PlayStation
- June’s PlayStation Plus lineup is actually pretty damn good. PS4 owners subscribed to the service will nab both Sonic Mania and Borderlands: The Handsome Collection. Not too shabby.
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Kojima released a 9 minute tailer for Death Stranding this week and while we still don’t know what the hell is going on, we do know the title will release November 9 of this year. Oh, and of course there are a bunch of digital and physical editions including a collector’s edition that includes a life-size BB-Pod (the capsule with a baby in it).
Nintendo
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Pokémon had a big press conference recently where they made a lot of announcements, so let’s list ‘em all:
- A follow-up to Pokemon: Detective Pikachu is coming to Switch and takes place after the cliffhanger ending of the 2018 3DS game.
- Chine is getting an enhanced edition of Pokémon Quest that will include social features and a player verse player option.
- Pokémon Home was revealed as a cloud-based service that links up with your smartphone, Switch, and 3DS titles (via Pokémon Bank) so all your pocket monsters are in one place.
- Pokemon Go Plus Plus (yes, really) was announced along with a new app called Pokémon Sleep (seriously, wtf). This new device can be used as a standard Pokemon Go device, like the Pokemon Go Plus. When you want to fall to sleep, you put it on your bed and it tracks information about your snoozing built-in accelerometer which can be synced up with a phone for recording. Why use my Apple Watch when I could train a Pikachu in my sleep?
- Pokémon Go is being overrun with Snorlax at the moment to celebrate the announcements.
- DeNA is developing a new mobile game, Pokémon Masters, that looks to be the proper Pokémon experience on phones yet.
- Nintendo confirmed this week that friends can’t play together online in Super Mario Maker 2, citing fears of leaderboard manipulation.
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The dev team behind the popular Unity engine announced native support for Labo VR in their latest release.
Xbox
- Microsoft is readying Games Pass for PC. And the best part is the company has lifted the UWA (Universal Windows Application) requirement. This means games no longer have to specifically support Windows 10 or the Windows 10 Store which opens the door to older Win32 apps like The Elder Scrolls or Yakuza.
Industry News
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BioWare announced details on Anthem’s delayed Cataclysm event. To be honest, I didn’t care to watch, but here’s some of what’s coming:
- will last 8 weeks
- first 2 weeks will be pre-events
- will include 3 new missions
- new area called the cataclysm
- new systems like scoring, inversions, and leaderboards
- new power and new rewards
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Google has made some major changes to their Google Play Store policies regarding sexual content, hate speech, and games that offer randomized virtual items for purchase. Titles now “must clearly disclose the odds of receiving those items in advance of purchase.”
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Journey is releasing next week on PC via the Epic Games Store. The title will support 4K output and is available for pre-order for $14.99 or $4.99 for those with an Epic discount.
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People browsing Ubisoft’s online store spotted a listing for something called “Ubisoft Pass Premium” that was in a now-removed “Subscription” category. Just what consumers wan’t — another fucking subscription service.
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Tristan gushed about Dauntless in last week’s podcast and I’m loving it myself. The title launched with its 1.0 release last week and crossed 4M players. Now, about a week later, the game has surpassed the 6M mark. It’s bound to go up from there when it releases on Switch later this year.
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Bungie revealed the first trailer for Destiny 2: Season of Opulence coming June 4. The trailer shows off some new activities and loot with focus on the Menagerie, Destiny 2’s first non-raid six-player PvE activity. The trailer also shows off Truth, an Exotic rocket launcher from the original Destiny, that appear in-game via a quest on June 11.
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Suda 51 took to the stage at MomoCon 2019 to announce that Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes will be heading to PS4 and PC. He also teased an announcement at E3.
