Marvel and EA are Best Friends!
Marvel and EA are Best Friends!
E99: Marvel and EA's partnership goes to infinity and beyond.
Good morning gamers! Last week Electronic Arts announced that they will be collaborating with Marvel on a long-term deal to develop at least three new action adventure games for consoles and PC.
EA says that all three games will have their own original stories set in the Marvel universe. The only confirmed title in development is the single-player, third-person, action-adventure Iron Man game by Motive Studios. Iron Man will tap into the history of the character with the goal of giving fans a genuine experience. Olivier Proulx, the appointed game director, has previously worked on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy and he will be leading Iron Man’s development alongside industry veterans such as Ian Frazier, Maëlenn Lumineau, and JF Poirier.
In other Electronic Arts related news,
Apex Legends is just getting started in 2023 according to EA’s CEO Andrew Wilson. Wilson stated that “Apex has captured the imagination of our global community beyond play. Not only are they playing, watching, and competing, they are captivated by the lore, the worlds, and storylines”. Wilson truly believes Apex Legends is one of the most important IPs in the world.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is reportedly set to be released in early 2023. In a financial briefing last week, EA mentioned that a “major IP” will be released by March 31st, 2023. Unfortunately, EA is waiting to reveal the game closer to the release date. EA CEO Andrew Wilson says that marketing strategy in the video game industry has changed in recent years which is why there hasn’t been any new official news since the game’s teaser trailer was released earlier this year.
Eidos Montreal’s New Gig!
As first reported by Jason Schreier via Bloomberg, Embracer Group is shutting down its publishing QA team and Onoma, the newly rebranded studio previously known as Square Enix Montreal. Some of the 200 impacted staff will be reportedly transitioned to Eidos Montreal (developers of the Deus Ex series, Thief, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy) or to other game projects throughout the companies portfolio of studios. CDE director Phill Rogers said,
“Closing publishing QA and our Onoma studio is a difficult decision and one that we've taken with great care and consideration. We greatly thank all those team members for their contributions over the years and hope to find proper placements for as many as possible”. They [Embracer Group] will now be “focusing its future production capacities on its flagship studios, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montréal."
Eidos Montreal is currently working on multiple projects including,
New Deus Ex game that is "very very early" in development.
A brand-new IP that was "recently rescoped".
Co-development partner with Microsoft/Xbox and Playground Games on the new Fable game.
*Eidos was reportedly working on an unannounced Stranger Things-inspired game but the project was canceled due to cost-cutting measures.
Embracer Group acquired Crystal Dynamics, Square Enix Montreal and Eidos Montreal from Square Enix for $300 million earlier this year. Crystal Dynamics is currently working on the next Tomb Raider game in Unreal Engine 5 and is assisting Xbox Studio The Initiative with the Perfect Dark reboot.
Esports Corner
🥇 Congratulations to DRX for winning the 2022 League of Legends World Championships and to the Dallas Fuel for being crowned the 2022 Overwatch League Champions.
The ESL Premiership is set to feature its first official Apex Legends tournament sponsored by Logitech and Intel. The competition will start with open qualifiers on November 9th where the top 20 teams will advance to the group stage the following week. Matches will be played every Tuesday and Wednesday with a week-by-week point system that will be used to determine the 10 teams that qualify for the grand finals.
IEM Rio 2022, Brazil’s first ever CS:GO Major has now advanced to the Legends Stage of the event where the top 8 teams from the Challenger Stage will face off against the already qualified Legend teams. The 8 teams that advanced out of the Challengers Stage are MOUZ, Bad News Eagles, BIG, Outsiders, FURIA, Team Vitality, Cloud9 and FNATIC. The top 8 teams from the Legends Stage will qualify for the single-elimination Championship Stage and a chance to win their portion of the $1,250,000 grand prize.
The 2022 League of Legends World Championships were filled with amazing moments, heartbreaks and comebacks - but now that it has concluded, here’s a really cool list of facts from the event.
The Grand Finals between T1 and DRX is the first full LCK final since the 2017 League of legends World Championships and peaked with more than 5.1 million concurrent viewers.
DRX is the first team to ever qualify for the LoL World Finals from play-ins and ultimately went on to win the grand finals.
Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu (DRX) became the oldest player to win the League of Legends World Championships.
Gaming Roundup
The Last of Us series starring Pedro Pascal (Joel) and Bella Ramsey (Ellie) will premiere on January 15th, 2023 on HBO Max.
Gears of War lead designer Cliff Bleszinski says Epic Games didn’t know what to do with the franchise and the new games lack the “heart” of the originals.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II had the biggest launch in Call of Duty franchise history selling over $800 million worldwide in three days.
Elden Ring dataminer sekirodubi has found files suggesting that the DLC will feature a colosseum PvP Arena, up to thirty new bosses and more.
John Wick studio Lionsgate is “fielding proposals” for a AAA video game based on the movie series starring Keanu Reeves.
Hideo Kojima’s rumored game called “Overdose” has seen gameplay leak online featuring Death Stranding’s Margaret Qualley.
A Plague Tale: Requiem, the action-adventure survival horror stealth video game has surpassed one million players since launching on October 17th.
PlayStation VR2 headset will be launching on February 22nd, 2023 for $549.99 USD. Players will be able to pre-order it starting on November 15th.
Game Review - Marvel SNAP
Marvel SNAP, the newest digital collectable strategy card game on the market literally puts the power of the entire Marvel Universe right at your fingertips… or should I say, in your pocket! It’s an extremely welcoming game designed to fit into your everyday life; from three-minute games to being free-to-play friendly, it’s not hard to find time to play. Mobile friendly games are often hit or miss but with Hearthstone veteran Ben Brode at the helm, Second Dinner found the sweet spot that perfectly packages recognizable characters, an intuitive progression system, high-stakes mechanics, and strategic depth into a mobile friendly card game. There’s tons of cards and art variants to collect, each delicately paying tribute to Marvel's most iconic heroes. In fact, one of the most attractive aspects of the game is how each hero is tied to a perfectly fitting effect and animation.
Marvel SNAP knows its identity and plays to its strength. It’s easy to learn, yet challenging to master - and there’s an endless stream of missions and challenges to complete, with hundreds of cards and art variants to collect. Snaps and claps to Second Dinner for making an extremely well thought out and polished card-battler. We give Marvel SNAP a score of B+.
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