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E106: Starting 2023 with some big Star Wars and The Last of Us news.
Good morning gamers! We hope that everyone was able to get some rest and spend time with their families during the holidays season. For the first edition of 2023, let’s jump right back into the action.
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The Last of Us Projects
Naughty Dog’s ‘The Last of Us’ franchise is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and ahead of their summer celebrations, studio co-president Neil Druckmann shared a heartfelt message with fans and announced that the franchise has sold more than 37 million copies globally as of December 2022. This is a big year for the studio as they venture off into many new projects including,
HBO’s The Last of Us TV series premieres on January 15th and according to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, series creator Neil Druckmann and showrunner Craig Mazin said they “have no plans to tell any stories beyond adapting the games”. The first season will tell the entire story of The Last of Us Part 1 (and expand on it slightly) while the second season will likely cover The Last of Us Part 2.
The Last of Us Multiplayer Game will reveal new details later this year. In addition to new concept art, Neil Druckmann said that “the project is shaping up to be a fresh, new experience from our studio, but one rooted in Naughty Dog’s passion for delivering incredible stories, characters, and gameplay”. It’s their most ambitious project yet.
The Last of Us Part 3 has been in the rumor mill lately and although there’s no official confirmation that the project has been greenlit, we know that a script outline has been written and Neil Druckmann recently said “I think there’s more story to tell” when asked about it.
Star Wars
The highly anticipated Star Wars Jedi: Survivor game arrives for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on March 17th. In a recent interview with Game Informer, Cal Kestis actor Cameron Monaghan shared some additional insight into how the storyline was developed, and how it will appeal to newcomers.
The storyline is a continuation of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (5 years into the future) where Cal has quickly matured and is now one of the last surviving Jedi’s facing an extremely dark and troublesome situation. However, Monaghan also said that aside from being a clear sequel, and despite the tie-in with the greater Star Wars lore, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was developed to stand on its own two feet. He said,
“I want anybody who’s never watched a Star Wars movie or read a Star Wars story or anything like that to be able to jump into this and play it and still be able to understand it… and then, if you do have more experience understanding [of the Star Wars lore], then you’re only going to have a more deepened appreciation of a lot of what’s going on here”.
Julian Gerighty, the creative director at Ubisoft tweeted that this will be a huge year for them alongside an image of the Star Wars logo. Gerighty followed up on his tweet a couple days later by saying Massive Entertainment will be working hard in 2023 building their game. Despite all the interest generated by the tweets, Gerighty noted that all official announcements will come directly from Ubisoft.
Esports Corner
On behalf of the entire Weekly Recon team, we’d like to wish our deepest condolences to the family and friends of professional Valorant player Lara ‘Larischz’ Gilardoni who sadly passed away at the young age of 27.
The female esports scene experienced incredible growth in 2022. According to Esports Charts, female esports generated nearly 24 million hours watched (1.5x more than in 2021) and awarded more than $1.75 million in prize pool winnings. PC games such as Valorant and CS:GO, and mobile games like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and PUBG Mobile led the charge while the Shopify Rebellion, GPX and G2 were the most popular organizations.
Overwatch League team the Philadelphia Fusion are relocating to South Korea ahead of the 2023 season and rebranding to the Seoul Infernal. This move doesn’t come as a shock since the team was already operating out of South Korea for the last two years. Parent organization Comcast Spectacor also owns the League of Legends powerhouse T1 so this move will help unite the fan bases.
Valve have officially announced that the 2023 Dota 2 Pro Circuit will include a Lima Major in the Winter Tour (organized by 4D Esports), a Bali Major in the Spring Tour (organized by IO Esports) and a Berlin Major in the Summer Tour (organized by the ESL).
Esports Insider asked dozens of esport industry leaders to predict what 2023 has in store for the esports industry. Tons of bold statements were made, making it quite the fun and inquisitive read.
Gaming Roundup
Redfall will have co-op inspired by franchises such as Diablo, Borderlands and Dungeons & Dragons. The game is a free roam open world.
Starfield arrives exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC in the first half of 2023 according to a new official support page on Bethesda’s website.
NetEase Games has acquired SkyBox Labs who previously co-developed games with Xbox Game Studios, Wizards of the Coast and Electronic Arts.
Bungie is “working on a number of unannounced projects” with the support of Sony according to Tom Farnsworth, their Senior Design Lead.
Wizards of the Coast has reportedly canceled at least five unannounced titles that were in different stages of development.
Sony says the PS5 has sold more than 30 million units as of December 2022. According to Jim Ryan at CES 2023, the PS5 will have improved availability now.
Atomic Heart has no multiplayer planned and claims that delays happened because their ambitions did not align with their reality.
HITMAN: World of Assassination is the new name for HITMAN 3 and it will include HITMAN 1 and 2 as part of a free upgrade for HITMAN 3 owners.
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