Leah's Gaming digest, 17th October 2023
Featuring: EGX expo, Indies to keep an eye on, THAT Acti-Blizz-Microsoft acquisition, upcoming releases and events and more from the Gaming industry this week.
What’s the Craic this week then?
Well, this week has seen one of the UK’s largest celebrations of gaming take place at the Excel Center in London, a four-day long event called EGX. A good ol’ mainstay in the calendar, EGX used to hold two conventions a year in the UK (or, specifically, London), the main EGX show, and then a smaller EGX ‘Rezzed’ offering at the Tobacco Docks that featured mostly indie games. It seems following a bit of back and forth that the two have now merged, so you get a bunch of indie games at the main convention, which by all accounts is no bad thing. There was also drama. I’ll go into more detail on that shortly…
The highly anticipated, and I say that with ALL EMPHASIS, deal between Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft has finally been completed. Not without the back and forth dramas of the past months, the will-they-won’t-they was enough to rival a good season of Love Island, but the light at the end of the tunnel has been reached.
It’s almost Halloween, which means you either don’t care at all, you play horror games all year around because you’re a masochistic horror-superfan, or you’re a content creator looking to get a community into the spirit of things (spirit, geddit) with a few spooky games so your jumpscare can be clipped a thousand times and end up around 15 Youtube compilations before the week is out. There haven’t been too many releases pre-halloween this year, but Alan Wake 2 arrives October 27th to save the day. If you haven’t played The Quarry yet either, I enjoyed it!
October 24th is an unusually busy day? Lots going on, lots of releases, keep reading to find out more…
Sony announced the PS5 ‘Slim’ edition, a smaller, sleeker brother to the big fat PS5 that currently graces my desk. Here’s hoping they don’t run into the supply issues that occured with the original PS5 launch, because that was, objectively, a mess for consumers everywhere. The new PS5 is 24% lighter and around 30% smaller, and it seems if you get the digital edition, aka the disc-drive-less version, you can buy a disc drive at a later date to add on yourself in a pseudo-modular fashion. And you know what, it does look a bit smaller, but it’s hard to tell with the media Playstation released for it, in which the consoles seem to exclusively exist in a liminal void space.
EGX 2023
I took a stroll down to EGX on Thursday (with thanks to TikTok, event sponsors, for offering me a pass) to check out the vibe. I can’t remember when I last attended EGX, which could mean I went last year, or could mean I’ve never actually been, my memory doesn’t work well for this sort of thing, but I have been to a few Gamescoms and E3s and Insomnias and I poked my head in at Rezzed once before the lockdown apocalypse, so I have a decent idea of what to expect.
I was quite fortunate to be attending on the Thursday, the event was a very pleasant level of crowded that I’m sure was instantly exceeded upon doors opening on Saturday morning; there were certainly people milling around but I could move freely to check everything out within around 4 hours. SEGA and Nintendo both had large booths with instagrammable moments that I didn’t instagram, b
ecause I am terrible at social media, but it was nice to see an appearance from them both and interesting to see not much from Playstation or Xbox there at all, aside from a small area with Racing rigs for a mini-competition to showcase the newly released Forza Motorsport.
Nintendo were going hard for the soon-to-be-released Super Mario Bros: Wonder (I had no idea this existed, much less that it was imminent, which I suppose goes some way to show why I made this substack in the first place), another side scroller addition to the series releasing October 20th, the gameplay offered some freshness to the typical platforming fare, so might be fun if you just love Mario and want a little more time with our favourite little Italian plumber. The booth featured Mario and Luigi mascots and a photo-opp with a pipe that always seemed to have a bit of a queue so I didn’t bother waiting.
The SEGA area seemed the most interactive, promoting Sonic Superstars, another side-scrolling return to the past for a much beloved series with modern elements thrown in, which should be released by the time this is published. The stand also featured a fun reaction test where your name gets thrown on a leaderboard so you can see just how poor your reflexes are compared to all the zoomers waiting in line behind you. Humbling.
The indie zone was huge and easily the most interesting part of the convention, and that comes from somebody who typically doesn’t actually play any games when I go to gaming conventions. I know. It just hits a part of my brain that wants to say ‘now you’ve asked me to, I don’t want to do it’ when presented with a fun activity. I heroically fought this battle to check out some games that are yet to be released, and I’ve briefly reviewed a few that looked intruiging further on in this stack. There were a LOT of games and a huge variety to boot, most looking polished and pretty unique. The sheer amount of games released every year grows and grows and being able to see what was being created and published at the moment definitely gave me an ‘oh shit’ moment; I mean I’m a fan of nearly all genres and I play a ton of different games but having the width and breadth of gaming and the interests of different gamers slap you in the face like that was more humbling than the SEGA reaction test. And that’s silly! I’ve been working in gaming in various capacities for a very long time now, playing games for much longer, but truly you don’t appreciate scrolling through Steam lists the same way you appreciate seeing reps from each game enthusiastically chatting to those who stop by and play for a short while. And honestly, if you’re on the internet for 5 minutes in the gaming space you know how depersonalised gaming seems to be, with gamers treating devs like they’re subhuman, so this face time becomes more and more appreciated and necessary. ‘Treat human beings like humans’ should be a fairly obvious, basic tenet, but perhaps some people need a reminder. There. That’s my soapbox for the day.
Five nights at Freddy’s were out promoting their upcoming film (out October 27th) by giving out free pizza from a thematic truck, which is genius and should be employed by all marketing agencies everywhere regardless of relevance to whatever is being promoted. There were also small areas with photo opps to promote the new Exorcist film and another horror, but they weren’t offering free food, so they sort of lost that fight.
The artist alley was also cute, some very fun independant brands selling cute handmade items and artwork and jewellry, but sadly placed alongside some stalls with brands that will shamelessly steal artwork from small artists and use it for largescale print shilling (according to artists that have been affected).
There was also a LAN zone where you could play some PC games and borrow a PC to do so, something that never really appealed to me (the privilege of having your own setup at home makes it feel like a waste of time I guess) but is a staple nontheless, and a fighting tournament stage that ended up embroiled in DRAMA.
That’s right. DRAMA. During the FINAL of the Tekken tournament, protesters from Just Stop Oil (three of them) stormed the stage and began spraying the screen and tech with orange spray paint, covering the screens of the players so they couldn’t continue playing, to the confusion of attendees and the commentators. The event was halted and those involved escorted from the stage. Just Stop Oil have been embroiled in much media outrage over the last year or two as their increasingly disruptive antics piss off more and more people, but that’s sort of the whole point of protest, to make people pay attention. Regardless, ruining a bunch of tech seems like a bizarre choice while making a point about wastage and dwindling resources, but that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of wastage we see every year. Many gamers responded with comments about how the gaming community tends towards being young and more socially conscious of climate change efforts, making such protests at these events pointless, which seems debatable. Either way, Just Stop Oil didn’t make any more friends during that demonstration. - Video of the Protest from Just Stop Oil's own twitter page, complete with commentary from the UK scene.
And that’s about it for EGX, of course there was much I didn’t mention but I didn’t intend to go on for that long about it anyway. Oops.
Activision-Blizzard and Xbox finally become as one
I know, it’s like a strange fever dream seeing those words, but the acquision of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft is finally complete, to the tune of 69 BILLION Dollars, an absurd amount of money that cannot truly be fathomed by the mortal mind. The acquisition attempt was first made in 2022 but was blocked by various governing bodies, including the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority in the UK) and the FTC (Federal Trade Comission in the US) while they tried to shake out details to keep the market competitive, ending up with Microsoft giving Ubisoft the cloud gaming rights of the games involved, which in itself is… interesting. Plenty of speculation has been done by actual journalists in the intervening time, but the merger still feels very fascinating as it highlights Xbox’s increasing push into the PC gaming sphere that has been happening for a number of years now, much to the chagrin of devout console fanboys. Only two Blizzard games are playable on the console; Overwatch and Diablo, with the other mainstays like World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and Starcraft remaining solely on PC. Of course, Blizzard are paired with Activision, and Activision publish a LOT of popular PC and console games (Call of Duty being the obvious one, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro to name a couple more), but these are certainly interesting times for Xbox as a gaming monolith with so much control at their fingertips, now having such a market on PC alone. At least, I can’t envision a future in which WoW is brought to the console anytime soon (though the fact Hearthstone isn’t on console seems odd, it certainly would feel at home there).
Xbox haven’t had the best time since the launch of the Series X back in 2020, in fact it wouldn’t be unfair to say, looking solely at first party offerings, that Xbox have been floundering a little when it comes to releasing hit-makers. Their acquisition of huge studios a few years back set an anticipation for amazing, highly funded games that will be given time to be nurtured before release, but there have been few and far between objective ‘WOW’ moments when compared with franchise releases exclusive to Playstation. That’s not to say Xbox are dying, or failing, or whatever hyperbolic buzzwords you’d want to use as clickbait for a YouTube video, they seem to be doing just fine, perhaps thanks to the plan to pivot from a console-exclusive strategy to cast a much wider net. It is a difficult subject to even speak about without creating a 40,000 word novella, which at this point I think is possible, so trying to boil down such a huge, complex history of Xbox and releases and short and long term failures and successes and fanboyism and ya ya ya, look, I go on too much. There’s a lot! It’s all interesting! And perhaps I’ll do a deep dive on all of that in a later issue.
So lets wheel this back around to Activision-Blizzard. As somebody who used to adore Overwatch League, and Overwatch in general, seeing what the game has become following so many years of development and hype is disappointing to say the least. I’m a grumpy soul who doesn’t often get excited for much (bar Final Fantasy 7 Remakes) so I can’t say I’m devastated, but I’m definitely perturbed by the amount of potential that seemed to be mysteriously wasted over the years. Can Xbox revive that potential? Can they breathe life into what really shouldn’t feel like a struggling franchise and esports scene? Will they even try?
How much will Xbox dig into the inner workings of Acti-Blizz? Will they let them coast for some time before slowly intervening? We don’t know, and we likely won’t know for some time. And that’s what makes this sort of exciting - so many franchises now under the Xbox umbrella, so many unknowns to explore down the line. I’m sure this won’t be the last we hear about this.
Five games I saw at EGX that might tickle your pickle
As I mentioned, I watched and played a fair few indie games at EGX and thought I’d summarise a few of them. Bear in mind most of them aren’t out for like… another year yet, but if you’re stuck in a AAA rut they might help shimmy some braincells in another direction.
Lens Gloss - It’s a long ways off release yet, but that’s the beauty of going to these events and getting a preview, Lens Gloss won’t land on Steam until November 2024, but the gameplay I saw looked intriguing - if you’ve ever played Bendy and the Ink Machine you might feel there are some similarities here. In a highly stylised explorative world, you experiment with different films to explore the past, present and future of an animator who by all accounts is, to put it lightly, struggling. Maybe a little close to home considering the scarcity of work and fears the animation industry is currently facing with the introduction of AI, but the best art comes from experience, as depressing as that experience might be. Either way, it looks like an interesting puzzler witih some, if not outright spooky, certainly darkly thought provoking elements that might intrigue horror fans.
Star Trucker - Another with a vaguely planned release date of ‘2024’, Star Trucker is an offering from developer Monster and Monster and published by Raw Fury. By all accounts it seems to be the developers first foray into an amibitious 3D first-person truck simulator as their previous releases look to be side scroller type mobile games. As a layman, I can only imagine that the fanangling with the physics and abstracts involved with making vehicles propel through empty space must be nothing short of a nightmare, but from the quick demo I played they seemed to have figured it out. There’s a certain game I have beef with called Breathedge, an odd space exploration game with ‘quirky’ humour and a meandering story, and Star Trucker sort of reminded me of that, but the good part of the game, the start of it where I still had hope for a humorous jaunt through a theoretical space-based future. Combine Breathedge’s beginning with Euro Truck Simulator and you seem to have Star Trucker, where you haul cargo and search for ‘fame and fortune’ among the stars. My friend who loves Star Citizen knows there are a few folk in his community who would be interested in this, so perhaps if you’re also a SC fan, this might be up your alley.
Robobeat - I’m a huge fan of Metal: Hellsinger, a heavy metal infused beat-FPS game that released last year, featuring a myriad of high profile names in the metal music scene with a unique, excellent score. Was this just a sneaky opportunity to plug that game too? Maybe! Robobeat, for obvious reasons, reminded me much of Hellsinger, the almost like-for-like reticle guiding the beat counter, the super quick weapon switching and the frenetic gameplay where jumping and boosting just helps to stay on beat. And if you fuck it up, well the music goes wonky to let you know you’re a failure, which is fun in its own way. Now unlike Hellsinger, Robobeat features a little more movement variety with wall running and sliding, and the visuals are all very neon dystopia, all of which combines to create a satisfying, high octane, brightly lit, roguelite experience. And Robobeat actually has a track editor in game as well which looks entertaining to play around with - you can add your own music to play to and edit it up to suit the game. There’s even a free demo available on Steam now, but the full version won’t release until 2024.
Snufkin: Melody of Moonminvalley - Remember Moonmin? I’m fairly sure I had the TV series of Moonmin on VHS back when I was young and seeing this game at EGX brought over a long-forgotten wave of nostalgia, but please don’t ask me what the plotline of the series was, or who any of the characters were, because I don’t think I even knew back then. All of that is mostly irrelevant, because for some reason the cute little difficult-to-describe characters still evoke those cosy feelings, and now they have a game with a delightful soundtrack. This musical adventure, again published by Raw Fury who seem to be hot on publishing a lot of these unique titles, is all about restoring harmony and balance in moonminvalley to protect from the Park Keeper. It comes out early next year but has a demo on Steam, so if you want to check out this adorable little puzzley wanderer game, go do so!
Stampede: Racing Royale - Well, if you haven’t yet got your fill of Kart racers, this one is certainly for you. I stopped to watch originally with bemusement of this title shamelessly borrowing elements of other popular Kart racers (and I mean, shamelessly, some of these power ups, abilities and course features are truly the exact same as, say, Mario Kart), but the major difference seems to be the sheer scale of the races. With up to 60 participants all competing simultaneously it certainly seems chaotic and fun and will be probably be a good one for streamers with large communities who perhaps want to get a lot of people involved all at once. And I mean, who doesn’t love a Kart Racer really. This one comes out on November 2nd but you can request access to the Playtest right now on Steam to possibly check it out earlier. Oh, and interestingly the developer is Sumo Leamington, another Leamington Spa based racing game developer (Playground Games, developer of the huge Forza Horizon and Fable series, and Codemasters, developers of Formula 1, GRID and DiRT are both historically Leamington based, alongside other studios like SEGA Hardlight. No doubt it is a possibly unexpected gaming development hub in the UK, with racing as the mainstay but plenty to offer besides!).
And as I’m mentioning racing, a nod to another exhibiting game, ‘Chaos Kart’, an upcoming ‘Racing Brawler’ that looks to be offering something different to the arcade racing scene with champions and skills added to the mix. The game looks a little bare bones from the Steam page pictures, but there is no set release date so it may be early on in development.
Other tidbits:
Lords of the Fallen released this week to middling reviews, with some Souls-like fans praising the game for the continuation on the theme, and some condemning the game for being simultaneously too easy and too difficult, tedious, lazy and suffering from performance issues. The reviews on Steam are largely mixed for this successor-cum-remake for the original Lords of the Fallen that released in 2014 so it could be a gamble to purchase, especially considering the steep £69 price point on Playstation. (You can buy it on Steam for £49.)
Forza Motorsport also released to somewhat middling reviews for long-time fans, a little heart-breaker for myself as I have spent the last 3 years hosting Forza Monthly, the official monthly show for all the news and updates in the franchise. I dabble in a little Horizon from time to time (and love it), but usually shy away from Motorsport as I am by all accounts, pretty damn awful at racing games. Regardless, while the game is scoring relatively well in outlets the steam reviews seem again, rather conflicted. As equipment disparity grows and grows for especially PC gamers, having a unified experience across the board seems an unattainable goal; many of the complaints related to bugs and performance issues while other reviewers stated they had no such problems and the game ran smoothly. I can only imagine figuring out bugs that happen on certain system configurations must be, to put it mildly, a fucking nightmare.
Stardew Valley released tickets for their first ever Orchestra Tour spanning the whole world (LA to Canada to Australia to the UK and with dates announced in Korea and Thailand), but seemed to underestimate their popularity, with nearly all dates selling out almost instantly. With one date per City, well who knows what they were thinking, but hopefully the enthusiasm gamers have shown for this sort of event will encourage more and more to appear. Having just grabbed tickets myself to see the Nier Orchestra for the second time, I can certainly say the real-world experiences of your favourite games brought to the life are truly unmatched.
Upcoming releases, in case you forgot:
October seems rather busy and I’m not going to list EVERYTHING, you can easily find that yourself with a quick google, but here are a few I picked out:
Hellboy: Web of Wyrd [PS | XB | PC | Switch] - October 18th
Honestly I just picked this one because hell yeah, Hellboy. It’s a pretty funky looking action brawler with a roguelike gameplay loop that is an homage to the comics.
Spiderman 2 [PS] - October 20th
It’s a Playstation exclusive which means you’re paying £69 for it, but if the reviews of the previous games are anything to go by, it should be well worth it. That’s not an endorsement, I’ve never actually played any of them, but hey it’s both highly anticipated AND the franchise has a great recent track record. And you get to swap between Peter Parker and Miles Morales.
Super Mario Bros: Wonder [Switch] - October 20th
The latest Mario installment, classic side-scroller with a modern twist.
Just Dance 2024 [XB | PS | Switch] - October 24th
Look, Just Dance is actually a sick way to get some exercise without leaving the comfort of your own living room, space permitting. And I’m shockingly bad at it, I’ve seen more co-ordination in a group of giraffes trying to quickly stand than me trying to move my arms AND legs with synchrosity, but that doesn’t detract from the fun, honest. Just close the blinds.
Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 [PS | XB | PC | Switch] - October 24th
Because there are never enough words in a title. This collection includes the first three games to ‘unify’ them in one package, plus a bit of bonus content. Bear in mind these are original titles repackaged with some extra content, not remasters or remakes.
Cities: Skyline 2 [PC] - October 24th
It’s a City builder and if you love it, you really really love it. Pre-ordering gets you some ‘unique’ buildings and the Ultimate edition comes with the promise of quarterly updated content. I’ll probably pick this up and become obsessed for precisely 9 days before leaving it alone again.
Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria [PS | XB | PC] - October 24th
Told ya, October 24th is surprisingly busy. This LoTR offering is a survival crafter that follows the Dwarves in the much loved series as they attempt to retake their home of Moria. I’ll admit, following the release of Gollum (a different studio of developers, in fairness) I’m a little nervous for LoTR games and the 15 minutes of gameplay I’ve seen if this so far didn’t fill me with confidence. It does have multiplayer though! If you want some dwarven fun in the meantime, check out Deep Rock Galactic.
Alan Wake 2 [PS | XB | PC] - October 27th
Just in time for Halloween, the long awaited sequel to the 2010 Remedy Entertainment psychological thriller game is almost over.
Silent Hill: Ascension [Mobile Android | Apple | Desktop] - October 31st
Okay, at first I was lead to believe this is a mobile game, but it isn’t! And looking into it, this is a very intriguing attempt at interactive media - the ‘canonical’ story will be influenced by viewers during a LIVE event - the cloud series will be streamed only once and the audience will determine the characters fate on the mobile apps or desktop. There will be a release schedule and the story will air over a series of days, with hours of video game cutscene footage, puzzles, choices and decisions to be made in a limited time. It actually sounds… rather insane. I’ll probably recap this in a later substack.
Things to do and see coming up:
Because it’s still the season for conventions! Lots of them popping up all over the world, and some of them will have big releases and news (hopefully).
Gamescom Asia 2023 [October 19th-23rd]
It’s Gamescom (like in Cologne) but in Singapore, which I’m slightly jealous of because I’ve always wanted to go to Singapore. Claiming to be a ‘festival’ of gaming, if the German shows are anything to go by, it will be a few days of some of the most densely packed gaming fun you’ve ever seen, with plenty of demos, live entertainment and exhibitors to hang out at.
Twitchcon, Las Vegas [October 20th-22nd]
The… fifth? Twitchcon? Don’t quote me on that, I didn’t check. This time in Las Vegas which may or may not be besieged by a hospitality staff strike by the time the event begins. Twitchcon seems in the middle of being a creator meetup and a fan meetup, unsure as to whether it should be appealing to people willing to wait around to meet their fav streamers, or appealing to their tens of thousands of twitch partners to have a nice safe space to meet up and drink a lot. I’ve been to a few of them now, but I’m antisocial so my opinion on social events is largely irrelevant. Still, Vegas seems like it could be a good time, if your wallet survives it.
Gamesummit 2023, Turkey [October 22nd]
Another Gaming convention, always good to see opportunities around the world for people to sample new experiences and get hands on, though this conventions mentions of NFTs despite the collapse and nature of that economy, does give me pause.
Scottish Games Week [October 30th-November 3rd]
The first ever official Scottish Games Week! Spanning across the length and breadth of the beautiful North. It looks to be largely an industry event as opposed to any expos, to help support the games ecosystem in Scotland, but if you’re involved in the industry in any capacity or are looking to be involved it could be something interesting to check out.
Paris Games Week [Nov 1st-5th]
Paris holds the first PGW since pre-COVID, where attendee numbers were growing past 310,000 across the weekend. Same venue as Twitchcon EU earlier this year in fact (useless fact of the day for you there), there isn’t much info on what to expect but if you’re local it’ll likely be a fun mooch around.
Blizzcon 2023 [Nov 3rd-4th]
Hot off the heels of that acquisition, Blizzcon 2023 is back in Anaheim, probably the most consistent part of Acti-Blizz at this point let’s face it. Usually this show is a good’un to watch for games releases and reveals, though as far as I’m aware there have been no major rumours of anything to come just yet. Perhaps we’ll see more info about new WoW expacs, hopefully a nod to whats to come with the buyout, who knows, maybe they’ll shock us all by revitalising OWL and announcing Starcraft 3.
And that’s it for now! Thanks for reading my first ever proper SubStack, hopefully you enjoyed. Things may still be in motion as I jiggle around with formatting over the coming weeks, but hopefully this proved informative and a little interesting, to give you a bitesize view of the most recent gaming news. Be well, happy travels, see ya next week!
From previous acquisitions MS should be relative hands off, for good and worse. Things might actually be better for workers at Acti-Blizz with a change of executive leadership and their promise to recognize the union, though any merger usually comes with layoffs too.
Speaking of MS, it's not metal but you should give Hi-Fi Rush a look, really fun game with a strong "attack on the beat element" but not as punishing as Hellsinger
So much information! Le pogge