It’s been quite the stacked news week for fighting games and fighting for the people who make games!
Workers’ Rights Issues
Bethesda‘s US branches and the World of Warcraft development teams have announced that they have unionized. Microsoft has confirmed that they are open to beginning negotiations with both unions.
SAG-AFTRA, the union that had previously enacted a strike for actors in Hollywood, have now begun a new strike, this time focused on video game voice actors. The strikers are asking for protection against misuse of AI technology, specifically compensation for using their likeness and voice for AI generation. The strike will effect games that began production after August 2023, meaning big releases such as Grand Theft Auto VI are most likely in the clear, but if further voice clips are needed, union members may decline to contribute work to games.
Ziff Davis has shuttered Humble Games, the publishing arm of Humble Bundle. The entire team was laid off on the 23rd, with reports that leadership had no idea what the process of publishing games entailed. It is unknown how this will change the release of currently scheduled games under the Humble Games branding.
Fights in the Future
EVO was this past weekend, so a variety of new characters were announced for a good amount of games. San Diego Comic Con is also happening, so there’s a few announcements from there, as well.
Guilty Gear Strive‘s next season was detailed at Evo. The roster sees returning favorites Dizzy and Venom, new character from the recently confirmed anime Unika, and the first guest character in the series, Lucy from Cyberpunk 2077: Edgerunners. A new three-versus-three mode will also be added, with an open beta for the mode happening as this is posted.
Multiversus has announced two of their season two characters, with Samurai Jack available now and Beetlejuice available later. Warner Bros. also acquired Player First Games, developers of Multiversus.
SNK had a big showing this week. The studio announced two new DLC characters for The King of Fighters XV, Vice and Mature (due out in December), then revealed that they are working on both a new Art of Fighters and a Samurai Shodown action RPG.
Later, they released a port of SNK vs Capcom: SVC Chaos on Steam, with console versions available later. The port adds rollback netcode.
Finally from SNK, two new characters were confirmed for Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. Kevin Rian, a SWAT team member in South Town, and Billy Kane, former Geese crony and new leader of the Howard Connection, will be in the launch roster.
The last two season one DLC characters for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising were announced. Versusia will release August 20th alongside a large 1.50 update to the game, and Vikala is due out in October. A second season of DLC was also confirmed, starting with Sandalphon.
Somehow, Heihachi has returned, and he’s the next DLC character for Tekken 8. He’s due to be added to the game some time this Autumn.
Mortal Kombat 1 had to wait for Comic Con to announce their next round of DLC, alongside a story expansion and the return of Anamalities. Noob Saibot, Cyrax, and Sektor are returning, and three new guest characters will be added. Ghostface from Scream, Conan the Barbarian (as portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger), and the T-1000 from Terminator 2 are the new action figures you can slam against Omniman and Homelander. The story expansion and returning MK characters will be added September 24th, and the guests’ release will be announced later.
Other Assorted Announcements Abound
The first teaser for the Like a Dragon/Yakuza live action show has been released.
Former Skip Ltd. developers have announced a crowdfunding campaign to make a spiritual successor to Chibi-Robo. Titled koROBO, the Kickstarter has already reached about two-thirds of its initial goal.
Katawa Shoujo, the visual novel developed by Four Leaf studio about romance at a school for disabled girls, is coming to Steam and Itch after twelve years on August 16th.
A remaster collection of the first two Legacy of Kain games has seemingly been confirmed by a logo shown with Legacy of Kain action figures revealed at Comic Con.
A remaster of Tales of Xillia has seemingly been leaked through Czech and Slovak retailer listings. If the listings are real, the remaster will release on all major platforms.
The entire catalog of The Behemoth’s games will be getting updates:
- Alien Hominid: Invasion and Alien Hominid HD will be released on PS5 and PS4.
- A quality of life update for the Steam version of Battleblock Theater will release, as well as ports of the game to modern consoles.
- Castle Crashers is getting a new DLC called Painterboss Paradise, in which players can create their own skins for the playable characters and upload them to Steam Workshop. All of the games’ sprites have been redrawn as well, and a new character, Paint Jr., will be added.
- Pit People will also get a quality of life update, and their next title is confirmed to be in the prototype phase.
And finally. Michael Bay, of live-action Transformers and the first two Bad Boys films fame, is currently in talks to direct some form of Skibidi Toilet movie or television series. No word on if the Half-Life characters’ faces will be used for these ventures.
