While gamescom has overtaken the crux of major video announcements, several other sudden surprises and unsurprising slops have also taken space on the newspaper stand.

Gamescom Big Gains

gamescom 2024 is still ongoing into the weekend, and you can catch up with our roundup of opening night’s announcements here! But a big crux of the annual convention’s major programming has reached its climax with its award show with the following winners:

• Monster Hunter Wilds for Best Trailer, Most Epic, Most Entertaining, and Best PlayStation Game
• Little Nightmares 3 for Audio, Visuals, and Best Xbox Game
• Genshin Impact for Best Mobile Game
• Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 for Best PC Game
• Frostpunk 2 for Gameplay
• Tavern Talk for Most Wholesome
• Creatures of Ava for Games for Impact
• Microsoft / Xbox / Bethesda / Blizzard for Best of Show Floor

Tango Gameworks Dances Again

In a sudden turn of events, games studio Tango Gameworks has been taken over by publisher of PUBG: Battlegrounds, Krafton, with full intent on resuming all work activities as norm and ambition to further continue the Hi-Fi Rush IP.

The Hi-Fi Rush developer was founded by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami and went on to be acquired by ZeniMax Media, in turn, later getting folded over into Microsoft. News that Tango Gameworks was to be shuttered erupted back in late spring.

Packing Up Camp

Meanwhile, the bell tolls for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp—and certainly not those kinds of Bells—and it has been announced that services for the mobile game will end November this year.

That said, Nintendo has further elaborated they intend on releasing a paid, offline version of the game, and Pocket Camp players will be able to transfer their data from the original game.

In other news…

Steam now has a new feature in reviews to indicated if a reviewer has played the title extensively on the Steam Deck.

While among several of the lineup of announcements made at gamescom 2024, developer Warhorse Studios emphasizes that Kingdom Come: Deliverance II will not be released until the first quarter of next year on February 11, 2025.

In the midst of another wave of SAG-AFTRA strikes that has now evoked a rally for video game actors, Amazon Games CEO Christopher Hartmann claims that games “don’t really have acting“.

The Backyard Sports video game franchise is being rebooted.

Helldivers 2 developer Arrowhead Game Studios has unveiled a 60-day plan to address player complaints.

John Carpenter is reportedly heavily involved in the production of a new Halloween game, to be developed on Unreal Engine 5.

Final Fantasy XVI is now up for preorder on both the Epic Games Store and Steam. The game is due out September 17th, and a demo is available now. Meanwhile, a rumor also suggests that game will also soon find itself on the Xbox.

To no one’s shock, the Borderlands movie flopped at the box office. You can still get the Claptrap popcorn bucket watching something else though! (while supplies last)

And finally, United States Vice President candidate for the Democratic party Tim Walz was apparently a huge Dreamcast gamer, to the point his wife had to hide the console away from him.

The post The Bulletin: Not the Last Dance appeared first on Gamesline.

On top of some headlines that are both sad and strange, this week is still following up on a huge slew of video game announcements—from big releases to major updates—as we continue to sweat through the thick of a summer of showcases and games shows.

Voice actor Billy Kametz passed away. On top of having had an extensive catalog of work dubbing various anime, Kametz also contributed his talent to games like 13: Sentinels: Aegis Rim, Persona 5 Royal, and the Fire Emblem series.

A Duke Nukem movie adaptation is apparently in the works. The creators of Cobra Kai are currently set to produce it with Legendary Entertainment. Speaking of the Duke…

What in the world is Jon St. John doing? Gianni Matragrano is a voice actor who is mostly known online by imitating his fellow actors in the industry, such as going viral for doing Duke Nukem impressions. Duke’s original voice actor, Jon St. John, has been sending some…bizarre, somewhat threatening messages to Gianni for a while now.

Ark 2, sequel to Ark: Survival Evolved is currently expecting to come out in 2023. To accompany this, the original Ark is getting a major update and ARK: The Animated Series, which features talents such as Michelle Yeoh, Gerard Butler, David Tennant, and Karl Urban, is slated to release this year. Vin Diesel is hyped af.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl is now officially delayed to be released in 2023. Alongside a new game trailer, the game’s developers also shared an extensive, harrowing look into their day-to-day lives working on the game in the midst of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. While some of the game’s development will continue to wrap up in their original Ukraine location, the dire circumstances has influenced the team’s decision to open shop in the Czech Republic in order to finalize its completion.

Zachtronics announced Last Call BBS, which they are officially declaring to be their last game.

Final Fantasy and Dragon’s Dogma fans are eatin’ good today. In a rare case of all around W’s, Square Enix in their showcase announced an HD remaster of Final Fantasy: Crisis Core, a Steam port of Final Fantasy VII: Remake Intergrade, and the second part in this remake trilogy coming in the form of Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth set to release next winter. Dragon’s Dogma II was also confirmed to be in development during their presentation, and here’s hoping they bring the old theme song back.

And last, but not least…

Hideo Kojima met Michael Bay. We have been warned.

The post The Bulletin: The Duke Is Being Dang Weird appeared first on Gamesline.

In his speech, North references the striker’s usage of “#PerformanceMatters,” and how important he views the developers and programmers work over his own. It’s a bit of a messy speech, but the real point he’s conveying is an acknowledgement that the people who pour their hearts and souls into making a game like Uncharted 4 are worth far more overall than his singular performance.

It’s easy to interpret this in a way that echoes what a lot of parties have said with regards to the SAG-AFTRA strike: why are voice actors so special they deserve more money? Shouldn’t the game developers and designers be getting more money? You don’t see them striking, do you?

There’s one big problem in following this line of thought, however: Nolan North is currently on strike with the SAG-AFTRA Union.

Early in November, North was interviewed by Kotaku UK, specifically to get a read on his thoughts about the then-nascent strike. The interview immediately starts with this passage:

From the get-go, North wanted to be clear about two things: he stands with his union and knows he has had different experience to other actors, so speaks only for himself and no-one else taking part in the strike.

The rest of the interview supports these claims, showing North talking about how he had never faced the issues other voice actors face, how he has acknowledged his position of privilege, and his realization of just how important it is that workers are properly compensated for their work. The article even ends with, “Nolan North stands with his union, and is joining in with the strike.” Wouldn’t it be a bit odd if, less than one month later, he completely flipped his stance?

The type of misinterpretation we’re dealing with is, unfortunately, very common. During situations such as strikes, where things people desire are being potentially blockaded by another party, many will grasp at any reason to justify their frustration. Unfortunately, the reason most have been finding, and the reason that causes the misinterpretation of this speech in the first place, is all a misunderstanding.

For some reason, arguments against the strike always seem to fall into that single fallacious notion, repeated ad nauseum across the internet: “Why should the voice actors be special? Does that mean that game developers and programmers should get big bonuses too?” What is frustrating about this notion is that it operates under the pretense that “More money = Greed,” rather than “More money = Fair compensation;” people in and around video game fields often forget, ignore, or plainly don’t know, that unions exist to represent employees, and to fight for their fair treatment.

Ultimately all of these points are just additive, since early Friday, voice actor Roger Craig Smith once again echoed these sentiments.

NOT an attack…
A classy, selfless gesture showing importance of ALL folks in game production.#PerformanceMattershttps://t.co/70WjBRxHhM

— Roger Craig Smith (@RogerCraigSmith) December 2, 2016

All in all, this type of situation is disappointing. It demonstrates something incredibly frustrating about journalism, which is writers ignoring research to spread their misinterpretations as fact. Hopefully unions can one day be portrayed as the helpful necessity they are, rather than a greedy scapegoat.

The post No, Nolan North is Not Against the Voice Actor Strike appeared first on Gamesline.

If SAG and the eleven companies involved come to some agreement by Friday, then a strike could be avoided. However if neither party can agree, this could end up leading to production delays. It’d be a real awkward announcement to declare a game delayed because you couldn’t justly pay your voice actors.

The eleven companies included are:

• Activision Publishing, Inc.
• Blindlight, LLC
• Corps of Discovery Films
• Disney Character Voices, Inc.
• Electronic Arts Productions, Inc.
• Formosa Interactive, LLC
• Insomniac Games, Inc.
• Interactive Associates, Inc. Take 2
• Interactive Software
• VoiceWorks Productions, Inc.
• WB Games, Inc.

With a lot of big names involved, this could end up being one of the largest video game related strikes to ever happen, and we’ll continue to update with whatever needs updating, when whatever happens, happens.

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