Welcome back to Game Scoop!, IGN’s weekly video game talk show. This wee we’re discussing the full PlayStation Classic lineup, Diablo 3 on Switch, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and more. Watch the video above or download the podcast below.
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Rockstar is currently working to fix a known glitch in Red Dead Redemption 2 that’s causing certain companions to disappear from camp during the main story’s early chapters. While players who’ve been affected by the glitch will have to wait for the official fix, the developer has revealed a temporary workaround for players who’ve yet to progress past Chapter 2.
Mild spoilers for Red Dead Redemption 2 follow.
The glitch, which has been the topic of several popular Reddit threads, sees Sadie Adler, Jack Marston, John Marston, and Abigail Roberts disappear from camp for seemingly no reason. However, according to Rockstar Support, the glitch is caused by using the Retry Checkpoint feature during Chapter 2‘s Polite Society, Valentine Style mission.
Over the weekend at BlizzCon, Blizzard announced a brand-new Diablo title for mobile devices, Diablo Immortal. The reveal was met with some degree of backlash, as a portion of the fanbase hoped for an announcement of the next core Diablo instead. On Monday, when the New York Stock Exchange opened for the first time this week, shares of Activision Blizzard dropped significantly.
The company’s stock value dropped by close to 7 percent on Monday (via Sarah Needleman of WSJ). Shares closed at $64.34, which is down from the previous day’s close at $68.99.
In a note to investors, research firm Cowen & Company said “Blizzard severely miscalculated how their fans would respond, which suggests they aren’t in touch with their players as maybe they should be.”
Blizzard has not yet announced if Diablo Immortal will be a free or a paid title, though Blizzard developing the title with free-to-play veteran NetEase might offer a clue. Cowen & Company said whatever business model the game uses, it might be difficult for the game to make money in the western market because expectations for extra payments are different than in other parts of the world such as China. The report also mentioned that the game’s control scheme might feel clunky to the western audience but perfectly normal in China.
The general sentiment coming out of BlizzCon surrounding Diablo Immortal was negative, and this theoretically presents an optics problem and it likely explains why investors might have been spooked. The game is likely to make buckets of money, but the drop in share price suggests that the way games are presented and messaged is more important than some might have believed.
The Cowen & Company note mentioned that Blizzard might have avoided giving gamers the perception that it was changing direction to focus on mobile games by offering core fans a tease or a glimpse of the next core Diablo title. According to Kotaku, Diablo 4 is in development, and Blizzard recorded a video where co-founder Allen Adham talks about a new Diablo projects. Whether or not this video was planned to be shown at BlizzCon is in question, but Blizzard said in a statement that it “didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements.”
Around two weeks before BlizzCon, Blizzard released a statement telling fans not to expect any major Diablo announcements during the show.
Diablo Immortal principal game designer Wyatt Cheng told GameSpot at BlizzCon that being skeptical is perfectly fair and reasonable, but he hopes people stay open-minded about Diablo Immortal.
“I think that’s reasonable in today’s world, our modern world, to be a little skeptical,” he said. “But then for the people who play it, if they can go out and say, ‘No, no, no, seriously, guys. I was at BlizzCon. I played the demo. It was awesome.’ Hopefully that word of mouth spreads.”
Adham, the co-founder of Blizzard, told Kotaku that the company expected some amount of backlash around Diablo Immortal but not to the degree that actually occurred. If you don’t recognise Adham’s name, that might be because he left Blizzard in 2004 and only just returned in 2016. Another Blizzard founder, Mike Morhaime, quit the company in October.
GameSpot played Diablo Immortal at BlizzCon, and you can read our initial impressions of the mobile game here. No release date has been announced, but Cowen & Company said in its note to investors that it expects the title to launch in 2020.
PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is teaming up with DC to allow players to use skins that make them appear as Suicide Squad’s Joker and Harley Quinn in-game.
This collaboration will arrive in the near future and a glimpse of the two characters in action can be seen below as they are breaking out from what appears to be Miramar’s prison.
Whether PUBG will simply receive the skins or a new limited-time game mode, like Avengers: Infinity War’s Thanos in Fortnite, that has the Joker and Harley Quinn trying to escape the prison or be the last to survive remains to be seen.
The music, TV, and film industries are already heavily involved with streaming, and while the video game industry is an increasingly digital business, streaming adoption remains limited. That could change in the future, as some higher-ups in gaming believe viable and widespread game-streaming technology is close(ish) to becoming a reality.
Sony already operates a game-streaming service in the form of PlayStation Now, while Microsoft is working on its own game-streaming service. Electronic Arts is creating a streaming platform of its own, while Japanese gaming giant Capcom and Ubisoft are streaming some of their biggest games on Nintendo Switch in Japan–and Capcom specifically is planning to do more in the future.
Fallout 76
This is all to say that streaming is poised to become a bigger piece of the pie in the years ahead. Bethesda, the publisher of huge franchises like The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Rage, and many others, is preparing itself for a future where streaming is even more popular than it is now.
“Absolutely it is [going to be viable],” Bethesda marketing boss Pete Hines told GameSpot recently.
Bethesda’s numerous studios are already looking into how they can get ready for an industry that places more of an emphasis on streaming. Without any pressing on my part, Hines referenced “next-gen consoles” as it relates to streaming, which is intriguing given that one of rumours circling now is that one of the new Xbox consoles Microsoft is working on will be a streaming box.
“It’s absolutely something all of our studios have been involved in and looked at and thought about as we talk about what we do going forward,” Hines said. “Whether it’s where next-gen consoles are going, or what’s streaming is going to be like, or whatever. So yeah, it’s something that is on everybody’s radar and they think about as yet another platform essentially.”
Hines has already talked about how he knows “some stuff” about the next wave of new consoles, so his comments are all the more alluring with that context.
Streaming content like movies, music, and TV shows is considered generally easier from a technical standpoint because they are less involved in comparison to video games that have numerous different processes and under-the-hood wizardy happening. There is also the matter of input lag. It’s exciting to think about being able to stream a game like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey in your browser, but any amount of significant input lag might turn people away. What’s more, streaming any kind of media requires a capable and consistent internet connection, which could pose problems for people in some parts of the world.
Rage 2
Services like PlayStation Now and Google’s Project Stream are already demonstrating that streaming is an exciting and viable proposition, but it is still early days. Physical media is not going away anytime soon, nor is playing games on local hardware. The second of Microsoft’s rumoured new Xbox consoles is a more traditional system that plays games locally, according to a report from Brad Sams, with the streaming box offered merely as an option for those who want it.
Hines’ new comments about streaming come after he talked about how he would like the industry to get to a place where you can buy a game and play it wherever you want. Andrew Wilson, the CEO of EA, said during a presentation recently that he sees a future where you can play games on any device you want, with streaming/cloud gaming help accelerate that shift. Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive, has said he believes streaming will help accelerate the industry’s transition away from “closed” systems.
Presumably companies like Bethesda, EA, Take-Two, and others are briefed on announcements before they are made public, so it’s intriguing to hear top executives at each company independently say much the same thing about where the industry and new consoles may be headed.
Video game streaming hasn’t been a total success story so far, as you may recall the OnLive service shut down before it ever got much of a foothold.
Are you interested in streaming games? Let us know in the comments below!
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
As far as problems go on Arrow, having too much of a good thing isn’t such a bad one. It’s certainly preferable to Season 6’s chronic inability to do anything interesting with the post-Prometheus status quo. That said, the series seems to have a major issue with prioritizing storylines. There are too many characters and parallel storylines playing out right now, and that clash is holding the new season back from its full potential.
Case in point, “Level Two” marks the first appearance of the new Green Arrow impostor in several weeks. I had all but forgotten this character even existed with everything else going on lately. That begs the question – why is this character even a focus of the new season? Why is a new Green Arrow necessary right now? Obviously his rise plays into the growing tension between Star City’s residents and the overworked, underfunded police force, but does he really bring anything to the series that couldn’t be accomplished with the other members of Team Arrow? It honestly seems like the writers could get the same end result with much less fuss by simply having Rene take over as Green Arrow and focus on the rift between he and Dinah.
UPDATE 11/5: Bethesda have provided further comment to IGN contesting the validity of the claims made in a Reddit thread asserting that Fallout 76 is extremely vulnerable to hacking. Here is the full statement:
“Many of the claims in the thread are either inaccurate or based on incorrect assumptions. The community has however called to attention several issues that our teams are already actively tracking and planning to roll out fixes for. Our goal is always to deliver a great experience for all our players. Cheating or hacking will not be tolerated. We know our fan base is passionate about modding and customizing their experience in our worlds and it’s something we intend to support down the road.”
Update 2: Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, who broke the original story, has subsequently said that while a Diablo 4 tease featuring Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham does exist, his original report that it was going to drop at this year’s BlizzCon may have been off.
“What’s in dispute here is the timing,” wrote Schreier. “We had originally reported that it was planned for BlizzCon, but it’s possible that those plans were simply discussed and never solidified. (Either way, the video never happened). We can confirm that Diablo 4 is indeed in development.”
Update: A representative for Blizzard responded to IGN’s request for comment, saying, contrary to today’s earlier Kotaku report, that the company “didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements.”
Limited Run Games, a publisher associated with game developer Mighty Rabbit Studios, has announced that it is making a physical edition for Battle Chef Brigade. The acclaimed indie game will be made available in both its PS4 and Switch versions.
Both physical editions will be made available on November 9 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET / 3 PM GMT. As the name implies, Limited Run Games only makes a certain amount of official physical editions for previously digital-only titles. So once every copy of the physical versions of Battle Chef Brigade is sold out, they are gone for good. Limited Run Games never restocks.
Released in 2017, Battle Chef Brigade mixes together brawler and puzzle gameplay. You play as Mina, a young woman who aspires to be a battle chef, a type of knight that hunts down monsters and cooks them into delicious dishes for the kingdom’s people. Each mission in the game requires you hunt down specific monsters before racing into the kitchen to solve tile-based puzzles in order to cook your ingredients and fulfill the dish requirements set out by the judges. Battle Chef Brigade was well-received by critics and players alike.
In August 2018, Battle Chef Brigade received an update that added split-screen multiplayer, as well as two new modes–called Survival and Free Play–and a new playable character.
Battle Chef Brigade is available for Nintendo Switch and PS4.
Brie Larson, the Oscar winning actress who will be seen next as Captain Marvel, is apparently interested in playing Samus Aran, should Nintendo ever decide to go forward with a Metroid film.
As evidenced on her Instagram page, Larson dressed up as Zero Suit Samus for Halloween this year. After posting images of herself in costume, fans took notice and asked about a potential Metroid movie. Larson said she hopes it happens someday. “I want to make that movie,” she wrote.
Nintendo hasn’t made any announcements about a Metroid movie, but the company is increasingly interested in taking its franchises to the big screen. A new Mario movie from Despicable Me and Minions studio Illumination is on the way. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Despicable Me franchise producer Chris Meladandri are co-producing the untitled film.
Larson isn’t the other celebrity who wants to play Samus in a Metroid movie. Ronda Rousey, the MMA and wrestling star who also makes movies now, previously talked about wanting to play Samus someday.
“I’ve always wanted to be Samus. That would be badass,” Rousey said. “I love how people found out later that it was a hot chick on the inside. And then most of the day you’re in a suit, so you can just hang out and eat donuts and be the star of Metroid. I hope they make a movie out of that.”
The next Metroid game is Metroid Prime 4, which is coming to Nintendo Switch. Pretty much nothing is known about it. The earlier Metroid Prime games were developed by Retro Studios, but it appears Bandai Namco is producing the new one for Nintendo Switch.
Larson won the Best Actress Oscar for her starring role in Room. Her next major role is Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel in the upcoming superhero film Captain Marvel, which is due out in March 2019. She’s set to appear again as Captain Marvel in April 2019’s untitled Avengers 4.