now delayed. BioWare delivered on practically nothing that was supposed to release in April other than this week’s lackluster Stronghold and a live event or two. Now everything else that fans assumed would not be crammed into the final week of the month has been delayed from things like a mastery system, guilds, leaderboards, various freeplay events, and more legendary missions. Oh, and how could I forget May’s Cataclysm, which BioWare will now talk about in May, but almost certainly won’t be out that same month. To make matters worse, there’s no revised roadmap and no dates for anything.
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Respawn Entertainment, perhaps best known currently for Apex Legends, has seen a decline in player count and viewership due to a lack of weekly updates. Executive Producer Dave McCoy said in a blog statement that the team will be doing seasonal updates in order to keep the dev team healthy and happy. He wants to avoid the all too common industry crunch.
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Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said that the company would end the practice of securing exclusive game releases for its store if Valve, the company behind Steam, started matching Epic’s revenue share for developers and publishers.
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China revealed details on the new restrictions and requirements for games looking to be released in the country and, uhh, it doesn’t look good for Mortal Kombat 11. There are three genres of games that will no longer be allowed, including gambling titles such as Mahjong and Poker, games that deal with the country’s imperial history, and games featuring corpses and blood—of any color. Simply changing the color of blood to green and calling it slime or sweat isn’t going to cut it anymore. Other restrictions include requesting publishers to change how their titles promote Chinese values and culture so that if they become popular around the world, they’ll portray the country in a favorable light.
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VR is getting its own press conference at E3 thanks to the folks at UploadVR as well as the crew at Kinda Funny.
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If you’ve been waiting for Shakedown Miami to come out, you don’t have to wait long. Developer Vblank announced the game is releasing on May 7 for PC (via Epic Games Store), PS4, Switch, and Vita (I know) for $19.99.
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Stardew Valley is set to get some new free content in an upcoming 1.4 patch. According to the game’s sole developer, ConcernedApe, the new update will be “packed with new stuff” including quality of life features, aiming to make the whole experience more fun. Sounds good to us.
