A Night to Remember
Edition 53 - December 6th to 12th
Good morning gamers. We don’t know who needs to hear this but don’t forget about your Christmas shopping.
Last week was the final major video game industry event of the year and it did not disappoint. We saw some huge game reveals from The Game Awards and Ubisoft Quartz was announced, the company’s first venture into Non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
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The Game Awards 2021
This year's edition of The Game Awards is finally over and it was chalk-full of game announcements and new reveals. We want to start off by congratulating Geoff Keighley for an incredible production, and acknowledging all of the amazing games and studios that won awards. You can see the full list of winners here.
Game of the Year - It Takes Two
Best Game Direction - Deathloop
Best Narrative - Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy
Best Action/Adventure - Metroid Dread
Best Indie - Kena: Bridge of Spirits
In case you missed it, here are some of the biggest announcements from the event.
Star Wars: Eclipse by Quantic Dream was revealed. The new action-adventure game is set in the “High Republic” era of the Star Wars universe. The time period is supposed to be the golden age of the Jedi and it will reveal a new generation of characters. It is currently in early development with no release window yet.
Wonder Woman is now in early development from Warner Bros., DC Comics and Monolith Productions. Wonder Woman will be a single-player, open world action game with an original story about Diana and her fight to unite the two worlds.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League came in hot with an official gameplay reveal trailer that showcased some of the main characters unique moves. The trailer is action packed with Harley Quinn's gymnast abilities and King Shark's incredible strength. The game will be released sometime in 2022.
Forspoken received a brand-new reveal trailer which showcased some magical abilities, fluid movement and action sequences. Along with its key cover art, Square Enix also confirmed that Forspoken is set to release on May 24, 2022 exclusively for PlayStation 5 and PC.
Alan Wake 2, the long awaited sequel to Remedy Entertainment’s 2010 (and recently remastered) psychological thriller will be available in 2023 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC (through the Epic Games Store). The trailer was filled with jump scares further confirming the studios first full venture into a survival horror game.
Honorable Mentions,
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 received a 6-minute cinematic reveal trailer showcasing the game’s dark-themed storyline. It will be an Xbox (console and PC) exclusive.
Sonic had a double header, first revealing an exclusive first trailer for the upcoming Sonic The Hedgehog 2 movie and then Sega announced Sonic Frontiers, the “first ever open-zone-inspired” game in the franchise.
Dune: Spice Wars is a new real-time strategy game set to launch in 2022.
Elden Ring showcased a new lore trailer highlighting the history of the world of Elden Ring.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a new story-driven stealth-action game by Daedalic Entertainment and NACON set to release in 2022 across all consoles and PC. Players will be able to use both Gollum and Sméagol.
Slitherhead by Bokeh Game Studios released its world premier trailer. It is a new horror game designed by Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of Silent Hill and Gravity Rush.
Among Us announced that it will soon be available in VR on the Oculus Quest 2.
Ubisoft Quartz
Non-fungible tokens, otherwise known as NFTs are pieces of digital content linked to the blockchain, the digital database underpinning cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum. Last week, Ubisoft announced the Beta of Ubisoft Quartz, the first playable NFTs coming to Ghost Recon Breakpoint.
Players can acquire Digits, the first Ubisoft NFTs (non-fungible tokens), playable in an HD game and relying on an energy-efficient technology. The M4A1 tactical, Wolf Enhanced Helmet A and Wolf Enhanced pants are the first three editions available to be claimed for free.
Ubisoft Quartz is for the players who actually play the game as to qualify for Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint Digits, you will have to reach XP Level 5, be at least 18 years old and live in an eligible country. Therefore, people who do not play the game will not be able to claim the items.
NFTs in gaming are starting to become more and more prevalent. The expectation is that in the coming years the integration of NFTs in video games will start to become the norm. However, before this becomes a reality it has to be properly regulated.
Esports Corner
🥇 Congratulations to Acend for being crowned the first ever Valorant World Champions by winning the Valorant Champions 2021 event.
DreamHack is BACK for 2022
As part of last week's “DreamHack Day” festivities, the esports tournament organizer revealed their festival schedule for the 2022 DreamHack calendar year. The company will be hosting 10 major events across North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania. Each event plans to allow in-person fan attendance and spectating but will ultimately abide by the host cities COVID-19 protocols closer to each event. The 2022 DreamHack lineup features multiple events including the Halo Championship Series regional events, multiple CS:GO tournaments such as the Intel Extreme Masters and the ESL Challengers, the Fighting Games Championships and a few League of Legends events. You can see the full list of dates and events here.
Esports at The Game Awards
We’ve already covered an extensive amount of The Game Awards hosted by Geoff Keighley in this week's edition but we wanted to take a quick moment and acknowledge the winners of the award show’s esports categories. Your 2021 winners are,
Best Esports Athlete: Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev
Best Esports Coach: Kim “kkOma” Jeong-gyun
Best Esports Event: 2021 League of Legends World Championships
Best Esports Game: League of Legends
Best Esports Team: Natus Vincere (CS:GO)
Game Review: Halo Infinite Campaign
Back in Halo: Combat Evolved, Master Chief said “No, I think we’re just getting started”. Fast forward 20 years and this unforgettable line of dialogue remains true. The Halo Infinite campaign is spectacular and exactly the level of quality that Halo fans deserve. 343 Industries was able to delicately balance a gameplay experience that is both familiar and modern, allowing anybody, whether you’re a series veteran or a complete newbie, to enjoy it. Halo Infinite feels a lot like the Bungie developed Halo games, and the foundation that was just built seems to suggest that there is more to come. The open-world concept is an exciting new direction for Halo storytelling to go but it doesn’t yet feel fully optimized for the single-player experience, needing some tidying up in future expansions. Despite wanting a little more cohesiveness between all of the campaign elements, Halo Infinite is a fantastic game that does the series proud. We give Halo Infinite a score of B.
Gaming Roundup
Lucasfilm Games and Zynga released the trailer for Star Wars: Hunters last week. Star Wars: Hunters will be available for the Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android in 2022. The game has a variety of new characters to play 4vs4 arena combat.
Masayuki Uemura, creator of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and the Super Nintendo (SNES), has died at age 78. Uemura joined Nintendo in 1972 and is credited with pioneering the home video game console ecosystem.
According to Tom Henderson, the new Splinter Cell game in early development is going to be “an open world of sorts”. The game will be similar to the Halo Infinite open world and it also draws similarities to Assassin’s Creed.
Rockstar Games has officially announced that a new Grand Theft Auto Online story DLC called “The Contract” is releasing on December 15th. The new story features the return of GTA 5s main protagonist Franklin Clinton and Dr. Dre.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will reportedly be receiving a new major DLC expansion coming in March 2022. The DLC is expected to include 40-hours of additional gameplay content and will be a “God of War-style” adventure rumoured to be called “Dawn of Ragnarok”.
Microsoft submitted a trademark application this month for “Halo: The Endless”. According to Justia, the trademark can be used for multiplayer video games, esports events, films & movies and more.
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