This Week in Games

Demon Days

Hee-ho, friends! It's time for another This Week in Games! Halloween might be over, but I've still got plenty of candy to snarf, and that sugar's been what's powering me through Shin Megami Tensei V, which I reviewed over at GameSpot and Jean-Karlo reviewed here on ANN. Seems like we both liked it a lot! Have a read of both reviews if you want to know what to expect from Atlus's latest massive RPG – and be on the lookout for some guides I'm writing as well.

But we can't dwell too long on discussing a massive RPG, because there's news to be discussed! So let's get the ball rolling by talking about another game featuring a protagonist with long flowy hair that's going to be playable on November 12^th.

WE FINALLY KNOW WHAT ELDEN RING REALLY LOOKS AND PLAYS LIKE

After what feels like years of leaks and speculation, Bandai-Namco and From Software have finally, finally released official gameplay footage of their hotly-anticipated Souls-like fantasy epic, Elden Ring. And there's plenty of it – nineteen minutes’ worth, in fact!

Why they held off on showing… well, anything of Elden Ring for so long remains a mystery, but with the closed beta coming up on November 12^th, clearly Bamco and From were going to have to show off something before people got their hands on it. My personal impressions from the trailer are “Yep, that's a Souls-type game, alright!” I'm not quite feeling the guiding hand of George R. R. Martin anywhere in what I've seen/heard of the world and dialogue, though. Still, I am digging a lot of those monster designs, especially Godrick the Golden at the end. (I think I just have a thing for multi-limbed humanoid foes, though, because I also love Mistral from Metal Gear Rising.)

Of course, would it be a big-budget Bamco release without a super-pricey limited edition with a bunch of tchotchkes for the super-fan who knows they'll love the game without even playing it? Of course not!

The $189 premium edition of Elden Ring comes with the usual artbook, game, steelbook box, and statue, but for $229 you'll also get a scale replica helmet… though, if the limited edition scale replica helmets of previous games are anything to go by, it's likely more of an accessory for your cat than something you can use for actual cosplay. This Premium Collector's Edition is only available on the Bandai-Namco mail order store, and seeing how games-as-collectibles have been trending, it will probably sell out instantaneously and show up at 200% markup on eBay within minutes.

Still, at least you're going to get to play Elden Ring soon. That's pretty cool.

SEGA AND MICROSOFT ARE UP TO SOMETHING TOGETHER

A few days ago, Sega of Japan put out a press release titled “SEGA and Microsoft to Explore Strategic Alliance to create New Strategic Titles for SEGA and establish a Next-Generation Development Environment,” which is a whole lot of tech press release buzzwords crammed into a single title! But if you're rolling your eyes at the title, wait until you see the actual text:

SEGA Corporation and Microsoft Corporation have agreed in principal, a strategic alliance that explores ways for SEGA to produce large-scale, global games in a next-generation development environment built on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. The alliance would form a key part of SEGA's mid to long-term strategy, allowing the business to move forward with “Super Game”, a new initiative for developing new and innovative titles where the key focuses are “Global”, “Online”, “Community” and “IP utilization”.

There's that “Super Game” thing again! We heard Sega talking about the Super Game earlier this year, and apparently they see Microsoft Azure as a key to achieving what they want with this nebulous upcoming title. (Still, whenever I hear the words “Super Game,” I find myself thinking about a bunch of scientists in a secret underground Sega lab trying to make some chimeric hybrid of Sonic, Virtua Fighter, Yakuza, Puyo Puyo, Phantasy Star, and Space Harrier that will eventually develop sentience, overthrow its creators, and emerge to conquer gaming as we know it.)

But what does it mean? Basically, Microsoft Azure is a cloud-based development and service management tool. It's pretty popular in modern game development, I'm told, especially for online games, and it isn't limited to Microsoft platforms: even direct competitor Sony has worked with MS to use the Azure technology for various purposes.

But boy oh boy, people are really dragging out the Jump To Conclusions mat with this one, including the ol’ chestnut of “Microsoft is going to buy Sega!!!” It's pretty intentionally vague – likely because there aren't any super-solid commitments made beyond “we're going to use Azure in upcoming games somehow” – so I don't think you need to worry about Sega making exclusive games for a Microsoft cloud-based service, or whatever you read from some guy on Twitter. It's just one of many development-tool deals that get worked out in the industry daily, only this time it's got a fancy press release attached to draw headlines. Don't fret it and just keep on enjoying your games until the Super Game emerges from its cocoon to conquer us all.

NEWSFLASH: ACTIVISION-BLIZZARD STILL SUCKS

Activision-Blizzard's No Good Very Bad Year continues. This week saw an investor conference call headed by Activision CEO and known unrepentant asshole Bobby Kotick discussing many of the firm's recent goings-on, and while the controversy hasn't made ATVI take a huge hit in earnings, it's clear that they're still in extreme panic mode.

Kotick started off the call by spouting the usual mealy-mouthed CEO bullshit of (paraphrased) “We're working hard to be better! We made improvements! We hate discrimination and sexual harassment! Give us some credit :(“ as if these improvements didn't come several years too late for many current and former ATVI employees). President and COO Daniel Alegre then delivered the bad news: due to “increased competition in the market for our talent and higher voluntary turnover that has partly offset our success in hiring” (boy, I wonder what the cause of that could be) Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 have both been delayed, likely out of 2022.

Oh, and Jen O'Neal, who was appointed as co-leader of Blizzard after J. Allen Brack resigned? She's also left after only a few months on the job. We can only speculate as to why, but let's be real: almost none of the reasons we can speculate for her abrupt departure are good. She's still working at Blizzard for now, but plans to depart at year's end, leaving only Mike Ybarra in charge of what's become the poster company for everything wrong with videogames. ATVI stock fell sharply after the call, further adding to a year of losses.

So, place your bets, folks: will there be yet another massive, embarrassing revelation about Activision-Blizzard's terrible work environment before year's end? My money's on “unfortunately, yes!”

ASSORTED NEWSBITS

• Both Animal Crossing: New Horizons's major version 2.0 update and the paid Happy Home Paradise content are now available, so if you haven't stopped back to your island in a good while, now's a good time to revisit your pals. Except for Curly. Curly's a jerk and we all hate him.
• Megaton Musashi, Level-5's new mech-focused action RPG that has gone surprisingly under-the-radar for a big Level-5 media mix project, has had some hands-on gameplay posted courtesy of IGN Japan.
  
  With Level-5's international branches being essentially defunct, any release outside of Japan is currently in question, but I could see Nintendo trying to pick up and push this. We'll see.
• During a livestream amusingly titled “Hideki Kamiya's Very Sorry Stream,” the man who is more or less the face of PlatinumGames announced that retro-throwback shooter Sol Cresta has been delayed for the time being, because even these supposedly “simple” old-school-style games take a whole lotta work to develop and polish. Considering that there is a flood of arcade shooter releases and re-releases happening right now, I think I'm OK with waiting a bit longer.

And so, we come to the end of another week in gaming news. Now that we've seen Elden Ring in action, what do you think? Are you hyped to play another From Software dark fantasy epic, or are you all Souls’d out? How about Shin Megami Tensei V – are you hyped for its release next week? If it's on your mind and game-related, come join us in the forums (linked below, as always) to enjoy some thoughtful conversation! See you all again next week – until then, stay safe and game on!