Here’s our look back at the week’s news from the world of video games.
With E3 2017 just about to begin – and EA Play kicking off later today – we’ve decided to publish slightly earlier this week. Many of these stories will be shortly superseded by lots of huge game announcements. So, before the fun begins, here’s our weekly roundup.
FIFA 18 cover star revealed
Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo has been announced as the cover star for EA Sports FIFA 18, and majestic he looks too. The game itself will launch on September 29, 2017 and comes to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Switch and Xbox 360. We’ll be playing a few matches at EA Play, and will have a preview up soon. In the meantime, here’s the announcement trailer.
PlayStation Time
Perhaps wanting to avoid filling up their E3 conference with boring PowerPoint slides, Sony’s Shawn Layden did the rounds this week, proudly telling Time about ‘fortress’ PlayStation. (Anyone would think a more powerful competitor is about to be announced). It’s an interesting read, particularly the part where, on the subject of backwards compatibility, he says “I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much.” Ouch.
Pokkén and Pokémon return
We all thought we were going to get a new Pokémon game on Nintendo Switch, didn’t we? Much to the dismay of the internet, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company are instead bringing the next mainline Pokémon games – UltraSun and UltraMoon – to the Nintendo 3DS. It’s an entirely sound business decision, so Switch owners will have to make do with an updated Pokkén Tournament DX. In the meantime there are number of real world events planned to celebrate the one year anniversary of Pokémon Go.
CD Project Red
CD Projekt Red – creators of The Witcher series – took to Twitter this week to speak about a blackmail attempt related to design documents for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.
Indie Megabooth takes to the road
The Indie Megabooth has launched a travelling MegaShow that will tour the US promoting local talent and enabling developers to exhibit their games. The Megashow will debut in Atlanta next month, and will include a mix of games, music and art. Find out more on the Megashow website.
Scorpio gets more RAM
As reported by Gamasutra, Microsoft vice president Mike Ybarra has confirmed that game developers will have a little bit more RAM to play with on the upcoming Project Scorpio console. Some late in the day jiggery-pockery means that devs will now have access to 9 of the console’s 12GB of GDDR5 RAM.
Free Payday
Starbreeze Studios have announced that hit heist game Payday 2 will be free for a limited time. Download it on Steam, and it’s yours forever. The promotion runs until June 21, or until the total of number downloads hits five million. What a steal!
Jaywalking? Jaywalked
Gamasutra reports on another departure from Valve’s writing team, this time its Jay Pinkerton, whose credits include the splendiferous Portal 2.
Shit, man
Square Enix’s decision to sell Hitman developer IO Interactive is a real gut punch. With a relatively small team, and a lot of ambition, the studio created a game that easily stood toe-to-toe with better funded AAA games. Now comes word that Hitman will no be longer be sold in its episodic format. Eurogamer breaks down how Hitman will now be packaged and sold, including for players who have already purchased single episodes.
Night night, Greenlight
This week saw the closure of Steam Greenlight, Valve’s noble but flawed indie publishing platform. No sooner had the service shut down than Valve announced that its replacement – Steam Direct – will launch next week.
E3 2017 starts now
The biggest week in video games is about to begin, and we’ll be there. You can follow our daily updates via our E3 2017 page. You can also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and even on Google Plus. Aren’t we quaint? Enjoy the show.
