Welcome back team! We hope you had a wonderful and relaxing holiday season filled with many gaming adventures. This week we’re going to recap the previous two weeks worth of news since we also took a short holiday break. Buckle up because there’s some pretty important news you missed.
NEW GAMES IN 2021 - Another big hitter year
2020 was a crazy year, but in the world of gaming, it saw some incredible accomplishments. Despite all of the challenges that developers and publishers faced due to COVID-19 health restrictions, we still saw the release of both the Xbox Series X|S and the PlayStation 5. 2020 was also a year for major game releases, a blessing for those stuck at home in quarantine. Among Us rose to popularity two years after its initial release, and Battle Royale games dominated the multiplayer landscape with Warzone and Fortnite. Notable releases for 2020 included The Last of Us Part 2, Hades, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ghost of Tsushima, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Fall Guys, which were some of the most successful game launches in the last decade. Unfortunately, Halo Infinite was delayed late 2021 and we saw the one week rise and fall of Cyberpunk 2077.
Now that the year is over we turn our attention to 2021. We’re expecting a slew of new and exciting games waiting for us. Some of the big hitters to be excited for include:
Hitman 3, Outriders, Horizon: Forbidden West, Deathloop, Farcry 6, Halo Infinite, Resident Evil: Village and God of War: Ragnarok.
STEAMS “BEST OF 2020” - New kids on the block
Steam released their “Best of 2020” list which covers the platform’s top sellers, best new releases, most played games and much more. There aren’t too many surprises since the Valve operated storefront is the biggest online marketplace for PC games, but there are some newer additions this year. Their list isn’t in any specific numerical order but they are categorized into tiers, so we’ll stick to the top “Platinum” games. Let’s dive into the results.
Top Seller: The Year's Top 100 Games as Measured by Gross Revenue
New Additions: Among Us, Doom Eternal, Fall Guys, Cyberpunk 2077
Expected Inclusions: Destiny 2, DOTA 2, CS:GO, PUBG, GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, Monster Hunter: World, Rainbow Six: Siege
Most Played: The Year's Games with the Highest Peak Concurrent Players (over 200,000 peak players)
Free-to-Play: CS:GO, Destiny 2, DOTA 2, Life is Strange 2
New Additions: Among Us, Cyberpunk 2077, Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord
Expected Inclusions: GTA 5, PUBG, Terraria, Monster Hunter: World
CYBERPUNK 2077 - Night City is still shady
Investors in Cyberpunk 2077 are looking to sue the company for alleged misrepresentation. The suit states that CD Projekt Red didn’t disclose information about the game being buggy and unplayable on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The lawsuit also states that the CD Projekt Red told investors that the game was “complete and playable” in January 2020, however lawyers claim the information was “materially false” and “misleading”.
Cyberpunk 2077 released another hotfix during the holiday break. Hotfix 1.06 was rolled out across all platforms but the major issues were still not addressed causing the community to remain frustrated. That said, the hotfix did make improvements to console memory management and stability resulting in less crashes. The PC version of the game also corrected an issue resulting in a save file size limit of 8 MB which caused game files to corrupt.
VIDEO GAMES MEET THE BIG SCREEN
Uncharted the movie directed by Ruben Fleischer and starring Tom Holland as Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg as Victor Sullivan is still on schedule to release on July 16, 2021.
Resident Evil updated fans via twitter that they completed filming on December 28, 2020. The movie is being directed by Johannes Roberts starring Hannah John-Kamen, Tom Hooper, Robbie Amell and others. It is set to take place in Raccoon City in 1988 with the focus on the origin story developed in the first two video games.
Elder Scrolls is also in the news for the rumoured development of a Netflix TV series. According to industry insider Daniel Ritchtman, Netflix is looking to build on the success of the Witcher and Castlevania TV shows which are already on their platform. Netflix and Microsoft have yet to confirm or deny the rumours.
Christopher Nolan made some noise over the break following his interview with Geoff Keighley. On the topic of turning movies into video games Nolan stated: “it's not something you'd ever take on lightly, but it's definitely something I'm interested in, it's an amazing world."
ESPORTS CORNER
The Asian Games is a major continental multi-sport event held every four years for athletes all over Asia. In 2022, Esports will officially be a medaled event. This is a major step towards making Esports mainstream on the biggest sports stages in the world. According to the Asian Games director Haidair Farman, he’s sure that “in the future” electronic sports will add value to the event. This past April the International Olympic Committee president called an urgent meeting to investigate the electronic version of sports and their viability.
Esports Insider has chosen the Skillshot: Gamer Therapy campaign as one of 2020’s best Esports Advertising Campaigns. The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness and tackle mental illness in gaming by matching gamers with licensed therapists that also game. It offers players a safe environment where they can speak about their issues with people who could help them all while doing it in a familiar and more welcoming environment. This helps reduce burnout and anxiety which is common amongst pro gamers.
2020 presented major challenges for the Esports industry by essentially eliminating their ability to host major LAN events (due to COVID health concerns). Despite the challenges faced, there were still some incredibly successful events both in-person and online. Dot Esports did a great job at highlighting the top events. Those were:
League of Legends 2020 World Championships (3.9M peak viewers)
Free Fire Continental Series Asia (2.5M peak viewers)
IEM Katowice 2020 (1M peak viewers)
2020 LCK Regional Finals (1M peak viewers)
THE GAMING ROUNDUP
KFC, in partnership with Cooler Master and powered by Intel has launched their own gaming console called the “KFConsole”.
Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser recently told Polygon that the Nintendo Switch console is “entering what they consider the middle of its lifecycle”.
The Binding of Isaac is getting its final “sequel sized” expansion in March 2021 called “Repentance”.
Steam has broken their own record by hitting 25 Million concurrent users.
Gucci is teaming up with Pokémon Go as part of the The North Face x Gucci campaign.
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