Maylee brings us this week’s #GamingNews while Paul, Rani, and Zahra banter wildly and mourn the loss of the glossy mag Game Informer. Paul distracts Zahra and confuses Rani while they yearn for the mines in a review Gluck. Then Paul takes over in the autocorrect special talking relaxation and discovery of garbles, giggles, and squibs in a review of Flock from @AnnapurnaInteractive. And Zahra spruiks the packed and annual INDIE DEV NIGHT at @netherworldarcade with us from Zed Games, coming next week on Thursday August 15!
After 33 years of publishing, the iconic magazine Game Informer has announced it is closing its doors for good. The decision was made by the parent company GameStop in response to increasing financial issues and market changes. It was a complete surprise to the staff who were “about 70% done” with the next issue when they found out. To make matters worse, GameStop quickly shut down the Game Informer website erasing decades of content from the internet.
Civ VII Updates:
If you’re excited about the upcoming Civilization VII game, I’ve got a date for your calendar. Three weeks from now, on August 28th, 2K is promising a first look at new features, civilizations, and gameplay mechanics.
THQ Nordic Showcase
The showcase, which aired in the early hours of August 2nd, was packed with announcements for upcoming games.
The showcase started with the announcement of Wreckfest 2, a demolition derby racing game that builds off the gameplay from the original with new modes, new features, and more customisation. There’s no release date yet, but you can wishlist it on steam to stay up to date.
Another highlight was a new gameplay trailer for Titanquest 2, unfortunately, there wasn’t a release date for this one either, but it still showed off the build system and some shiny visuals.
We also saw more of Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, a remake of the 2010 game with major visual upgrades. This one will be released later this year on the 24th of September 24.
Finally, we got a teaser for a not-yet-named game from Tarsier. It featured a giant pig with intestines falling out of its stomach, who warned “They’re coming”. Who are they? Who knows! But I doubt they’re friendly
Dead by Daylight gets spooky
During its 8th anniversary stream earlier this year, Dead by Daylight teased a crossover with Castlevania, and we’ve finally received confirmation of its release. DBD’s 33rd chapter will release on August 30th and will let players play as (or against) iconic characters like Trevor Belmont or “the Dark Lord” Dracula. While there’s no map coming with this DLC, you might be able to see his iconic castle looming on the horizon.
Adding to the excitement, Dead by Daylight has also announced a crossover with Five Nights at Freddy’s. This is something fans of both games have been asking for for years and came as part of FNAFs 10th anniversary. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of a wait until Freddy Fazbear makes it to the mists since the DLC isn’t set to release until the northern hemisphere’s summer 2025.
Upcoming game releases
Arcade Paradise VR – August 8th Cat Quest III -August 8th Steam World Hesit 2 – August 8 Sam and Max: the devils playhouse remastered – August 14th
This week on Zed Games, Maylee, Caroline, and Peter talk news, reviews, popular culture, life, love, and nerdy glasses and things. BUT FIRST! The week in Gaming News from Paul, and the team talks the sadness of the delay to Frostpunk 2, Terraria and holes, and the Future of World of Warcraft. Paul gets rocking and swinging in the roguelite twin stick shooter Galactic Glitch from Crunchy Leaf Games, Peter gets social in a review of bulletheaven online co-op with friendly fire The Spell Brigade from Bolt Blaster Games. And then a return of Paul in another review taking it easy vibing out in space as a pig in Astro Pig from Garoa Studios. Then for no reason (other than Chaos) the crew gets sidetracked by bodily functions in games.
This week saw the final closure of the digital marketplace for the Xbox 360 and XBLA after 19 years of operation. The service was a major part of the mainstream popularisation of independent digital games. Fans spent the last days trawling for deals and titles that will now become unavailable for purchase. Personally, I nabbed Suda 51’s action baseball game for Kinect, Diabolical Pitch and if hearing that makes you think you’ve missed out the meta critic is 56.
The spirit of the XBLA lives on though and this year particularly is paying quite the tribute to 2008 with the release of the Anniversary addition of Braid, World of Goo 2 got a new release date of… TOMORROW! (That’s August 2nd) and perhaps the most unexpected announcement of all… Castle Crashers is getting new DLC 16 years after launch! Painter Boss Paradise gives the game a new coat of paint, a new official character and officially Steam workshop support which allows for custom content. The DLC will not be available for the original 360 release. For reasons why, see the start of this news story.
Activision… don’t worry it’s good news!!!
Do you dislike Skill Based Matchmaking? Well statistically you’re probably wrong. Activision have release a white paper revealing they have been doing extensive AB testing with Call of Duty’s player base where they would gradually turn down the feature for some of the player base. The results were clear with players without skill based match making playing less and quitting more often.
In this week’s layoff news. Bungie will reduce its workforce by 17%.
The International Olympics Committee ended their relationship with Nintendo and Sega for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series to explore NFT’s and eSports.
After a 36% price drop PSVR2 sales spiked by 2000%. Additionally, the steam PSVR2 app will be released on August 7th.
Game Release Calendar
World of Goo 2(Switch, PC), Operation: Tango (Switch), Thank Goodness You’re Here! (PlayStation, Switch, PC), Tomba! Special Edition (PlayStation 5, Switch, PC), The Mortuary Assistant (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One) – August 2
Fields of Mistria (PC) – August 6
Pepper Grinder (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One), Volgarr the Viking II (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S) – August 7
Dynamic duo Zahra and Maylee take the reins in this weeks episode of Zed Games. Tobi brings us an extended look into the week in #GamingNews, Maylee talks teal in a review of the board game Hues and Cues, designed by @wscottbrady and published by @theopgames. Then Paul gets intrigued by the mysteries in Animal World by game engine designer Billy Basso and published by Big Mode.
This week in gaming news. Busy-ness in Games, Esports, and a smorgasbord of Gaming Bits and Bytes.
Let’s start this week’s news with a run down on what happened in the back rooms of game development this week. On Tuesday Humble Games Business Development Manager Nicola Kwan announced via LinkedIn that all 36 employees “…were being let go and that the company is shutting down.” Humble quickly released a press statement saying it was not shutting down, but it would be restructuring the operations of Humble Games. The statement continues, saying that this would not impact on the releases of upcoming games, or the operations at Humble Bundle. Warner Brothers is also doing the game dev shuffle this week. With the announcement that NetherRealm’s mobile team was shutting down through LinkedIn job asks came earlier this week with around 50 staff being affected by the cuts. This was speculated to effectively close the live services to Mortal Kombat Mobile, Injustice 2, and Mortal Kombat Onslaught, however Warner has clarified that Mortal Kombat Mobile and Injustice 2 will continue to receive support. Possibly with the recent acquisition of the developer of MultiVersus, Player First Games. With WB Games President stating that the new team will add “… to our extensive development capabilities.” In better news, Bethesda now has a wall-to-wall union with all 241 either signing up to or indicating the desire for representation with the “Communications Workers of America” or CWA. The union has been recognised by their benevolent overlords at Microsoft, even after their most recent layoffs by closing down Zenimax Studios. And in more studio news, staff from the Pixelberry Studio layoffs earlier this year have rallied to create Candlelight Games and are looking at announcing their debut project soon. This week also saw gamers voting with their wallets, with 2.2 million people buying the Deluxe pre-order of EA Games College Football 25, and all for the juicy bonus of playing the game three days early. And Comscore’s 2024 State of Gaming Report has revealed that 82% of US gamers purchased some sort of in game content in freemium titles in the 23-34 financial year. They also speculated that over 80% of Gen Z and millennials consumed esports content.
Speaking of Esports content last weekend was Evo 2024, the biggest in the Evo history, where 10 thousand of the best fighting gamers congregated in Las Vagas. Some notable events of the weekend were when “Punk” defeating “Bigbird” to bring home the first Street Fighter for America in over 20 years, 41-year-old Hayao performing physical stunts of celebration as well as an “astounding” parry in the losers quarterfinals of the Street Fighter IIIL Third Strike, with some now referring to the moment as “Evo Moment 38.”
And it was announced the thrown into a volcano he definitely is dead villain Heihachi Mishima from Tekken that will be resurrected in the next instalment, even though producer Katsuhiro Harada has previously confirmed his permanent demise. That’s not all, but it’s all I have time for, click here to learn more!
Continuing the Esports news. The International Olympics Committee has partnered with the National Olympic Committee of Saudi Arabia to create the First Olympic Games to take place in Saudi Arabi in 2025. The media release from the IOC states that the reason for this is to support “our young people” and the game titles will be chosen to promote “… gender equality and engagement…”, however the gaming community are not so happy. While Saudi Arabia does have the money to support this endeavour (and the prizes to attract players), it’s treatment of the women, migrants, and the LGBTIQ+ community are a genuine concern to the safety of players seeking to participate.
Warframe’s Tennocon also happened over the weekend with a few announcements. Firstly, the prequel Warframe; 1999 is coming and is hitting some nostalgia notes. With romancable team members through archaic Instant Messenger CRT Screens and an alternative earth-based timeline. Basically, Warframe in all-new earthy environments, plus a 90s styled infected boyband called On-Lyne. Coming this (northern hemisphere) winter
They also announced the upcoming new title Soulframe. This game will utilise magic instead of the space magic we’re used to from Warframe in what some are calling the baby of Warframe and Elden Ring.
I think it’s now time to start of that smorgasbord of gaming bits and bytes The FTC have taken to arms over the recent tier and price changes to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, Labelling the new plan a “degraded product” and claims it constitutes “exercising market power post-merger”, this the FTC claims is in direct opposition to Microsoft’s arguments during the merger trial last year. In rebuttle Microsoft states that “The FTC barely mentioned subscription at trial, instead focusing on the theory that Microsoft would withhold Call of Duty from Sony’s console.” Not mentioning that day-one access to first-party titles – like Call of Duty – would no longer be included in the new “Standard” tier. Bloomberg has reported that workers at Roblox Corp do not feel satisfied with the child safety protections the platform has, and is now the “de facto spot for predators.” Roblox Corp disputes these claims, and that safety is “foundational” to Roblox. A new study has pointed to steam CS:GO trades as being used for money laundering. The study looked at the anonymous trading and found significant market manipulation and trading frequency of top traders warranted suspicion. ConcernedApe has reassured players of Stardew Valley via twitter that “…on the honor of my family name, i will never charge money for a DLC or update for as long as I live.” Paramount has killed the Halo TV adaptation after its second season. But Xbox will not rest quietly and is already shopping for a new network. Fortnight is getting the Tesla Cybertruck and players have already announced their intention to either take aim through the huge windscreen or just destroy it on sight.
Get your retro on because in a recent shareholder meeting at Capcom one attendee asked what their plans were for Mega Man, their response? “Mega man is one of our highly-valued IPs and we are considering how to create games for it on an ongoing basis.” And if you have Netflix and haven’t checked out their game list, now is the time. In their latest earnings call Netflix Co-CEO Gregory K Peters called games a “big market” and even with the “over 100 games launched so far” they have over 80 games currently in development and from this month are planning to release “about one new title per month.”
And now it’s finally time for some game releases!
Friday, July 26, the 2022 Kickstarted indie RPG Wéko the Mask Gatherer is coming to PC
On Monday, July 29, grab a friend and get cooperating in the action roguelite Deathless, coming to PC. Tuesday, July 30, get multitasking in the tower defence cross match three mashup Cats on Duty, coming to PC, and Consoles. Or get cyberpunky in the FPS roguelite Deadlink on PC. Or maybe you need to relax in a hand drawn cozy life sim? Then grab The Garden Path coming to PC and Switch. And to round out the month, Wednesday July 21, Save the dog in indie platform shooter Biogun coming to PC. And sci-fi interactive fiction Minds Beneath Us is finally coming to PC
Starting us off in on Thursday August 1st is the remake of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter coming to PC, and Consoles. Dive into the depths and find the answers in Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss also for PC. And lastly get slappy in Thank Goodness You’re Here! from the developers of Untitled Goose Game, coming to Mac, PC, PlayStation and the Switch.
In this week’s Zed Games podcast Hazel, Zahra, and Caroline talk Gaming News and Microsoft taking the box out of Xbox. Caroline farms pixels with clicks while reviewing Farm Keeper from @NapasGames. And Zahra practices their hosting skills in the late night radio host horror Killer Frequency from @Team17 Also, don’t forget the upcoming Indie Dev Night@NetherworldArcade coming in August!
PAX Aus has announced the winners from this year’s Aus Indie Showcase, all made by independent creators around Australia. The showcase will be a part of PAX Aus 2024, from October 11-13.
The six winners of the Digital category:
Untethered by True Anomaly Entertainment
Anticitizen: Red by Queebly Software
Ascending Inferno by Oppolyon Studios
Rita by SporkTank
The Rewinder 2 by Misty Mountain Studio
And last, but not least, Max Mustard, the VR game developed by Queensland studio Toast Interactive.
The six winners of the Tabletop category:
Fight with Spirit by Storybrewers Roleplaying
Oracle by Oracle Games
Glade by Teafrog Games
Frayed Ally by Button Fox
Nimbus by Neural Forge
MEAN! by Mean Games
The Olympic Esports Games
The International Olympics Committee has announced a 12-year partnership with Saudi Arabia to host the Olympic Esports Games, a standalone event. Saudi Arabia had hosted the Esports World Cup, which did result in a number of people boycotting the event over human rights concerns.
Esports has been ramping up over the last couple of decades, with schools and universities creating their own teams, competitive events gaining more and more popularity and viewership, and the introduction of esports events in the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, where people from the Olympic Committee attended and were like ‘ok, now we get it’ according to Alban Dechelotte, CEO of G2 Esports.
Keeping esports as a separate event is intended to ‘give more space for a celebration of gaming and esports’, rather than being one of the additional sports.
Rocket League, League of Legends, and Street Fighter are likely picks considering that they were a part of the Commonwealth and Asian Games.
Gotta’ Croc ‘Em All
If you are a wearer of Crocs, and a fan of Pokemon, listen up. We’re getting four new designs inspired by some generation one Pokemon: Charizard, with a flame-like marble print; Gengar, which is giving ghostly ‘glamoflage’; Snorlax, with a dreamy blue marble print; and finally Jigglypuff, all pink and pastel. Each pair of Crocs comes with some jibbitz, with the Pokemon the Croc is based off!
No Console Required
Amazon now has a handy-dandy Xbox “No Console Required” bundle, launching alongside their Fire TV Stick Xbox Cloud Gaming app. What this means is that Xbox Game Pass users can stream games straight to their TV without requiring a console.
Microsoft has also released an ad that parodies the Scream movies, promoting the rollout with “you don’t need an Xbox to play Xbox”, although some Xbox fans do feel that the console itself has been deprioritised by Microsoft, while expanding Game Pass, and their reach across PCs, mobile phones, and now TVs.
Remember that there have been a lot of changes made to Game Pass and the tiers available, as covered in the news last week by Paul. Only the Ultimate Tier will allow for Fire TV integration.
News Nibbles!
Axis Studios, the animation and VFX team, is officially going into administration, affecting 162 employees. The studio has worked on a variety of trailers and cinematics for Destiny, Halo, League of Legends, and more.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed, is the video game continuation of the film, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, which was released last year. A Heartful of Games, the team developing the game, will be keeping that stylised art-direction from the movie!
If you’ve been participating in the early access period for EA Sports College Football 25, you might have encountered a placeholder bug when trying to select your game mode. Players were given two options: a placeholder image titled ‘Lorem Ipsum’, and a placeholder image titled ‘Lorem Ipsum’. Oops.
And now for some upcoming games!
July 18th (that’s today!)
Flintlock: Siege of Dawn – PS5, XSX, PC
Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus – Nintendo Switch, PS5, PC
July 19th
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess – PS5, PS4, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC
July 23rd
Exophobia – PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC
F1 Manager 24 – PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC
The Star Named EOS – PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC, macOS
July 25th
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure – PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC, macOS
This week Maylee, Zahra, and Peter bring us the exciting week in Zed Games, with Paul newsing the Gaming News and the team talks Wii U nostalgia, and some Mass Effect. Paul then kicks dirty butt in a review of Anger Foot from Free Lives, and Zahra interviews Mike and John from The Brisbane Pinball & Arcade Collective who are running arcade and pinball comps this July 17-21.
