Ah, September 30. I’d say a touch of autumn is in the air, but here in San Francisco…well, we don’t get seasons. I can only judge when it’s fall by seeing how many games are releasing.
In that case, definitely fall.
This week: A bunch o’ trailers for October’s games harvest, Amazon announces its first big-budget games, Bulletstorm might garner a remaster (and a better PC port), and Devolver hunted down Stan Bush to record a song as powerful as “The Touch.” This is gaming news for September 26 through 30.
Things that go boom in the night
In case you hadn’t heard: It’s October, and that means it’s “EA Shooter Month” in the world of video games. Battlefield is coming on October 21 and it’s got a brand-new singleplayer campaign video:
And so does Titanfall 2! That’s a bit more intriguing, given that the first iteration didn’t have a “real” singleplayer campaign and thus I have no idea what to even expect from it. Though I’m still wary of the fact EA is launching it October 28—in between Battlefield and Call of Duty. It’s either stunningly confident or stunningly stupid. Jump to the three minute mark of this YouTube Gaming video to skip the talking heads and get into the action bits.
Steam Design Lab
Microsoft isn’t the only one that gets to do custom controllers. Valve is selling Steam Controller skins now, as well as some accessories (a carrying case, spare dongles, et cetera). Ten bucks a pop ain’t bad for an Aperture-themed controller skin, though who knows how well this stuff holds up long-term in your sweaty palms.
Built for Twitch
Remember way back when Amazon started snatching up a bunch of big-name game developers? Clinkt Hocking, Kim Swift—suddenly they were all going to work for Amazon.
Well, Amazon finally showed off its lineup of projects this week at TwitchCon. There’s Breakaway, a 4-on-4 combat/sports game; Crucible (pictured at the top of this page), which is a 12-person shooter game that sounds like hybrid co-op/player-versus-player; and then New World, some sort of MMO sandbox set in Colonial-era America. Check out the archived presentation, if you’re interested.
Like a good neighbor
What if you lived next door to a serial killer? That’s basically the premise of Hello Neighbor, as far as I can tell—a stealth-horror game where you try to figure out what’s in your neighbor’s basement while he, in turn, tries to kill you.
Let’s try it again
Quantum Break is one of my favorite games of the year, at least if you look past the iffy state of the Windows 10 port in April. Worth noting then that it hit Steam this week, and reviews of that version are quite a bit more positive than the Windows Store version. Maybe give it a try? Here’s a brand new trailer, if you need refreshing:
Sailing the skies
Last week, Failbetter teased a sequel to its hit Sunless Seas. This week, we’ve got a name: Sunless Skies. Here’s the quick and dirty:
“The Victorian Empire in space—the High Wilderness—a “blistering, wonderful night” among the thrones and domains of the stars. The Empress has abandoned London and led an exodus to the High Wilderness, to carve out a new British Empire. With the Empire being increasingly authoritarian, bohemians, revolutionaries and outcasts—like you—are trying to make a life for themselves on its fringes.”
Hearsay
Couple of rumors this week that are worth rehashing. First up is Destiny 2, which is “rumored” to be coming to PC, even though as far as I know Bungie’s contract with Activision flat-out said that the second installment would be coming to PC. Not much of a rumor in that case but…well, I guess we’ll see.
Far more interesting is Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition. According to PCGamesN it popped up on a Brazilian rating site this week, implying there’s a remaster coming to PC in 2017. That’s great news because the original Bulletstorm PC port was terrible, and plays even worse on modern systems. And that’s after they stripped out Games for Windows Live. Yeah, a new port would be welcome.
And then there was a rumor about Battleborn potentially going free-to-play. Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford struck that one down, but in that case…well, I guess they’re just going to let Battleborn die, because people certainly aren’t buying it.
Who assassinates the assassins?
Apparently all the jokes about “Ubisoft’s Open-World Formula” finally got to someone, or maybe it’s Vivendi’s hostile takeover moves. Regardless, something has happened in the house that Guillemot built, and the result: There might not be an Assassin’s Creed in 2017 either. Or a Far Cry.
It was already shocking for Assassin’s Creed to take this year off (though they did release two offshoot games and are coming out with a remaster of the Ezio era plus a film). But two years without a mainline Assassin’s Creed? Crazy.
And the reason? Ubisoft’s Tommy François told IGN:
“We believe Alpha for these games needs to be one year before release. We’re trying to achieve that. If this means biting the [bullet] and not having an Assassin’s game, or a Far Cry [in 2017], $#^& it.”
This is a real quote.
The Touch 2
The legendary Stan Bush, he of “The Touch” fame, is back. Devolver apparently dug up his grave or followed a treasure map to his house or some other equally-crazy set of circumstances I’m sure, and the upshot is he recorded a new song for Shadow Warrior 2. I mean, they couldn’t merely use “The Touch” again, right? They had to do something.
Oh goodness I’m excited about this game. Here’s the song: