New Playstation Projects
E98: PlayStation has announced some new exciting projects.
Happy Halloween gamers! PlayStation has been busy over the last few years. This year alone they’ve acquired Bungie and Haven Studios (among a few other smaller divisions), announced multiple movie/television adaptations based on their exclusive IPs and revealed that more than 10 live-service games are in development. Here’s a few new projects that surfaced last week,
PlayStation’s London Studio is officially developing a PlayStation 5 exclusive online co-op combat game set in a modern fantasy London. It’s the studio's most ambitious project yet, which is fully removed from any VR elements and is being built using their Soho Engine designed to take advantage of the PS5 features. Co-studio head Tara Saunders revealed that the game idea is the result of months of internal brainstorming by the entire team, in addition to speaking with other PlayStation studios and polling hundreds of gamers within the UK and USA. She said, “our overarching theme is about bringing fantastical and magical elements and intersecting that with familiar worlds”.
Sony is building a new studio in collaboration with PlayStation Studios Visual Arts that will work alongside Naughty Dog on a new PlayStation exclusive game. The new internal studio was revealed via a PlayStation job listing looking for a candidate that is “proficient in all aspects of AAA game production and management” and who has worked on “two or more published AAA titles”. There’s no mention of what this game might be but other job postings over the last few years point towards a new Uncharted game.
Rocksteady Studios - New Chapter
Last week, David Haddad, the president of Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment Inc announced that Rocksteady Studios co-founders Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker will be leaving the studio at the end of 2022.
The London based studio is best known for developing the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham series. Nathan Burlow, an original founding member of Rocksteady Studios will now take over as the Studio Director. Burlow says his goal is “retaining the heart and amazing culture of the studio”. Hill and Walker confirmed that they will both remain in the gaming industry and that their “new adventure in gaming” will be together.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is still set to be released in 2023. Haddad says that Hill and Walker contributed “evolutionary thinking with Suicide Squad, they have been great leaders of the team”. Haddad also confirmed that the game is “nearly finished”.
Esports Corner
🥇Congratulations to Tundra Esports for being crowned champions at The International 2022 (TI11).
After being postponed and canceled throughout 2020, the IEM Rio Major 2022 is officially here and starting tonight (October 31st). The $1,250,000 event will take place over the course of two weeks featuring 24 of the world’s best CS:GO teams, including Natus Vincere who have impressively competed in all 18 CS:GO Majors. Brazil is the second most represented country at the event (15 players total) with 35 total nationalities being represented. The winning team will walk away with $500,000 and automatic qualification to the BLAST Premier Final 2022 and IEM Katowice 2023.
The Halo Championships Series (HCS) concluded last weekend and as a result of OpTic Gaming being crowned champs, FormaL became the second professional FPS gamer to win a world championship title in two different games, and the first to do it with the same team. Despite the low viewership (the grand finals peaked at 143,585 viewers), 343 already released an early roadmap for HCS year 2 where OpTic Gaming kicks off the season by hosting an invitational LAN in December.
ESL FACEIT Group has officially revealed the 2023 program for the CS:GO ESL Pro Tour. The season will feature more than 40 tournaments making it the largest season in CS:GO history. This includes IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne as the ESL Pro Tour Championship events as well as five different EPT Masters events and ten EPT Challenger events.
Gaming Roundup
Fall Guys will reportedly have a SpongeBob Squarepants collaboration featuring Patrick, Sandy, Squidward, Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob in Season 3.
Microsoft has failed to reach their internal Xbox Game Pass subscriber growth goal for the second consecutive year.
Paragon: The Overprime, a free-to-play MOBA game that was shutdown by Epic Games in 2018 will be reopened by South Korean studio Netmarble.
Capcom released their Q2 FY 2022 results and consumers purchased 91.5% of their products digitally and only 8.5% of their products physically.
The Witcher Remake is currently in the early stages of development at Polish studio Fool’s Theory, with the full creative supervision of CD Projekt Red.
Naughty Dog released a job posting for a Live Ops Producer who will work on a “AAA, free to play, live title,” which is reportedly TLOU multiplayer.
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf has completed their Alpha milestone according to Electronic Arts. The focus will now shift to the story and its characters.
Game Review - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Call of Duty fans, for better or for worse, are spoiled with brand new releases every single year. We’ve had the chance to dive into both the single-player campaign and multiplayer, an experience best described as being nostalgic, frustrating and way too familiar. Here’s our thoughts.
Single-player Campaign - We couldn’t help but feel ecstatic when the news broke that Ghost was alive and returning to play a role in Modern Warfare 2’s campaign. Call of Duty fans will love the campaign and all of the familiar Modern Warfare references and refurbished missions that come along with it. However, if you’re playing this from the perspective of a variety gamer, the story itself isn’t that innovative. It’s short, comes with everything you’d expect from fighting against a drug cartel but it does satisfy that action itch. What the campaign lacks in story design is somewhat mitigated by its incredible graphics and impressive gunplay. Call of Duty has had some stellar campaigns in the past, and although this rendition might not live up to its reputation, it’s still fun and something to do when multiplayer servers are down. We give Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s single-player campaign a score of B-.
Multiplayer - Call of Duty fans are usually the most excited about multiplayer and Call of Duty almost always delivers an experience that attracts millions of gamers every year. This year's edition is no different and in the series’ return to a modern setting, it feels much smoother and more refined than the beta. Combat is faster paced, map design has seemingly returned to its three-lane philosophy, game modes include a necessary mix of familiar and new, and as always, multiplayer lobbies are still chaotic due to the inclusion of tons of attachments, equipment and customization options. This is both a blessing and a curse because on one hand you’re given tons of options to customize your gear but then you’re also running around not knowing what the hell is going on. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 delivers a multiplayer experience that is fun and exactly as you would expect - we give it a B.
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