Gaming Awards SZN
E101: Big things ahead for the Splinter Cell franchise + Weekly Recon's Video Game Awards.
Weekly Recon is holding its second annual Video Game Awards. The goal is to engage with our community by coming together and recognizing some of the best achievements across gaming in 2022. We’ve got a total of 9 unique categories filled with incredible nominees so please make sure to cast your votes here before December 3rd.
psst - You can also win a video game of your choice if you vote and subscribe.
Game Of The Year recognizes the game that delivers the best overall experience.
A Plague Tale: Requiem, Bayonetta 3, Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarök, Horizon Forbidden West, Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Best Narrative recognizes the game that immerses the player in an exceptional story.
Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarök, Horizon Forbidden West, Immortality, NORCO, Return to Monkey Island
Best Multiplayer recognizes the game that offers players the best online experience.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, MultiVersus, Overwatch 2, Splatoon 3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands
Best Indie recognizes the best game delivered by a small independent game studio.
Cult of the Lamb, Neon White, Rollerdrome, Sifu, Stray, Tunic
Best DLC recognizes the game that had the best downloadable content to enhance a game post launch.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla: Dawn of Ragnarök, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, Forza Horizon 5: Hot Wheels, Microsoft Flight Simulator - Top Gun: Maverick Expansion, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak
Best Mobile Game recognizes the game that delivers the best overall experience from the comfort of your mobile device.
Apex Legends Mobile, Diablo Immortal, Disney Mirrorverse, Dungeons of Dreadrock, Marvel SNAP, Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel
Best Soundtrack recognizes the game that selected an incredible soundtrack.
Elden Ring, Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Forbidden West, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Metal: Hellsinger, Xenoblade Chronicles 3
Best Visuals recognizes the game that immerses the player in an exceptional visual experience.
A Plague Tale: Requiem, Bayonetta 3, Elden Ring, God of War Ragnarök, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Immortality, Scorn
The Most Anticipated Game of 2023 recognizes the game that players just can’t wait to get their hands on.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Hogwarts Legacy, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Starfield, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
The Future of Splinter Cell
To celebrate Splinter Cell’s 20th anniversary, Ubisoft released a 20-minute video on YouTube looking back at the history of the Splinter Cell franchise. They also featured an in-depth chat with four Ubisoft developers currently working on the upcoming Splinter Cell Remake (Creative Director Chris Auty, Technical Director Christian Carriere, Senior Game Designer Andy Schmoll, and Associate Level Design Director Zavian Porter). In addition to all of the awesome concept art they showed, the most interesting new details include,
The Splinter Cell Remake is being built from the ground up with all new assets and content.
The core of the story and the core of the experience will remain as it was in the original game, but it will be modernized.
They want to create a top-tier remake to push quality as much as possible so that they can set a solid foundation for the Splinter Cell franchise going forward.
Ubisoft is exploring adding additional features and elements from other Splinter Cell games into the remake. They’re also working on making improvements on the original story for small things that might not have aged particularly well.
They’ve been paying attention to everything the community is saying on social media, and have read the open letter on the Splinter Cell subreddit. It’s energizing them to keep going!
They’re very early in production and still prototyping. The team doesn’t want to rush anything and want to make sure they absolutely nail the game.
Esports Corner
🥇Congratulations to G2 for winning the 2022 Valorant Game Changers Championship and congratulations to s1mpleO for being recognized as the Best CS:GO Player of The Decade.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) have officially announced that Singapore will host the first ever Olympics Esports Week at the end of June 2023. This event will succeed the 2021 Olympic Virtual Series where over 250,000 competitors from across 100 different countries participated in a variety of virtual and simulated sport games.
CS:GO’s path to the majors (aka the games’ qualification system) is about to get a major overhaul starting with the 2023 Paris Major. Details are expected to be released over the coming weeks but in addition to the teams that receive direct tournament invites, teams that “consistently perform well in Valve and third-party events will be directly invited to a closed qualifier” and will compete against teams that enter from the open-qualifier. Essentially, it sounds like they’re going to keep a similar format to the IEM Rio Major.
FTX, one of the world's biggest crypto exchanges has filed for bankruptcy in what’s been a week-long string of chaotic developments for the company. Unfortunately, the company had multiple major partnerships with various gaming and esports companies that are all now considered worthless (and which all ties have been cut). Most notably,
A 10-year, $210M naming rights deal with TSM which was the biggest deal in esports history.
A 7-year branding sponsorship with Riot Games for the North American League of Legends Championships.
A 1-year sponsorship deal with Brazilian esports organization FURIA worth $3.2M
Gaming Roundup
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt next generation update is coming out on December 14th. The update will be free for everyone who owns the game already.
BioShock’s creator Ken Levine says the upcoming movie will be “really true” to the game. BioShock was originally released in 2007.
Cory Barlog, the creative director of Sony’s Santa Monica Studio says the studio is “spread out on a lot of different things” at the moment.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC will be a paid expansion. Keanu Reeves will return as Johnny Silverhand and the expansion will follow a new plot style.
Starfield was delayed in part because Xbox has previously released games too early according to Phil Spencer, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming.
Blizzard Entertainment’s games will be shut down in China as of January 23rd, 2023 after failing to renew their license agreement with NetEase.
Dead island 2 has been delayed again and will now release on April 28th, 2023. There will be a new trailer and gameplay showcase on December 6th.
Gearbox has acquired the Risk of Rain IP from Hopoo Games along with all released games in the franchise according to Embracer Group.
Rockstar Games reportedly turned down the chance to make a Grand Theft Auto movie starring Eminem and directed by Top Gun director Tony Scott.
If you enjoyed this week’s edition of the Weekly Recon, please send it to some friends and share it on social media. We strive to be your best source of gaming news.
Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube for more gaming news. To contact us directly email us at gaming@weeklyrecon.com.