Category: News

Microsoft starts the year boldly

Microsoft held an event called the “Xbox + Bethesda Developer Direct” covering 5 upcoming titles. A 4v4 PvP mode for the upcoming Minecraft Legends was shown off mixing up action, base building and strategy. Arkane’s upcoming multiplayer vampire survival game Redfall got a release date of May 2, the next Forza Motorsport showed off the goods with 500 cars included and The Elder Scrolls Online got a timeframe of June for its next expansion based in Morrowind titled Necrom. But perhaps the biggest announcement of the event was the simultaneous reveal and release of Tango Gameworks’ new game. The Evil Within and Ghostwire Tokyo developer surprised viewers with Hi-Fi Rush a bright and colourful 3^rd person character action game crossed with a rhythm game. The environment and action all operates at the beat of the music player that has been mistakenly embedded in the protagonists chest.

Australian Government to re-establish Interactive Games Fund

The National Minister for the Arts, Tony Burke, has announced the return of the government’s Interactive game fund.

‘All forms of storytellers now – whether it’s narrative, visual art, music, acting – are finding themselves jobs in the video games industry. Screen Australia, when you’ve got an industry expanding like this around the world, shouldn’t be left trying to check if there’s some spare change back in the lounge to fund this rapidly growing, AU $4 billion sector.’

‘So we’ll restore the Games Fund for Screen Australia that was abolished nearly 10 years ago.’ – Tony Burke

Labor hopes the fund along with the previously announced Digital Game Tax Offset will help support and establish new Australian Developers for years to come.

E3 Still Ain’t Coming Back

The big three Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft will not attend this year’s planned return of E3. Xbox’s Phil Spencer has said Microsoft plans to hold their regular Showcase at the same time but will not be officially part of the expo.  Sony dropped out of E3 back in 2019 and Nintendo have been unpredictable with their announcements in recent years. It’s a big blow for event organizers Reedpop who have taken over the event to shape into something more suitable for the current climate of the industry.

Tomb Bag? Or perhaps Flea Raider?

Amazon have announced plans to develop a Tomb Raider television show with Phoebe Waller-Bridge who is perhaps most well known for her Emmy Winning series Fleabag which she wrote, produced, and starred in. Waller-Bridge is positioned to write and produce the series but alas will not be filling the shoes of Lara Croft herself.

Goodbye Tess

At a time when The Last of Us TV show is gaining much praise and attention came the sad news that actor Annie Wersching who played Tess in the original game and remake has passed away from cancer. She was 45 years old.

Upcoming Game Releases

Deliver Us Mars (PlayStation Platforms, Xbox Platforms, PC), Life Is Strange 2 (Switch), Tails: The Backbone Preludes (PC), Your Only Move is Hustle (PC), The Pathless (Xbox Platforms, Switch) – February 3^rd

Coming in hotter than a Blue Shell from eighth place, here’s this week’s gaming news!

WOW guy says “wow”… after he got fired

Brian Bermingham, lead engineer on World of Warcraft Classic, has been fired from Activision-Blizzard, reportedly for not participating in the controversial ‘stack ranking’ process. Stack ranking asks team leads to mark 5% of their teams as not suitable to receive promotions, royalties or even continued employment, and it’s a pretty cold way to evaluate team members. Bermingham says he’d be willing to rejoin the team if he was asked to. In completely unrelated news, joining the Game Workers of Australia union is cheap and easy. 

343’s trial separation from Halo

Halo Infinite developers 343 Industries are reportedly stepping back from their committed relationship with Halo. The company will allegedly still have a supervisory role on future Halo game development, allowing other developers the opportunity to actually release a Halo title that makes people happy for the first time since Bungie went off to make Destiny games. 343 has reassured us that they still love us, this is just something grown ups do sometimes and it’s not our fault. However, 343 Industries studio head Pierre Hintze debunked this rumour on Twitter over the weekend: 

“Halo and Master Chief are here to stay. 343 Industries will continue to develop Halo now and in the future, including epic stories, multiplayer, and more of what makes Halo great.” 

Justin Roiland sucks

In news surprising nobody who’s ever had to deal with him, it turns out that Rick and Morty co-creator and main writer of the recently released Squanch Game’s High on Life has been fired from Squanch Games, Adult Swim and anyone else who doesn’t want his stink on their shoes. I really don’t feel like submitting us all to his creepy crap, but rest assured we’re all better off without predators like him in the industry. 

Breaking News: Unpacking is still awesome.

There’s no real news here, just a gentle reminder.

Sony unveil PSVR2 lineup

Sony have announced a swathe of new titles designed to get us excited about their second generation VR headset. The new hardware includes eye tracking and 4K displays, but what will make it really worth buying are the game experiences that are coming in the next few months. A new Horizon game called Horizon Call of the Mountain heads the lineup, followed by VR updates to Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village. I personally can’t wait to buy Tetris Effect for the sixth time and declare it game of the year for the sixth time. 

Upcoming Releases

Get your wallets ready folks, because there’s a-heapin’ of games coming our way, including:

Jan 26 

Castle Shadowgate (C64)

Jan 27

Dead Space (PS4, PS5, PC, XSX) 

Jan 31
Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake (PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, XS)

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Xbox One, XS)

Hitman: World of Assassination [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch] 

Powerwash Simulator [PS5, PS4, Switch] – and the Powerwash Simulator Tomb Raider DLC…wait, what?

DnD OGL Update Aftermath
In the aftermath of the Open Game Licence 2.0 leak, Wizards of the Coast have struggled to claw back their fanbase as DnD Beyond servers suffer under the load of mass subscription cancelations. Additionally, several big third-party publishers who would be affected by the new royalty system have tabled their intention to either jump ship or create their own licensing system. Kobold Press teased “Project Black Flag”, Matt Colville’s MCDM Productions is working on both a new OGL as well as a new TTRPG, and Paizo/Pathfinder looking to collaborate on an open RPG license.
In response, a statement was released insisting “It was never our intent to impact the vast majority of the community.” They also tried to clarify stating that any future revisions “…will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds.”

Activision Blizzard… when will it end?
As the saga continues, here’s the current headlines coming out of the company that can’t stop making waves.

• Activision Blizzard has refused to acknowledge the union that formed late December. Management at Proletariat issued the statement that leadership “…has always been pro-worker“ and that employees “…deserve some time to process (sic) and to better understand its potential impacts.”
• The Microsoft Activision Blizzard merger that was announced in January 2022 has had new challenges with the European Union filing an antitrust challenge and Google parent Alphabet Inc, and Nvidia are filing for unfair advantages in the gaming market. These join other objections placed with the US Federal Trade Commission to be investigated by the Competition and Markets Authority, and finalised in April.
• In some hearsay arguments Activision Blizzard claims that it was Netease that rejected the six-month extension of their partnership. Various sources cite irreconcilable differences including Netease president referring to an Activision Blizzard executive as a “jerk”. Because of these, after January 23^rd several titles will no longer be accessible in China, most notably World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, Starcraft, and Overwatch 2.

Doors Close on Stadia
As the curtains close on the experiment that was Google Stadia, refunds have been processed for everything but Pro subscriptions… but payments were also paused the day shutdown was announced. But what about all that hardware you don’t have? Well, if you did manage to get the controller, Google has pushed a self-serve tool to enable Bluetooth connections with the gamepads. Meaning, your Stadia Gamepad may be obsolete, but at least you can still use it on the hardware you didn’t get because you used Stadia.
Oh! Remember that guy who had 6000 hours in Red Dead Online on the Stadia who was pleading for a character transfer? Well, not only did Rockstar organise a transfer, he also got a gift box from the company. Unfortunately, Rockstar has announced they will no longer be releasing any major content for Red Dead Online, instead focusing on the upcoming GTA6.

And finally, a moment for the death of Google Stadia…

And now, for some upcoming games.
On Friday January 20^th, the next instalment in the series Fire Emblem Engages and its Wave 1 DLC are coming to Switch. World War 1 horror survival Trenches emerges from Steam early access onto PlayStation, Xbox, & the Switch.
Tuesday January 24^th, the RAM-hungry, RPG, fantasy shooter Forspoken is coming to PC & PS5, and deckbuilding & strategy boardgame mashup Mahokenshi comes to PC.
And on Thursday January 26^th, for that nostalgia hit Wonder Boy Anniversary Collection is coming to PlayStation and Switch. The strange Hitman: World of Assassination hodgepodge that collects Hitman 1 to 3 as well as Hitman 3: Freelancer Mode are all coming to PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. Fight the nightmares of a girl in the twin stick shooter NeverAwake, coming to PlayStation and Switch.

Dungeons and Dragons’ new license has fans and creators worried.

Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns D&D announced last year they would be updating the game’s license as they make the shift to One-DnD. Recently the new document, which will come into effect very soon, was leaked online and many people are unhappy with it. There have been tweaks and shifts previously but nothing this big since the Open Gaming License was published in 2000.

It’s impossible to go into all the details of the over 9000-word document but there is now a requirement to register your work with WotC before publishing and to feature a “badge” on your
product to show it is in line with the new OGL. All creators will be classified based on their revenue and those in the highest tier will be required to pay royalties. That’s anyone making over $750,000 per year across all Licensed Works. The majority of creators will not be required to pay Wizards any royalties but there are plenty of other things in the document making them nervous.

WotC will gain the ability to terminate their license agreement with anyone, at any time, for any reason. If they did this, the creator would no longer be able to sell products associated with Dungeons and Dragons and would be required to “destroy all inventory and marketing materials bearing the Compatibility Logo.” To top that all off, WotC will have the right to use any content created under the new OGL whether it is commercial or not. The document states they will have a “nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sub-licensable, royalty-free license to use that content for any purpose.”

The third-party creators that surround Dungeons-and-Dragons has always been central to the game’s popularity and some fans are worried this could collapse that community. Some others are optimistic that the new changes are just legal speak and WotC will not significantly change the way it engages with third party creators. Whatever the case, we won’t know until the new license put into effect.

Battle Royale “Deathverse: Let it Die” temporarily shuts down.

Deathverse: Let it Die is a Battle Royale game set in a post-apocalyptic world where players take part in a battle royale reality show “Death Jamboree” to entertain. It’s a fun premise but the game has struggled to attract a solid player base since it launched late last year. On the sixth of January, the developers published a notice to their community saying that they will be suspending the game to allow them to completely overhaul it and fix the issues they have been struggling with.

Service for the game will end later this year on July 18th, with sales of the in-game currency ending February 7th. There is no word on when the game will return but it seems they are passionate about building the game into their vision.  “Considering how much time goes into developing a game–and that there’s a finite number of games one can possibly make in a lifetime–it’s impossible to say at this stage whether this is the right choice. But we love this game and are proud to have developed it together as a team. Therefore, we believe this is the best possible decision at this time.” Their letter said.

The voice of Monkey Island’s Captain LeChuck, Earl Boen, has died.

Earl Boen, who voiced the main antagonist of the Monkey Island series Captain LeChuck, passed away at the age of 81 after being diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer late last year. Boen was asked
to reprise his role in the most recent instalment of Monkey Island but declined “because he’s retired and he’s getting older.”

Aside from this role his voice was part of many other games including World of Warcraft, Metal Gear Solid 2, Eternal Darkness, Baldurs Gate, and Psychonauts. He also worked outside of video games, notably in the roll of criminal psychologist Dr. Peter Silverman from the Terminator series. After the announcement of his passing many fans shared their condolences online and spoke about their appreciation of his work.

Upcoming Game Releases

13th January:
– One Piece Odyssey (PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S)
16th January:
– Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (PS5, Xbox Series X/S)
17th January:
– Gigantosaurus: Dino Kart (PS5 5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)
19th January:
– Colossal Cave (PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, Quest, PC)
– Persona 4 Golden (Switch, PC, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One)
– A Space for the Unbound (PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC)

Mission: Hitman Changes

Fans of the Hitman series are undergoing some changes in order to create an “ever-expanding” world that could evolve over time. And this next step is set to allow IO Interactive realise the vision they’ve set out to achieve.

Hitman 3 will become HITMAN World of Assassination, and will include access to Hitman 1 and Hitman 2. Those who already own Hitman 3 will get a free upgrade to HITMAN World of Assassination. This also means that World of Assassination will be the only single option to start playing.

“There will be no more confusion over which edition to buy, what content you own, how to redeem Legacy packs or import locations, etc. We’re done with that,” says IO Interactive.

These changes will come into effect on the 26th of January, 2023.

Sonic’s Dad Indicted for Insider Trading

The blue hedgehog’s co-creator, Yuji Naka, along with a former Square Enix employee, Taisuke Sasaki, have both been formally indicted after their arrest in November for alleged insider trading.

Naka has been determined to have confidential information about Square Enix’s plans to develop a Final Fantasy spin-off, and used this information to buy ¥144.7 million yen of company stock, or $1.6 million AUD, knowing that the announcement would cause the stock value to rise.

Square Enix has stated that they are fully committed to working with authorities as the investigation continues. It is unclear when Naka and Sasaki will stand trial.

What’s This? It’s Sephiroth with the Chair!

Kenny Omega, a famous wrestler joined the fray at Japan’s Wrestle Kingdom event in a Sephiroth cosplay, even walking out to his theme song, “One Winged Angel ”.

Kenny Omega has spent a few years in America in AEW, a newer competitor to WWE. Omega however returned to Wrestle Kingdom, which is exactly what it sounds like. And yes, his walk was exactly as cool as you imagine it would be, featuring Sephiroth’s wing, giant screens, and pyrotechnics. Omega also won the match.

Logan’s NFTs

YouTuber Logan Paul had developed a “really fun game that makes you money”, CryptoZoo, where you buy currency to spend on egg NFTs that hatch. You can breed these animals to make hybrids, and eventually you’re supposed to be able to cash out money. Members of Paul’s team ended up selling their currency early to make millions, while fans ended up losing thousands.

Logan Paul did address accusations of CryptoZoo being a scam by attempting to discredit his critics, such as investigative YouTuber Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen, who had spent a year looking into CryptoZoo, as well as a slew of scams in the crypto space.

I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

And now for some upcoming games!

January 10

• Flash Party (PC)

January 11

• Children of Silentown (PC, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Kandria (PC)

January 12

• Gatewalkers (PC)
• One Piece Odyssey (PC)
• Rogue AI Simulator (PC)
• Terror of Hemasaurus (Switch)
• Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider (PC, PS4, Switch)

That’s it this week in gaming news

Goat’s stepping on toes, or going for the viral takedown?
Developers of Goat Simulator 3, Coffee Stain Studios, have been slapped with a takedown notice from Rockstar Games for using footage from the September GTA 6 leaks. The now-removed video featured an interview with Shaun, a professional NPC, where he talked about his many experiences as an NPC in games, including in the leaked GTA 6 footage. After being removed from Twitter, it was replaced with a tweet from the company with the following gif…

Act of stupidity or marketing genius? You decide.

Why all the Updates Nintendo?
You may have noticed the recent slew of updates hitting some old and new favourites from Nintendo, coming with the patch notes;

“Several issues have been addressed to improve the gameplay experience.”

These patches have been pushed for many games such as Mario Kart 7 for 3DS, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Splatoon 2&3, ARMS, Super Mario Maker 2, Nintendo Switch Sports and are probably needed for many more. This patch is actually to prevent an exploit called “ENLBufferPwn” which allowed full takeover of the system without detection through security holes in online play, allowing access to saved payment information, as well as in-built peripherals such as cameras and microphones. The worst part? While the issue is relatively easy to patch on the Switch, the Wii U and 3DS eShops’ ability to roll out patches for this and future exploits will close in Feb 2023, leaving any vulnerability open for future exploitation.

Aurora taking Sky: Children of Light into the Stratosphere.
In a recent interview Jenova Chen, founder and CEO of Thatgamecompany, creators of Sky: Children of Light, revealed that more than 1.6 million players have attended the Aurora Concert that first occurred on December 8. This has been achieved through the intense work of the programmers and servers to maintain instances of around 4000 players, each with emote interactivity to the entire instance and a text based proximal chat with players in their row. Contrasted to other games’ concerts, such as Fortnite with only 40 people per room, highlights the near year of work of the team at Thatgamecompany to make it happen. The show officially called “The Musical Voyage” contains several performances from Aurora where players are collectively involved in the visual space. The performance has been playing every 4 hours since, with the last show to play January 1^st.

Now, normally I’d do games coming out… but since there are none, I thought I’d list some of the games that Shutdown this year.

Long standing tactical shooter America’s Army
Released 4^th July 2002,
Shutdown 5^th May 2022.

MOBA that couldn’t break League of Legends’ hold Heroes of Newerth
Released 12^th May 2010,
Shutdown 20^th June 2022.

Fantasy MMO Tera, who’s developers just wanted to move on,
Released 25^th January 2011,
Shutdown 30^th June 2022.

Car sim Project Cars 1 & 2 succumbed to car and track licence expiry date blues,
With one released 6^th May 2015,
Shutdown 3^rd October 2022

And two released 21^st September 2017,
Shutdown 21^st September 2022

Overwatch
Released 3^rd May 2016,
Shutdown 3^rd October 2022

Just a year and a bit of life, the MMO Crowfall fell,
Released 6^th July 2021,
Shutdown 22^nd November 2022

Free-2-Play Super Bomberman R Online bombed out
Released 1^st September 2020,
Shutdown 1^st December 2022

Fuser, the Harmonix successor to Guitar Hero and Rock Band and reviewed by our own Paul, just didn’t hit the bigtime
Released 10^th November 2020,
Shutdown 19^th December 2022

Square Enix’s Final Fantasy kart game, Chocobo GP… not quite gone, but the store and purchased mithril will be worthless past the shutdown date
Released 12^th January 2022,
Last Update 21^st December 2022,
Shutdown 1^st June 2023

Literally every game that was released for Google Stadia
Released 19^th November 2019,
Slated to be shutdown 18^th January 2023.

That’s all this week in gaming news.

The Not Last of Us

In news that will come as a shock to absolutely nobody on Earth, reliable rumour sources indicate that The Last of Us Part III is under early development.

Naughty Dog are currently working on Factions, a stand-alone massive open world multiplayer shooter based on the world of The Last of Us.

For those who were fans of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series, word is that the IP is being handled by a different developer.

No news on the potential release date of The Last of Us Part III, or the release date of its inevitable re-release on PlayStation 6, has been made official.

Microsoft’s Call of Lawyers

The long-awaited acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft is facing more legal wrangles, with antitrust lawsuits from the U.S. Government standing in the way.

Central to the issue is Call of Duty, Activision’s annual war-loving military shooter.

The concern is that if Microsoft were to make Call of Duty exclusive to the Xbox platform, it would seriously damage Sony’s position in the market.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has pledged that Call of Duty will remain available on Sony’s platforms for at least 10 years, and even come out on Nintendo platforms.

He didn’t say Switch specifically, just Nintendo platforms, so we’re just going to assume that the next Call of Duty is coming out for the original Game Boy.

Dwarf Fortress Finally Comes To Steam

Massively popular indie hit Dwarf Fortress has finally made the move to Steam on PC.

What makes this story special is that the original version of the rogue-like fortress building game has been in active development for 20 years, and has been a free download for all this time.

But what do you get on Steam that you couldn’t previously? How about modern innovations like “mouse controls” “tutorials” or even “graphics”?

Already the game has been a huge hit on the sales charts, with many long-time players buying the game just to say thanks to the developers for working on the game for so long.

Now that’s commitment.

Game Awards Gave Some Games Game Awards Awards

The Game Awards, the industry’s favourite three hour festival of new ads for upcoming games, was held last week in Los Angeles.

Some of the big winners include Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope for best Strategy Game, Stray for Best Independent Game, and Elden Ring picking up a slew of awards including Game of the Year.

Congratulations to former Zedgames host Alanah Pearce for her writing in God of War Ragnarok getting the Best Narrative award, which just goes to show there’s hope for all of us.

Upcoming releases:

December 15:
Resident Evil 7 – Switch
River City Girls 2 – PlayStation 5 ,Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC
The Crackpet Show – Switch, PC

December 17:
Terrestrial – Commodore 64

December 20:
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion – PS4

Games Awards!

The 2022 Game awards will be held on Friday December 9 at 10.30am – 1.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.  There are 31 award categories including Game of the Year, Best Indie, Most Anticipated Game, Innovation in Accessibility and Best Art Direction.

In addition to this there is the game awards future class, ‘50 inspiring individuals who represent the bright, bold and inclusive future of video games’.

Composer Maize Wallen and designer Chantal Ryan are two Australians that have been included in the 2022 Game Awards Future class list.

Chantal Ryan is the Director of the game development studio ‘We have always lived in the Forest’ and produces ‘experimental narrative games and systems built upon disruptive language technologies’.

Maize Wallen has produced audio for games such as God Fall, Receiver 2, Wayward Strand and Cosmic Express.  Their focus is 3D spatialised audio and dynamic music.

https://thegameawards.com/future-class

Pokemon scarlet and violet get patched

A whopping 1GB patch was made available on the 1st of December – Nintendo’s support website stating that the patch includes season 1 of ranked battles, fixing an issue that caused music to not play correctly during the elite four and top champion battle and lastly, other select bug fixes.

They have also acknowledged that many players may encounter issues that affect the games performance.  Given that this has been the buggiest pokemon game ever released, this is an understatement.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/60277/p/989#v110

VR Showcase Winter 2022

The Upload Gaming Showcase 2022 steamed this morning and showcased ‘exciting game updates, announcements and exclusive reveals’.  Some of these are:

Call of the Sea VR, by Out of the Blue, a mysterious adventure game where you solve puzzles and maybe become some sort of sea monster? Intriguing!

Across the Valley, by FusionPlay is a VR farming simulator for those who want their cow milking to be more immersive.

Maskmaker by Innerspace VR is a puzzle game where you play a mask maker’s apprentice.

Survival Nation by Wenkly Studio is an outdoor adventure sim with added zombies.

And The Signifier by Playmestudio is a detective thriller that has you using victims’ dreams to solve crimes.

https://uploadvr.com/upload-vr-showcase-winter-2022/

And now for the releases!

December 8

Chained Echoes for the PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch, NecroBouncer on PC, The Rumble Fish 2 for PC Playstation, Xbox and Switch, Witch On The Holy Night for Playstation 4 and Switch.

December 9

Dragon Quest Treasures for the Switch, Jitsu Squad for Playstation and the Switch.

December 12

Wavetale on PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch

December 13

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy 7– Reunion on PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch, High on Life for the PC and Xbox Series X.

December 14

The Witcher 3 comes to Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X.

And that’s all this week in gaming news!

Loot box bill filed in Parliament

A bill has been introduced into the Australian Parliament, which could tighten Australia’s notoriously strict video game ratings.  The Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Loot Boxes) Bill 2022 aims to have all video games using the loot box business model to be given an R18+ rating regardless of content, which would stop children from engaging with them. Federal politician Andrew Wilkie, an independent, introduced the bill into parliament yesterday. It was also seconded by MP Andrew Wallace.
“By tempting young players with the potential-to-win game-changing items, encouraging risk-taking behaviour for a possible reward, delivering random prizes on an intermittent basis and encouraging them to keep spending money, it’s clear that loot boxes give rise to many of the same emotions and experiences associated with poker machines and other traditional gambling activities,” Wilkie said.

GO423 this Weekend

Saturday December 3rd will see the Game On 423 festival at Brisbane Powerhouse once again. GO423 brings together Queensland game developers and studios to showcase their games to the community. It’s an all-ages event that runs from 10am to 5pm and is free to attend!

A group of us from ZedGames will be there on the day running a Game Dev Hot Seat throughout the day. This is bringing the people behind the games on stage so they can share their stories, ideas and ambitions and dive into the process of game development. For game designers early in their career, you can take the chance to consult with experienced developers in mentor sessions. There are also workshops running where you can flex your creative muscles and a trivia head-to-head on stage to round off the day.

For more information check out the Brisbane International Game Developers Association website, we hope to see you there!

New Gaming Convention Opens Next Year

Australian game fans rejoice! At least those of you in Victoria. A new gaming convention has been announced – “The Game Expo”.

In their own words, The Game Expo is “THE event dedicated to gaming, celebrating its culture and creativity. TGX is all about YOU, and everyone who loves video games. Whatever you love in gaming, you can find it at The Game Expo.” Details of the schedule aren’t available yet but the website promises a full experience of games tournaments, cosplay competitions, shopping, guests, panels, and an extensive game library available.

Most gaming events and conventions run in the later half of the year when the industry itself is more active. TGX is trying to fill the early-year lull, with the 2023 show scheduled for the 11th and 12th of March. The Game Expo will run at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre which is already home to Pax Australia and GCAP. If you aren’t in Victoria and can’t make the journey, it’s still an exciting sign of the growing demand for gaming events across Australia. For more information visit The Game Expo website.

Upcoming Releases

December 2nd:
– The Callisto Protocol (PS5 | PS4 | Xbox One | Xbox Series X)
– Marvel’s Midnight Suns (PS5 | Xbox Series X)
– Need For Speed Unbound (PS5 | Xbox Series X)

December 6th
– Hello Neighbor (PS5 | PS4 | Xbox | Switch)

Ads? In My Windows 11?

You’re probably familiar with the start menu in windows, an easy-to-access feature that allows you to access programs quickly. Well, it seems ads will be joining the start menu, with testing underway. Some of these ads will be used to promote Microsoft services. Recommended website listings, and an ad in the account menu, are already present in preview builds, and there’s more features planned for Windows 11.

Windows states on their site, “We’ve been working on adding more valuable content to the Recommended section in Start and are excited to introduce a new content type: websites.”

PS5s? In My Honda?

Honda and Sony have recently created a new venture called Sony Honda Mobility, and with this venture comes an interesting proposal: a car designed to maximise the entertainment possibilities Sony has to offer.

That’s right, an electric car that’ll allow drivers to always be prepared with music, movies, and video games.

Yasuhide Mizuno, chair of the joint venture, says that the first car model may hit North American markets by 2025. However, a very specific feature may need to be developed first before we can see PlayStation 5s in cars; autonomous driving. After all, you can’t drive and play video games at the same time.

Shovelware? In My PlayStation Store?

PlayStation is cracking down on shovelware games, that is games that have been reskinned, non-games, and games designed just to give people platinum trophies. A letter to developers states that shovelware games will be either banned or delisted, and involved developers are at risk of being banned from publishing future games.

PlayStation states, “SIE strives to ensure that customers can search and discover the full breadth of experiences on PlayStation, and that partners have a fair means of being discovered. When partners oversaturate or “spam” PlayStation Store with many variants of the same type of content, it can negatively impact both the customer and partner experience.”

Monsters? In My Pocket?

Despite Pokemon Scarlet and Violet’s rocky launch, with the games being criticised for glitches, bugs, and generally underwhelming, Nintendo has reported 10 million sales, with it being reported to have the highest global sales level on any of the company’s consoles in the first three days.

However, many players have reported returning their copies due to their experiences with the game, and successfully receiving refunds.

And now for some upcoming games!

November 24

• Dysterra (PC)

November 25

• Horse Club Adventures 2 – Hazelwood Stories (PS5, PS4)

November 28

• Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr: Sororitas DLC (PC)

November 29

• Gotham Knights: Heroic Assault (PC, PS5, XSX)
• In Nightmare (PC)
• The Knight Witch (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Soccer Story (PC, PS4, XBO, Switch)

November 30

• Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (PC, XSX)

December 1

• Dwarven Skykeep (PC)
• Gundam Evolution (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)
• Romancing SaGa -Minstrel Song- Remastered (PC, PS5, PS4, Switch)