It’s been a pretty good week for gaming news and it’s about that time we look back at some of the highlights. On top of the news recap this weekend, keep your eyes out for my impressions of Back 4 Blood as well as live-streaming the same title this week. Without further ado, let’s get to the news!
Back 4 Blood is currently in an open beta stage for everyone to try. Not gonna say too much about the title just yet, but I will say it has more elements than I expected, so that’s a good sign for what’s in the full game. I have found it to be quite fun so far, but not without its share of issues. I can’t wait to learn more and give you my first impressions next week. Fear not, it opens to everyone, not just preorders, so we’re clear.
Another game I am excited for this month as should most PlayStation owners, is Ghost of Tsushima. With the big update on its way that adds an extension to the game, a multiplayer variant and for a few extra dollars you get a PS5 upgrade, it’s almost time for me to hop back on and revisit the game.
Someone listed a couple of PS5 developer kits on eBay the other day. The bidding reached over $3000 USD before the listing was taken down by eBay without explanation. We’re guessing that Sony got involved and had the listing removed, but without an official statement from either eBay or Sony, there is no way to confirm Sony’s involvement. Personally, if I was in the market for a PS5, I wouldn’t be interested in buying a dev kit. It might have some collector’s value down the road, but it’s still a hard pass for me. Would you buy one?
In other news, Sony has seen a decline in PlayStation plus subscribers, but the company isn’t worried about it as the PlayStation brand continues to be the biggest money maker for Sony right now. Which really makes me wounded where Sony would be right now if they had passed on the console business. It is my understanding that PlayStation is the company’s flagship right now, so it is quite possible that Sony could have gone bankrupt had it not gotten into gaming. Interesting thought to mull over. What do you think would have happened?
Deathloop has gone gold! PS5’s timed exclusive that was originally planned to release back in May of this year, has finally been completed and is ready for gamers to play. Unfortunately for me and other Gamers that can’t wait to play this game, going gold now doesn’t move the release date any closer. September 14th, it is! Microsoft now owns the developer and publisher behind Deathloop, but prior to MS making the purchase of Zenimax and everything under its umbrella, the deal had already been struck with Sony and the companies had to follow through with the terms. I cannot wait to review it and tell you what I think. I have high hopes, but I’ve been disappointed plenty of times in the past, so we’ll see.
While I await the release of Deathloop and a ton of other games that won’t start releasing until the fall season begins, I am also looking forward to the latest ALIENS game releasing later this month. Aliens: Fireteam is a third person multiplayer shooter that is meant to be the sequel to the original movies that starred Sigourney Weaver. I don’t really know much more about it aside from that and some gameplay I’ve watched, but when it drops on the 24th of August, I’ll be playing and hopefully enjoying it! I’ll drop you a review around then too!
The troubles over at the behemoth publishing company Activision are getting worse. Well, worse for the company, that is. To recap, a boatload of employees at Blizzard Activision and Activision in general, have come forward with allegations sexual harassment, discrimination, all around mistreatment treatment of women and more. The state of California filed a lawsuit against the company for the reasons above and then some and Activison’s heads started off with callus meaningless statements that resolved nothing. Well, an Activision Blizzard Executive by the name of Frances Townsend, has resigned from her position in the company. Not because it was the noble thing to do and she wanted to stand up for employees rights. No, she legit blocked employees on Twitter after she sent an email denying the allegations against the company.
After major backlash for her email, Frances started blocking employees as well as others form Twitter account. Frances is a former United States Homeland Security Advisor that ended up becoming the executive vice president for corporate affairs Activision Blizzard stepped down from the company’s Women’s Network. She still has a job there, but has distanced herself in some form, I guess. Sounds to me like she needs to be fired, but Activision doesn’t want to admit it’s a horrible place for women to work in general, so why even acknowledge Frances? I think this is only the beginning of what’s to come and hopefully Activision and it’s bigwigs are truly held accountable.
I will of course keep updating you with how things turned out with all of this. I’ll also be dropping a few reviews for you this month as I mentioned earlier and to put the cherry on top, keep your eyes out for our social media pages. I am planning to livestream the PS5 exclusive Returnal in the coming days and then follow it up with ALIENS: fireteam later this month. Thank you for reading and as always, I will see you online!