Plus OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome are back and Pokemon Legends Z-A has a release date
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SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Courtney Smith, Adam Christou and Chris Button. Cat Jahne is Social Producer, Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is our Executive Producer. Thanks to Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER.
FIONA: Hi I’m Fiona Bartholomaeus
KYLE: and I’m Kyle Pauletto
FIONA: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
KYLE: This week EA’s Black Panther game is cancelled, OlliOlli World and Rollerdome are back after being delisted months ago and Pokemon Legends Z-A gets an October release date.
Here is the news for Sunday 1st of June. Let’s go!
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PROMO: Join the SIFTER community on Discord at sifter.com.au/discord
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FIONA: The upcoming Blank Panther game has been cancelled and the studio making it has been shut down.
In an email to staff from EA Entertainment’s president Laura Miele, Miele said the closing of Cliffhanger Games and cancellation of the game were being done to ‘sharpen their focus and put their creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.’
Cliffhanger games was a really new studio too. They formed in 2023 with former developers of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
KYLE: We haven’t actually seen much of the Black Panther game since being announced in 2023, we only really know that it was going to be a single-player action adventure and open world.
The email also said that the company is going to focus on a handful of franchises from now on, such as Battlefield, The Sims, Skate and Apex Legends, and will continue to invest in its Iron man game at Motive, the third Star Wars: Jedi game and the next Mass Effect.
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KYLE: Two ripper games, OliOli World and Rollerdrome, have reappeared on steam after disappearing from digital stores four months ago.
In February we reported that the two sleeper hits had been delisted as Take-Two decided to close Roll7 and sell Private Division, both of which only a handful of years after acquiring them.
Well they’re back, and would you look at that, now published by a different Take-Two publisher, 2K.
FIONA: While it may not seem like a big deal that a couple of games went dark for a few months, I think it’s a really glaring example of the bloated and cynical state that the industry finds itself in thanks to a handful of mega corporations using studios, their developers, and their IPs as cannon fodder.
Isn’t this whole thing meant to be about creativity, passion, and fun?
Sometimes it doesn’t feel very fun.
Anyway, now that you have the chance, you should check out OliOli World and Rollerdrome.
They’re great.
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FIONA: Get ready to catch them all as the next Pokemon game finally has a release date.
Announced on the Pokemon Company website, Pokemon Legends Z-A will launch on October 16 for both the Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 editions.
It’s the next installment in the Legends series, taking place in Lumiose City, where you and your partner Pokemon will explore the urban redevelopment, battle and unlock its secrets.
KYLE: There will be a Pokemon Presents event on July 22 so I’m sure we’ll see some more of the gameplay and mega evolutions.
Similar to some of the other Switch games, players who purchase either the physical or digital version will have the option to upgrade to the Nintendo Switch 2 Edition.
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KYLE: Well we knew the writing was on the wall, but it’s official MultiVersus the Warner Brothers themed Smash Bros clone is officially done.
Yesterday marked the end of the final season of content for the game and with that, the title has been delisted from stores and playable only offline.
FIONA: Players who have the game installed and have played since the 4th of February this year will automatically get a local save file for offline play next time you turn it on.
The game originally launched in 2022 in early access was taken offline until 2024 when it relaunched in one final attempt to get this plane off the ground.
But in the shadow of other live service behemoths it struggled to make an impact.
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KYLE: That’s it for the headlines, here are the games coming out this week.
FIONA: There is only one game developer brave enough to launch a game this week, it’s of course Toby Fox who is releasing chapters three and four of Deltarune, the quirky indie RPG. This is the definition of a cult hit, so if that’s for you make sure you check it out on Wednesday on PC.
KYLE: Out on Thursday is, of course, the long awaited Nintendo Switch 2. It comes with some launch titles like Mario Kart World and Welcome Tour, upgraded Switch games like the two Zelda titles and Kirby and the Forgotten Land.
FIONA: As well as those Nintendo titles are a bunch of third party games making their debut including Cyberpunk 2077, Split Fiction, Hogwarts Legacy, Street Fighter 6 and Civilization 7 which could be very cool with that mouse functionality. That’s all out on the 5th.
KYLE: And that’s all for the games this week, because every other studio other than Toby Fox was too afraid to come up against Nintendo. Which honestly is fair.
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PROMO: Articles to read, videos to watch and podcasts to listen to on sifter.com.au
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KYLE: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Kyle Pauletto.
FIONA: And my name is Fiona Bartholomaeus, thank you so much for listening.
KYLE: We’ll be covering heaps from the new Nintendo Switch 2, make sure you keep yourself glued to sifter.com.au as Gianni digs into the brand new console. We’ll have reviews for Mario Kart World, the Zelda remakes and the hardware itself. Follow us on @ sifterHQ on socials and keep it locked to sifter.com.au
FIONA: SIFTER is produced by myself, Kyle Pauletto, Cat Jahne, Adam Christou, Courtney Smith and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is SIFTER’s Executive Producer, who edited the video and the script.
KYLE: Thanks to Brian Fairbanks from Salty Dog Sounds for composing the Walkthrough theme tune, and Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER’s podcasts.
FIONA: We’ll be back with more news next Sunday, see you then.
