This Week in Games

Fighter's Finale

‘Sup, y'all? My editor is currently at Otakon, the first major in-person anime convention to take place in what feels like an eternity, but I'm still here at home in Portland. Hey, if they're all too busy to check this, does that mean I can post anything I feel like in this column and it'll fly? Hot damn!

Okay, okay, that's enough goofing around. We have news to discuss! First off: New Sol Cresta footage from PlatinumGames, because I'm a sucker for that old-school shooter gameplay!

Okay, now that I have posted the required amount of self-indulgent retro content in this column, we can move on to the more "mainstream" news. How about some fightin'?

STREET FIGHTER V'S FINALE APPROACHES

The Street Fighter V Summer Update was a couple days ago, and fans across the globe were amped up to see what CAPCOM would showcase. More footage of Oro and Akira was a given, and perhaps that final DLC character would be shown at long last…

But before that… FORTNITE!

Because Fortnite is the hottest place to advertise your media property these days, two more Street Fighter characters are being added as skins: Cammy and Guile. And they both look extremely off. Cammy's wearing pants (were the bare legs too much for Fortnite's younger-skewing audience?) and Guile… sheesh, just look at the guy.

That's not Guile; that's the “Army Family Man” costume from a Spirit Halloween store. You can't fool me!

Anyway, the news most folks came to see followed shortly afterwards: Further details on new playable characters Oro and Akira!

Oro was already covered fairly extensively in a previous update, but this marks the first time we get to dive into Akira's skillset. Eagle-eyed fans of Rival Schools will notice a lot of callbacks to those games, including her V-trigger activation effect. These kinds of callbacks are always fun to see. Even better is the possibility that we could be seeing a lot more of the Rival Schools gang in the future now that it's officially tied-in with mainline Street Fighter canon the way Final Fight is.

And what about that final character? The one that's been kept secret for so long?

Everyone, meet Luke, The Future of Street Fighter!

I'm not being facetious with that statement – CAPCOM really is saying that Luke is important to “the future of Street Fighter” through several channels, heavily implying that Street Fighter VI is definitely in the works and we'll be seeing a lot more of this guy. Perhaps they might be positioning him as a new protagonist? A bold move, considering they tried that back in Street Fighter III with Alex, but everyone just wanted more of the old Ryu/Ken/Chun/Akuma gang back.

But here's the weird thing: Luke might not be a complete newcomer to Street Fighter. In fact, his origins might go back almost two decades to a cancelled game…

…to CAPCOM Fighting All-Stars. Remember this one? Planned for release around 2003, it was something of a fiasco, as it bombed hard during arcade location testing and got canned as a result. (It also resulted in CAPCOM pooping out CAPCOM Fighting Jam as a replacement, which likely wasn't much better in hindsight.) Anyway, CAPCOM Fighting All-Stars featured a few original characters alongside the more familiar favorites. One of these characters was named “Rook,” and he looked like this:

Hmmm… styled blonde hair… tattoos… a coincidence, right? Maybe, but there's more: “Rook” and “Luke” are written the same way in Japanese katakana. Also, a while back CAPCOM posted a bio page for Rook in their big official Street Fighter lore database… under the name “Luke.” Well then, that's certainly interesting!

Akira and Oro debut on August 16^th along with a major update that will introduce a whole mess of additional online tournament mode options. Luke will be coming sometime in November, so we'll likely hear and see more of him within the next month or two. Will CAPCOM confirm the Luke/Rook connection, or leave it as fan speculation? We'll just have to see. Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Luke was the final character reveal in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as well? I'm joking, please don't scream at me on Twitter.

Also, please give everyone better hair in Street Fighter VI, CAPCOM. I'm begging you.

CARDS CONTINUE TO FALL IN THE ACTIVISION/BLIZZARD FIASCO

Well, things continue to look not great for Activision/Blizzard after getting sued by the government of California for covering up systemic abuse! In light of all the awful revelations that have come out about the company, president J Allen Brack turned in his resignation – though whether it was really all that voluntary is up to speculation. Some folks seem to think he was pressured to resign to appease investors, who are currently filing a class action lawsuit against the company.

He's not the only departure, either: Blizzard human resources head Jesse Meschuk has also departed the company. A lot has come out recently about how Blizzard HR mishandled complaints and sometimes even protected abusers, so it was obvious that some heads were going to roll over in that division.

Meanwhile, the eSports side of Activision/Blizzard is also suffering (deservedly): several advertisers have pulled out of deals with the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League. T-Mobile was the first to bail, and now Coca-Cola and State Farm are looking to follow suit. If things continue on their downward spiral, I'm sure that there will be more companies following suit.

NIPPON ICHI SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES AN UNSETTLING NEW ADVENTURE GAME

A couple of days ago, Nippon Ichi launched a strange new website consisting of little more than short snippets of footage…. very, very creepy footage. Here's a sample:

A security camera, a warehouse, a dead body… pretty sinister stuff! But also very intriguing, too. And just yesterday, the full details of this strange new title were revealed. Here's the first full trailer for the upcoming title Asatsugutori, coming to PS4 and Switch.

Asatsugutori is an adventure game about a gaggle of girls trapped in what seems to be a cold, hospital-like structure. They've all got a bunch of weird, IV-like cables attached to their hands, as if they're being used for a bizarre experiment – a hypothesis that becomes more believable when they hear a voice over the intercom saying that only the girl who survives will be able to leave.

Hibari, the main character, discovers that she has the ability to loop time upon discovering one of the other girls’ dead body. With this ability, she could potentially prevent the other girl's death, and decides to put it to use. But with a directive that only one girl survives, can Hibari really prevent everyone from dying, and can she uncover the truth behind what's going on?

I love this story concept, and the presentation (2D isometric art) has me totally sold. If the mystery-solving and time-looping gameplay is solid, we could have a real winner on our hands here. Provided, of course, NIS America is willing to bring it over to the West. A lot of NIS Japan's text-heavy adventure games have never made the journey overseas, unfortunately, but if there is interest in Asatsugutori I'm sure NIS America will consider picking it up. I'll definitely be prodding them about it!

Well then, I think that's everything of note for this week. August is kind of a slow news and release month in general, but that means more time to catch up on things. That reminds me, I still need to start the Famicom Detective Club games… are you all playing anything of note right now? What do you think about the Street Fighter announcements? Are you as intrigued by Asatsugutori as I am? Come on over to our forums and chat about all things gaming at that lovely little link right below here. Thanks as always for reading!