Plus E3 will be smaller this year with Xbox, Nintendo and Sony not attending and leaked alpha footage surfaces from the upcoming Horizon multiplayer game
NEWS THIS WEEK
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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 it’s a big week of delays, cancellations and shutdowns for EA, Dwarf Fortress sells like hotcakes, and why Nick Offerman star of the last of us doesn’t play games anymore.
Here is the news for Sunday 5th of February. Let’s go!
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KYLE: EA has announced that Apex Legends Mobile is coming to an end despite only being available for a year.
The mobile version of the game unlike other mobile spinoffs was a completely separate experience, didn’t connect to PC or console versions, and EA said they weren’t able to deliver a good experience for the players.
Players who have purchased in-game items or have in-game currency left in their Apex Legends Mobile account will sadly lose it all once game ends, and according to an FAQ on EA’s site, there won’t be any refunds.
Those who still have accounts, make use of it as much as you can before it becomes unplayable on the first of May.
In the same announcement it was also revealed that Battlefield Mobile, which is still in development will also be canned.
And the rumoured single player game set in the Titanfall/ Apex Legends universe also won’t be going ahead according to Bloomberg, but other than a few developer job ads we never saw anything concrete on that.
FIONA: Speaking of EA they also announced this week that Star Wars Jedi Survivor is going to be delayed.
Announced via Twitter, Steig Asmussen, the game director at Respawn Entertainment, said the delay was so they could focus on bug fixes to enhance performance, stability and most importantly the player experience.
With some games in the past few years criticised for being riddled with bugs and glitches, it’s probably a good move to iron it all out.
The new date for Star Wars Jedi Survivor is April 28th, so it’s not that far far away.
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KYLE: PlayStation’s Horizon series is at the center of another leak and this time it’s for it’s multiplayer game, with very early test footage being posted on Reddit.
Last year Guerrilla Games officially revealed that the multiplayer game was in production and will feature a new cast of characters and a new stylised look, gone is the gritty realism, replaced with a cartoony style more like Fortnite.
It’s not the realistic art style that players were expecting, but according to the person who leaked over 10 minutes of footage, the gameplay is from summer 2020.
In game development a couple of years is a very long time, so it’s entirely likely that it’s just placeholder art while the gameplay is ironed out but eagle eyed players noticed options to ‘join PC’ and ‘join PS4’ so there’s potential that we might see some cross-platform action when this game eventually comes out.
FIONA: I think it’s so cool having a multiplayer game set in the Horizon world, but I think many people would prefer to experience it in the graphics and artstyle that they already associate with the game. It is still in development so we will see what happens.
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FIONA: E3 may be back, but we now know that the biggest names in the industry won’t be there thanks to an exclusive report by IGN.
Midway through last year it was announced that E3 2023 would be back and in person for the first time in four years.
But according to trusted IGN sources, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony won’t be involved, which has been a slow trend, with Nintendo the only major platform holder to have a presence on the floor in previous years.
These companies have adapted in recent years and begun focusing on hosting their own showcase events, which frankly are a lot more accessible to gamers all over the world than E3 was so I don’t know if this is entirely a bad thing.
Not great for the troubled E3 expo though who this year is being run by PAX organisers ReedPop.
We’ve linked IGN’s report in the shownotes.
KYLE: This is a shame, but also not a surprise. And to be honest I enjoy the individual showcases that we get throughout the year. Sorry E3.
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KYLE: I’m not shocked by the fact that Nick Offerman who plays Bill on the HBO adaptation of the Last of Us isn’t a big gamer, the dude builds canoes by hand.
Speaking on Jimmy Kimmel live Offerman said that no he hadn’t played the Last of Us games because more than 25 years ago he became a little too obsessed with collecting puzzle pieces, rescuing Jinjos and defeating Gruntilda.
JIMMY KIMMEL: "The Last of Us was was started as a video game. Have you ever played that video game?"
NICK OFFERMAN: "No, I 25 years ago, I played my last video game and I'm very indulgent."
KIMMEL: "I'm the same way"
OFFERMAN: "And lost a couple of weeks to a video game called Banjo Kazooie. Okay. And, and two weeks went by and I mean, you know, you're, I was like, Oh my God, that slow dopamine drip is so delicious. "
"Then it's over and you're like, Yes, I won. And immediately I'm like, What have I done with my life? Yeah, right. And so I decided that I'm never going to do that again."
FIONA: With the amazing episode that he starred in as Bill, you honestly don’t need to have that pre-existing knowledge of the game. He brought something entirely new to the character which I absolutely loved.
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FIONA: Dwarf Fortress, a game that’s attracted a cult following for it’s sheer depth of gameplay has been a wild success after it’s release on Steam.
The game rereleased with an updated art style on Steam in December securing $7.2million US dollars in sales last month and at least half a million copies.
Dwarf Fortress was first released in 2006 with a text based ASCII (I’d say ass-see) by Brothers Zach and Tarn Adams who first started working on the game 20 years ago
Tarn on the game’s forums said that the money was lifechanging and meant they were financial secure in their health and retirement and could even think about bringing in another developer.
KYLE: The game had been entirely free up until that release, so good on those Adams brothers for creating something that people were so happy to support. Do yourself a favour and look up some of the wildest Dwarf Fortress mechanics it’ll blow your mind.
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FIONA: That’s it for news, and there’s only one game of note out this week, tell us what it is Kyle.
KYLE: Out on the 10th is the highly anticipated Hogwarts Legacy, the first console game set in the Harry Potter universe in over TEN YEARS. You can pick it up on PC, Xbox Series S and X, and PlayStation 5 this Friday.
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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: thanks to Rob D who became a monthly backer on Ko-Fi. Rob’s support lets us keep making our shows so if you want to be a legend like Rob head to sifter.com.au/support where support starts from just $1 a month that address again is sifter.com.au/support
FIONA: SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus (Bar-tholo-may-US), Daniel Ang & Adam Christou (CHRIS-TOO). Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is our Executive Producer who is generally an all round champ and also edits each episode.
KYLE: Thanks to Brian Fairbanks from Salty Dog Sounds for composing the Walkthrough theme tune.
Thanks to both Audio Technica Australia and Omny Studio for their support of SIFTER’s three podcasts.
FIONA: Thanks again for listening, we’ll be back with more news next Sunday
