Update Patch | October 2022
October, the month of Halloween, and truly terrifying events have taken place. The U.K. has another Prime Minister as Liz Truss is consigned to history as the shortest-serving P.M, with the exorcising of the victorian ghost of Jacob Rees-Mogg from the government. Zombies rose from the 2000s with Blink-182 returning to the music scene, and Max Verstappen’s supernatural driving abilities led him to a second F1 Driver’s Championship. Also, the Musk man bought Twitter.
In games, horrors sprouted from every which way. Whether it be the H.R. Giger inspired Scorn, the masses of devouring rats in A Plague Tale: Requiem, or the vacuous nightmare that was the discourse over 30FPS vs 60FPS for Gotham Knights; there were plenty of developments for us to discover in the month’s Update Patch.
1. Overwatch 2 Rocky Launch
Activision Blizzard continues to dominate the headlines with the continuing story of its acquisition (and we'll go further into that) but it also launched Overwatch 2 this month with its launch being a mixed one.
The sequel to the company's seminal 2016 release came out at the beginning of the month and was immediately hit with DDOS attacks that affected thousands on launch day and the attacks would continue on the second day. Another attack affected log-ins on the game on the 11th.
Things goin’ ok over there?
Not really?
K, good luck!
Additionally, the game itself has had the usual post-launch bugs but some unusual character-based bugs that resulted in heroes Bastion and Torbjorn being removed temporarily to fix "a few bugs in their ability kits". However, this raises its own issues with other heroes accidentally being locked away from players. In a forum post, the company explained the issue was due to a problem in "servers that track player progression". That issue was resolved.
However, one of the more controversial aspects of the launch was that players needed to have a mobile number tied to their account to access the game. Whilst definitely a proven security method, players reported issues with the system with those on pre-paid plans unable to use the system and even access the game as a result. Due to these issues, Blizzard ditched this requirement in short order.
Despite this, players came by the masses, with a press release confirming 25 million players in the game’s first ten days.
2. Xbox and Activision Update
Activision Blizzard has also been busy being acquired by Microsoft and with legal troubles.
Firstly, the legal news. An investigation by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that the company withheld raises from employees at Raven Software, whose QA testers voted to form a union earlier this year. The testers and Activision Blizzard will now continue negotiations. In a statement, Activision Blizzard said that “legal obligations… requiring employers not to grant wage increases while an election was pending”, the company withheld those raises to satisfy the obligations which were set by the NLRB.
Ghost and his polyam BFs.
Activision Blizzard also heard the result of an appeal to dismiss the original lawsuit by California’s Department of Fair Employment & Housing (DFEH) which went to the Court of Appeals. The claim by Activision Blizzard was that the DFEH “agency violated its own rules, acted in bad faith, and undermined its authority to file this lawsuit.” This was escalated to the Court of Appeals who have rejected the claim.
We ran out of images for Activision Blizzard a long time ago so let just remind you about Diablo: Immortal.
Finally, another sexual harassment lawsuit has been filed against the company by an anonymous former employee named Jane Doe. The suit is against the company and the employee’s former manager Miguel Vega. The suit demands the removal of CEO Bobby Kotick. The suit says that after a relationship ended between the pair, Vega would make inappropriate sexual advances towards Doe and engaged in constant abusive behaviour until his firing in 2021. In a statement to the Daily Mail, the company said “we immediately opened an investigation, and Mr. Vega was terminated within 10 days. We have no tolerance for this kind of misconduct”.
Meanwhile, on the acquisition front. The acquisition hit a snag when last month, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority expanded their investigation of the deal into a second phase, with concerns that Microsoft called “not credible”. In their response, Microsoft noted Sony’s position as the console leader with a greater install base and Sony’s recent acquisitions of Bungie and Haven Studios. The CMA is not the only organisation that will investigate further, as the EU’s antitrust enforcers are likely to expand their own investigation according to a report from Politico. This is due to Microsoft not submitting details about the EU’s concerns before the end of October. The EU would need to announce this before the 8th of November to confirm this.
One organisation that has approved the deal is Brazil’s regulator the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE). In the ruling, the organisation closed its report by pointing to Nintendo’s ability to compete in the market without Activision Blizzard content, and pointed to Sony’s “extensive experience in the sector, largest user base, largest installed base of consoles, robust catalog of exclusive games, partnerships with multiple publishers… which should contribute to maintaining the competitiveness of PlayStation”. In comments at the end of the month to Same Brain, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has reiterated his positivity in the deal being completed, saying “I'm pretty confident in the deal closing”. During a talk at WSJ Tech Live earlier in the month, Spencer committed again to keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation and other platforms, saying “I'd love to see the game playable on many different screens. Our intent is to treat Call of Duty like Minecraft.”
3. Resident Evil News
The month also saw plenty of Resident Evil news with a showcase with plenty of details on upcoming projects, with the most noteworthy being footage of the Resident Evil 4 Remake.
Oh Leon… You handsome, stupid, handsome, idiot, that is handsome.
The showcase saw a five-minute slice of gameplay depicting the game’s early stages, a cutscene with Leon Kennedy and his handler Hunnigan and the original’s infamous village sequence with pyres and bag-headed men wielding chainsaws aplenty. The demo was certainly impressive from a graphical standpoint as was the character movement and camera familiar to the players of the previous remakes. A story trailer also accompanied this with fan favourites Ada Wong & Luis Sera and also Ashley Graham is there.
The showcase also saw the news that the main campaign now has a third-person camera option for Resident Evil Village along with the DLC The Winters’ expansion. Also, shown were the cloud-based Switch versions of the most recent games, Resident Evil VII and Village.
4. A Return to Silent Hill
After excessive rumours and whisperings, Konami finally unveiled the news on the future of the iconic horror franchise Silent Hill in a presentation. The presentation had plenty of information for fans to gorge on.
The headline announcement that was long-rumored was a remake of the classic Silent Hill 2 by Bloober Team (Blair Witch, The Medium). Details on the game were light aside from the news that the game would be a PlayStation 5 console exclusive and that the camera perspective would change from its fixed cameras to an over-the-shoulder viewpoint as in the aforementioned Resident Evil 2 Remake.
However, this wasn’t the only project that was revealed. Konami has given the license for development studio No Code (Observation) and publishers Annapurna Interactive to put together Silent Hill: Townfall. Mystery remains plentiful around this entry, with a short reveal trailer holding plenty of secret clues according to No Code’s creative director Jon McKellan.
The closing announcement was a completely original entry in the series entitled Silent Hill f. A cinematic trailer with some rather beautiful and oppressive music features a young woman wandering a desolate village with red tendrils wrapping around everything. The game will be penned by Japanese writer Ryukishi07 (When They Cry) and set in 1960s Japan.
I’m not sure how many people wanted another SH movie but hey, when it rains, it falls.
Other projects confirmed include a sequel to the 2006 film entitled Return to Silent Hill and a vague announcement of a new “streaming experience” in conjunction with JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot studio.
5. Bayonetta Voice Acting Drama
Perhaps the oddest news of the month was the controversy surrounding Bayonetta 3, with the voice actress for the titular witch in the first two entries, Hellena Taylor, being replaced with prolific actress Jennifer Hale.
Oh, what a mess…
Taylor posted videos on her Twitter account in which she alleged that she had given up the role after auditioning, alleging that PlatinumGames offered her just $4,000 for her work on the game. In her videos, she explained that “This is an insult to me (and) the amount of time that I took to work on my talent” and encouraged players to boycott the game and donate the money to charity. In the ensuing days, this was seemingly disputed by vice-president Hideki Kamiya, who tweeted about the “attitude of untruth”. Her replacement, Jennifer Hale, posted a statement where she supported “every actor’s right to be paid well” but couldn’t comment on this situation due to having signed an NDA.
However, days after, a report by Bloomberg and corroborated by others including VGC found there to be more to the claims. Sources stated to Bloomberg that the fee offered to Taylor originally was $15,000, spread across a number of sessions as well as this Taylor wanted residuals for her performance. Taylor denied these claims, and in reply to VGC, called these claims “ categorically untrue… and a complete joke”.
And it only gets worse…
In a clarification, Taylor addressed the claims further and said that “the first offer… was $10,000 total” and that after questioning this with Kamiya, “I was offered an extra $5,000!”. From there, Taylor then allegedly declined to voice the character and after 11 months, “They then offered me a flat fee to voice some lines for 4,000 dollars. Any other lies, such as 4,000 for 5 sessions are total fabrications.” She additionally noted she was paid $3,000 for the entirety of the first game.
Further controversy was also stirred by the aforementioned charities that Taylor encouraged people to donate to, charities that Taylor had donated to previously. One of the charities listed was Billboards 4Life, a company that pays for advertising with pro-life messaging.
6. CD Projekt Red Announcements
CD Projekt Red has been busy this year working on Cyberpunk 2077 and the beginning of this month saw the company have an investors call that had some major announcements as to future projects.
I hope you like The Witcher because there is A LOT more Witcher about to Witch!
The company has plenty of projects based around The Witcher. The investor call confirmed that the studio is producing The Witcher 4, and that it will be the first part of a planned trilogy that would be within a six-year period after the fourth entry. Additionally, another project codenamed Sirius will be made by The Molasses Flood (Flood in the Flame) and CDPR will support it, but the game will offer both single-player and multiplayer content. A next-gen version of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is due to launch before the end of the year, and finally another game is being developed by a group of former devs and is described as a “story-driven, single-player open-world RPG set within The Witcher universe”. This final project is codenamed Canis Majoris.
Ready to burn a city all over again?
Alongside the Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, the company also made mention of Project Orion, which was confirmed to be a full sequel to the previous Cyberpunk adventure. This will see the opening of a new North American studio and CD Projekt Red is yet to confirm where this game is in the development process.
Finally, there is one other project known as Project Hodor. Don’t worry, this isn’t a Game of Thrones thing, as the company has already confirmed this is for a completely new IP and is being made “completely from scratch”.
Patch Notes:
Editor’s note: I LOVE HER!
Another season of Apex Legends has been revealed, with Season 15 being titled Eclipse. This will feature a trans woman, Catalyst, as the next legend to enter the arena and the addition of the game’s second-largest map,Divided Moon, launching on the 1st November.
Minecraft Legends, the 4-player action strategy spin-off, will release in Spring 2023 according to the developer Blackbird Interactive.
On the Official Xbox Podcast this month, Arkane Studios’ creative director Dinga Bakaba confirmed the long-running theory that last year’s excellent Deathloop is set in the same universe as Dishonored, with the game “envisioned to be happening in the future” of the last game Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.
In a recent Q&A, Starfield game director Todd Howard dropped further details about the upcoming space RPG including the absurd detail the game now has over 250,000 lines of dialogue in what is referred to as a “classic Bethesda-style” dialogue system.
Need for Speed: Unbound has been announced by EA, which will come out on December 2nd, via a reveal trailer with rapper A$AP Rocky.
Bloober Team’s The Medium is to be adapted into a TV show, with Platige Studio acting as co-producers with Bloober president Piotr Babieno citing the success of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Arcane as reason for the adaptation.
Crystal Dynamics sent out a survey to players regarding the Legacy of Kain series asking what players would be interested in if the series were to make a comeback. The IP along with the company were acquired by the Embracer Group in August.
On acquisitions, Fandom struck a deal with Red Ventures this month that seems them acquiring numerous publications and sites including Metacritic, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs and Gamespot for $55m.
Ubisoft’s Beyond Good & Evil 2 has taken the ignominious record of becoming the longest game in development with the first trailer being in 2008, overtaking Duke Nukem Forever.
Upcoming sci-fi horror The Callisto Protocol has been cancelled in Japan by the studio Striking Distance, as the game would not be released without major cuts for Japan’s video game censorship law.
EA have struck a deal with Disney and Marvel to produce three games around Marvel characters, with the first being EA Motive’s Iron Man game.
