Happy Pokémon Day, You Freaks

The latest Pokémon Presents happened on the 27th, with most of the shown updates focusing on mobile titles.

• Pokémon Go will get a crossover event with the latest season of the anime to coincide with its release outside Japan.
• Pokémon Sleep adds the Legendary Beasts to the roster of napping monsters, starting with Raikou in March, with Entei and Suicune coming later.
• Pokémon Masters will add two new pairs: Silver and Shiny Mega Tyranitar and Geeta and Glimmora, plus reruns of older powerful characters and a new photo editor.
• Pokémon Cafe Remix gives the Paldean starters new outfits, new chances to add either Koraidon or Miraidon to your cafe, and the ability to collect Gimmighoul coins for a chance to get Gimmighoul and Gholdengo on your team.
• Pokémon Unite adds Miraidon to its roster, with Falinks and Ceruledge debuting in the coming months.

The final two announcements were the big ones: First, Pokémon TCG Online game gets a new mobile client. They swear it is not going to be NFT-related.

Finally, the next mainline Pokémon title, Pokémon Legends: Z-A, was announced. Players return to Generation 6’s Kalos region for a game supposedly all set in Lumiose City, X/Y‘s central hub. Mega Evolution will also return. Z-A is scheduled to launch in 2025.

So Back to the Bad

Playstation plans to lay off around 900 people. These cuts include staff at Naughty Dog, Insomniac, Guerilla Games, and the complete shuttering of their London studio. Firesprite, another subsidiary of Playstation that saw cuts, cancelled the production of live service Twisted Metal game.

EA has also laid off a large swath of their employees: five percent of their workforce in total. Battlefield studio Ridgeline Games folded into another Battlefield focused team, Ripple Effect, and a rumored Mandalorian game from Respawn was cancelled.

Embracer Group continues to shed weight across their properties. Saber Interactive, developers of the continuously in question Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake, reportedly will be sold to private investors for $500 million. There is also talk that Gearbox will be sold as well, with an official announcement due in the coming days. Gearbox recently shifted focus purely to Borderlands games, with a fourth mainline entry and a sequel to Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands still in development.

Maybe Some Good?

Toys for Bob, previously downsized by Microsoft after the Activision acquisition, is going independent. No reports on what this fully entails, but they are attempting to keep an active relationship with Microsoft, potentially meaning they will continue to work on Crash, Spyro, and potentially Tony Hawk titles.

Alan Wake creators Remedy have acquired full control of…Control. The studio purchased the rights to the franchise from 505 Games ahead of the eventual sequel that is still in development. as well as another project codenamed “Condor“, which is a multiplayer PvE spin-off of Control.

In other news…

Stardew Valley also has its own anniversary to celebrate, and ConcernedApe confirm that a 1.6 update to the PC version of the game will be coming March 16.

Critical Role is holding a public open beta playtest of their tabletop roleplaying game, Daggerheart, and playtest packets will be available on March 12.

Terminator: Survivors, an open-world survival game, is set to release this fall.

Nintendo sues the creators of Yuzu, a popular Switch emulator. While emulators have been proven to be legal, Nintendo’s case focuses on Yuzu’s circumvention of Switch game encryption as well as promotion of piracy, as the emulator’s Patreon saw a doubling of profits once Tears of the Kingdom leaked online.

Jen Cohn, the voice actor for Overwatch character Pharah, came under hot water when she called for Palestine to be “freed from Hamas” on a livestream. Her statement, which sidelines the very real genocide being perpetrated by Israel, has led to Overwatch fans calling for the character’s recasting.

The post The Bulletin: Zygarde Finally Has A Game appeared first on Gamesline.

Square Enix has recently busted a case of insider trading committed by current employees, which included the involvement of Balan Wonderworld developer and former Sonic series producer, Yuji Naka. Initial reports have noted that current employees, Fumiaki Suzuki and Taisuke Sasaki, were apprehended by the Tokyo Police with the suspicions of investing stock in a third party developer ahead of the public announcement of a new Dragon Quest mobile game. Not that long after that information was made, Fuji News Network reported that Yuji Naka was also arrested for his participation in the scandal. Naka has been a hot button subject here at Video Game Choo Choo, and it remains pending if this fall from grace will be a stunning, potential conclusion to that arc. That said, insider trading is considered illegal in Japan, so we can only infer what sort of disciplinary measures the suspects will have to face if their crimes are proven.

Honestly, it is a bit difficult to go further up from there—especially as investigation is ongoing—but other legal battles are also being pursued and conquered…

Blizzard Entertainment will officially not be renewing their partnership with NetEase, a major games company that has licensed several of Blizzard’s titles in China. The two companies have been unable to come to an agreement, and as a result, sales and access to servers for World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch 2, Starcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo III, and Warcraft III: Reforged will be completely suspended in China in the upcoming year. There is currently no publicly released statements if or when these titles will ever be accessible again to the region.

As a result of a long, two-year legal battle, Cooking Mama: Cookstar is to be delisted from sale. The game’s publisher, Planet Entertainment, is no longer authorized to sell or distribute the title and other misleading, Cooking Mama-related works. The initial release of the game back in 2020 was met with bizarre treatment and was even hastily pulled from storefronts then, in which Cooking Mama’s IP holder, Office Create was starting to allege that Planet failed several contractual obligations. Initial theories and rumors that were circulating around that time falsely thought that the game was pulled due to having software that was mining cryptocurrency.

After the Saints Row reboot unfortunately did not meet the expectations it wanted to hit, Volition is being absorbed into Gearbox.

Risk of Rain has also been acquired by Gearbox. Although they have explicitly expressed this means they will no longer work on the series, unlike the aforementioned situation with Volition, the games’ original developers, Hopoo Games, remains independent.

Riot Games and Ubisoft are teaming up to collect in-game chat logs in their respective games’ communities as data to train AI technology for an “anti-toxicity research project”. Both companies have had their own fair share of allegations of toxicity and abuse teeming within their respective workplaces.

In a rather bizarre collaboration, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege will be featuring a NieR Replicant bundle among other possible NieR related in-game goods for the game’s upcoming season.

In a rather unprecedented move with prior United States presidential offices, the Biden administration is remaining intent on blocking computer chip exports to China to encourage more domestic production. The move comes accompanied with growing concerns over foreign security and tensions with the Chinese government, but also the administration’s own agenda on wanting to overall encourage more domestic chip production.

While Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are officially released—Dead Island 2 is delayed, again. The game’s previous delay date was set for February 2023, and has been pushed back into April. You can also reference a chronicle of this game’s saga of delay announcements on our end, too!

The post The Bulletin: The Blowbacks of Balan’s Bouts appeared first on Gamesline.

Crusader Kings 3 coincidentally has a free event this weekend.

A new trailer Pokémon Scarlet and Violet has dropped new upcoming content. And that’s a pretty hairy crab!

Publisher PQube is accused of yet another concerning allegation from one of their clients, failing to pay Corecell, developer of AeternoBlade, their revenue. PQube claims Corecell’s new game failed to meet quality standards for a release, while they retain publisher control over it as the game remains listed on storefronts.

Domina has been officially delisted off of Steam. Domina was originally published in 2017, and the developer for some reason has gone off the deep end going on reactionary rants in recent patch notes. The game is still available on the developer’s Gumroad, updated with details that refer to this recent debacle.

Vodeo Games has made the difficult decision to shutter its doors. Vodeo Games is significant in being the first video game studio to have unionized in North America.

1047 Games has announced they are ending feature development on Splitgate.

Masayasu Ito is resigning as representative director and deputy president of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Ito will remain at Sony group in the Mobility division, while Lin Tao will be taking over his vacancy.

MultiVersus’ latest update now has added Gizmo from the Gremlins, modified some hitboxes, and changed a questionable mechanic in which Velma was able to call the cops on her opponents. ACAB!

League of Legends spinoff Arcane becomes the first video game adaptation to win an Emmy Award. The series won in the category of the Outstanding Animated Program, competing with other nominees of the year that included Rick and Morty and The Simpsons.

And as of today, a blind auction is now live for Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford’s shirts. Gross.

The post The Bulletin: Kings and Queens appeared first on Gamesline.

Mario + Rabbids: (John)

The sequel to the surprisingly great Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle has been confirmed, and it’ll take to the stars. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, will release in 2022 and sees Mario, Luigi, and Peach teaming up with Rabbid Peach, Rabbid Rosalina, and a new Rabbid with Yu-Gi-Oh! hair. It seems like you’ll be rescuing Rabbid versions of Lumas from Mario Galaxy, and you’re traveling from planet to planet to fight a foe of some sort. If it plays just like the first game and has the same amazing music, Sparks of Hope will be a solid game!

Rocksmith+: (John)

Ubisoft is releasing a new version of Rocksmith, a subscription service that will walk you through all the guitar lessons and real-time feedback you could ever ask for. New additions include Kramer model guitar support, Tab views, and a more expansive library of songs. There will even be video lessons and communities to chat about the songs you’re learning. There will be a free beta period for folks to help Ubisoft work out the kinks, but this seems to be a great way for guitar-hopefuls to learn the basics. Rocksmith Workshop will also be a tool to let users make their own arrangements of songs to upload for others to play.

Riders Republic: (Solon)

Imagine with me a post-capitalist future where you can play SSX with all your friends at the exact same time. Well, we don’t live in that post-capitalist future, instead we live in a hyper-capitalist hell where Ubisoft makes Riders Republic smashing every extreme sport they can think of into one always accessible, mega-consumable, MMO. Did you want to play SSX? Well, everyone on the servers are currently playing RED BULL SPONSORED BMX FEAT. VANS, so sorry… Every year, Ubisoft puts out one of these big multiplayer sports games and they land in a weird middle ground of being way too much and not really what I’m necessarily looking for at the same time. Focus up, Ubi.

Assassin’s Creed DLC: (Solon)

You didn’t finish Assassin’s Creed, or you 100%’d it. There is no in between, and either way, here is more. What kind of more? More more. A smattering of story with Eivor and Odin, and more of all the other stuff too. Now you have the option to wield single-handed swords?? Why would you downgrade from dual-wielding two-handed swords??

Far Cry 6: (Solon)

They got Giancarlo Esposito in here, but it’s just for some DLC, and when he’s not here, it’s really rough. I guess Far Cry fans just love playing as the fascist dictators? I need more Just Cause so badly right now…

Avatar: (John)

For some reason Ubisoft is releasing an Avatar game in 2022. It’s being made by the The Division team, and sure it looks pretty, but god what did we do to deserve this? Yves came out to introduce this too, to make sure we didn’t forget that Ubisoft was getting pretty much constantly called out for workplace transgressions. I just felt kinda bleh about the whole thing at the end there.

Devolver (John)

Devolver was an odd beast, as while the games they did show were pretty cool to see, the presentation was downright aggravating and unfunny. Sure, comedy is subjective, but it was a headache watching this program and having to parse what was an unfunny joke and what was a real thing people could buy. Hey, Shadow Warrior 3 looks tight, Wizard with a Gun was adorable, and Inscryption was dark and badass.

I couldn’t help, however, but be overwhelmed by the bad rather than the good. Another big downer in specific was Demon Throttle.

I really hate this new concept of physical only limited run games. The only people who will buy these games are weirdo collectors who will never actually play the games. Demon Throttle, a game by the folks who made Gato Roboto, will basically not exist at a certain point. I do hope the developers are okay with that! Devolver seems to be, since they made a joke about it on the stream explicitly saying what I just did. How fun!!!!

Gearbox:

Randy Pitchford retire.

The post E3 Day 3 Or 1 Or Whatever – Ubisoft, Devolver, and Gearbox Roundup appeared first on Gamesline.

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As always you can support us on our patreon, follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo , @Solonface, @SocksMahoney, and @John_Michonski
Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com, or into our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask
You can also join our discord channel at thegamezone.zone !

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download or listen below!

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In that same message Varnell mentions that many on the Battleborn team will be moving on to work for Gearbox’s next big project. That next game is almost certainly Borderlands 3, so it’d makes sense to put every developer you have on the next big title.

It isn’t too shocking to see Gearbox finally notice what we all knew right after Battleborn’s launch- the game wasn’t worth anyone’s time. Battleborn wasn’t a bad game, it just wasn’t what it was built up to be. When you have a title touted as the next big thing in eSports, without a clearly defined product, it’s easy to lose out to other, better, games on the market. It also didn’t help that Overwatch was launched only weeks later, taking away all the air from the room.

At least we’ll always have this tweet.

The post Battleborn Will Soon See Its Last Update appeared first on Gamesline.

Last week, there were a variety of leaks and rumors indicating that Gaming’s Best Boy, The Icon, The King, Duke Nukem himself, was returning. Now, this fresh Duke Nukem has been confirmed. On October 11th, Gearbox will release Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour, an updated 20th anniversary remaster of the 1996 FPS classic.

World Tour will be the first release of the game following the legal mess that led to the removal of 2015’s Megaton Edition. Not to show up empty-handed, World Tour comes locked and loaded with eight new levels hand-crafted by the game’s original designers. It’ll also include all-new music, which is by Duke 3D’s original sound designers. World Tour knows what you like, baby.

The game can be played with classic ’96 graphics or with updated visuals Gearbox’s “all-new ‘True3D Rendering’ mode.” Duke Nukem 3D: World Tour will let you hail to the king on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC; and will cost $19.99. Check out this tweet from Duke’s official Twitter and ask yourself- is it worth it?

Sounds like this Harambe guy shoulda gotten some pointers from The King.

— Duke Nukem (@dukenukemgame) August 29, 2016

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Tales feels like the first chance to analyze and enjoy the world through the eyes of everymen characters. Pandora has always felt like it could be a dense and interesting world despite the nature of its parts. While a fine open world in both of the loot-and-shoots (as well as the criminally meh Pre-Sequel recently released) there hasn’t been a chance to chew the fat of the political and social systems presented. There was always talk of corporate scheming and planetwide bounty hunting, but this was always backdrop to give players a thinly veiled excuse to carry on.

In Tales you take on the role of two normal but driven people-Rhys the Hyperion pencil pusher and Fiona the Pandoran con artist. These two encompass the traits that bring people to Pandora in search of danger and reward–they’re conniving and selfish in all the right ways. They’re both backstabbers, and they climb their respective ladders in their own way. It’s funny to see the similarities between a corporate lackey and a street urchin playing out as they move up in the world. Rhys relies on his corporate connections, and Fiona has mastered sleight of hand, but both use their silver tongues to manipulate and use people close to them. It’s a good dichotomy of origins and motives not seen in the Vault Hunter characters from previous games-it’s nice to be given a better reason for completion compared to a gun that shoots swords or a new character skin.

Supporting cast is as strong, if not stronger than in the main games, and funnier throughout the chapters, providing great responses to both circumstances and dialogue choices. Every choice made by players is a fine balance of trying to get what the main characters want and begrudgingly working together to get it. Throughout the course of the game, the party can grow closer and rely on each other or maintain selfish attitudes, both bearing repercussions on how the story plays out as well as how the players are viewed. The game does its best to highlight both Rhys and Fiona, but gives plenty of screentime and motivation to the secondary characters, villains and cameos. Familiar faces in the form of formerly playable Vault Hunters enter the story at various times; interactions with them range from coincidental run ins to full on joining forces depending on your choices. This is an excellent nod for fans and at times these cameos produce some of the best dialogue these characterts speak-miles ahead of the character barks heard in the Pre-Sequel.

The question many may ask is how well the modern adventure formula works for a previously shooter based series. Given how well thought out and funny the entire arc was, it’s safe to say this was my favorite TellTale and Borderlands game to date. While it doesn’t build a world lush with lore like the main titles, it uses an already established universe to tell an intimate but potent story. I’m glad they were able to focus on two characters and highlighted their differences and similarities-that’s where most of the best laughs came from. I was left wanting for more by the stinger of an ending-hopefully the second season will offer an even better roller coaster ride and reward returning players.

The post Tales From the Borderlands Review appeared first on Gamesline.

Teaming with Lionsgate, the studio who brought us The Hunger Games and Divergent, not much is known about the project. Will it be live action or CGI? Will it adapt one of the games or be a stand-alone story? The project could go any number of directions at this point. Hopefully the end result will be worth seeing in theaters.

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