Plus the new Street Fighter film is set to start filming in Sydney and Malys launches into a surprise early access
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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.
KYLE: Hi I’m Kyle Pauletto
FIONA: and I’m Fiona Bartholomaeus
KYLE: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
FIONA: This week game cartridge collectors take heed with a tip to keep them running forever, the new Street Fighter film reportedly starts filming soon and Australian studio Summerfall launches their card roguelike to early access after missing their crowdfunding goal.
Here is the news for Sunday 29th of June. Let’s go!
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FIONA: When Australian studio Summerfall, developers of Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical, launched a kickstarter for their new game last month the news wasn’t great, as they missed their funding goal.
But it’s not all over for the team who have just launched Malys, their roguelike deckbuilder, into early access on Steam, hoping for the chance to work on the game and get it into players hands at the same time.
KYLE: If you want to give this game a bash, and try out exorcising a few demons for yourself, you can pick it up for under $20 right now.
We’ve got our fingers crossed that the team, which includes a bunch of Ex-Bioware creatives like David Gaider, get their game to the finish line.
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KYLE: If you’re big on physical media like me it might be worth popping those unplayed cartridges into the console to make sure they still work.
Flash media like MicroSD cards have a limited number of write cycles before it dies and up until now we’ve been told that more modern physical media, like Switch and Switch 2 game cards, are non-rewritable, which makes them last longer.
However it’s been discovered recently that even Switch cartridges are writable to some degree which means they could die if they’re not treated properly.
FIONA: The user ‘Does it Play?’ posted on social media the Switch was designed to ‘refresh’ the game data on the card periodically to make sure it’s still readable.
They go on to say that even though your in-game data isn’t saved or written on the game card, some low-level re-writing still happens whenever you plug the game in.
So if you don’t plug a game into your console for a while the data may eventually become unreadable, so Does it Play suggests that you should plug in your cartridge-based games every 5-10 years to keep them working and this includes 3DS, Vita and Switch games.
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FIONA: We have a little bit of a scoop, or maybe it’s just one for the rumour hunters out there, but a little birdie told us that the new Street Fighter film production is in full swing with shoots about to start.
That’s right, we have it on good authority that Street Fighter will start filming in Sydney at the end of July under the codename Punch.
It has been confirmed that Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson has been cast to play Balrog and masked country singer Orville Peck will take on masked fighter Vega.
KYLE: Did you know that the original 1994 Street Fighter film which starred Kylie Minogue as Cammy was also filmed in Australia?
The first film was mostly shot in Queensland, and it’s funny to think about this iconic series as now firmly an Australian franchise.
We’ll keep you posted as more is confirmed.
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KYLE: Microsoft and Meta have paired up again to launch a new VR headset, well it's the same Meta Quest 3S that’s already out but now it’s a limited edition black and green with bundled controller.
It’s not the first time the companies have worked together, Xbox controllers have shipped in bundles with Meta’s headsets before, and there were rumours early on the companies would partner for an Xbox VR headset but that never happened.
Though as PC Gamer reporter Hope Corrigan says, a fancy limited edition console is mostly for you to look at which you actually can’t do while wearing it so it feels a little bit strange.
FIONA: With the small number of ground breaking VR games maybe this is just for putting on your shelf and looking at there.
VR was once held up as the next big thing in gaming, and by all accounts there are some excellent titles out there, but as Joshua Wong at the ABC found it’s still not hitting the mainstream any time soon.
We’ll pop both links in the shownotes.
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FIONA:That’s it for the headlines, here are the games coming out this week, it’s a relatively quiet one.
KYLE: Diablo IV has a new season out Monday. Sins of the Horadim is the ninth season, and will bring new loot, spells, and questlines. Out on PC, PlayStation and Xbox on the 30th.
FIONA: And out on the 1st is Mecha BREAK, a multiplayer third person bullet hell shooter. Fight on the land and in the air when Mecha BREAK comes to PC and Xbox this Tuesday.
KYLE: And one of the best World of Warcraft expansions, Mists of Pandaria is getting a re-release with Classic launching on the second of July, with an impeccable art direction and excellent story if you’ve got any nostalgia for this game this might be the one to jump back into. I can hear Gianni firing up his Battle.net installer right now.
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PROMO: Articles to read, videos to watch and podcasts to listen to on sifter.com.au
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FIONA: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Fiona Bartholomaeus.
KYLE: And my name is Kyle Pauletto, thank you so much for listening.
FIONA: If you’re interested in how games are made especially how they sound, make sure you listen to the latest episode of Lightmap our video game interview show. Austin Wintory whose work you’d know from Journey and Hades 2 joins Gianni for a fascinating conversation about his work and upcoming concert. Find lightmap on all your favourite podcast players now or sifter.com.au
KYLE: SIFTER is produced by myself, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Cat Jahne, Adam Christou, Courtney Smith and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and video editor, and Gianni Di Giovanni is SIFTER’s Executive Producer, and script editor.
FIONA: 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.
KYLE: We’ll be back with more news next Sunday, see you then.
