GBP (£)
EUR (€)
WARNING: I WILL MENTION THAT I BOUGHT A PS5 A LOT THROUGHOUT THIS VIDEO GAME NEWS POST. I know you’ve all been worried sick that it would never happen, but I want you all to know that everything is fine. On September 2nd I became the proud owner of a PlayStation 5. It’s been a long time coming, we’ve had scalpers, shortages and a world in ruin. Sony tried to remedy this by creating a registration process to buy one directly from them. But frankly, who has the money for a new console four days before pay day?! Absolute madness!
So yeah, got one of the Sony bad boys and my son is now obsessed with AstroBot, he even wants to go Trick or Treating as Sony’s little mechanical marvel. But unless ASDA sell a costume of it for under £10 it won’t be happening. I appreciate that my boy thinks I can simply make him one. But he doesn’t understand - if I had the skill to create these things I’d be wearing a movie accurate Predator outfit on the school run everyday. I’ve got just under a month to convince him to be something else. I think I’ll start playing Spider-Man Miles Morales and get him back into the webslinger. I’ll keep you posted.
I’m currently playing: After the announcement of Pikmin 4 at the last Nintendo Direct I’ve been back on Pikmin 3 for Switch. While on my brand-spanking new PlayStation 5 I’ve been catching up on Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal, Deathloop, Stray and grabbed the platinum trophy on Last of Us Part I.
I’m currently hyped for: On Switch I’m excited about Warhammer 40,000: Shootaz, Blood & Teef. While on PlayStation 5 I’m chomping at the bit for Gotham Knights and God of War Ragnarok.
New Games
September gave us The Last Of Us Part One on PlayStation 5 (I purchased this with my PS5... did I mention I’ve got one?); FIST (PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox and the Switch); Humankind Heritage (PS4 and PS5); Steel Rising (PS5 and Xbox Series X|S); Thymesia (Xbox); Splatoon 3 (Switch); XIII, VERTIGO and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (all platforms); Recompile (PlayStation 5). The second half of the month gave us Stray (PS5), Evil West (PS4, PS5 & Xbox Series X|S); Soulstice (PS5 and Xbox Series X|S); The Diofield Chronicle (PS4, PS5 and Switch); Session: Skate Sim (PS4, PS5 and XBox Series X|S); Valkyrie Elysium (PS4 & PS5). To finish the month off we got Paw Patrol Grand Prix (PS4, PS5 & Switch); Trek to Yomi (PS4 and PS5); and Them’s Fightin’ Herds (all platforms).
Whereas September gave us a bumper crop, October is fairly slim pickings. It’s almost as if some behemoth of gaming is coming out and no-one wants to release near it... odd. On the 21st we get Persona 5 Royal (PS5 & Xbox Series X|S), this is quickly followed up with Gotham Knights (PS5) on the 22nd. And to round things off we get a trio of games on the 28th with Tiny Troopers Global Ops (PS4, PS5 and Switch), Tin Heroes (PS4 & PS5) and.. yeah, there it is - Call of Duty Modern Warfare II (PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S).
Announcements
This month the video game news has been mainly dominated by me finally managing to buy a PlayStation 5, but a few other things happened. We had an Xbox ID stream, PlayStation State of Play and a Nintendo Direct to kick September off.
Rockstar suffered a huge leak of Grand Theft Auto 6 content. People were understandably cautious to believe it was real. But Rockstar announced it was genuine and within two weeks a 17-year-old hacker was arrested and is facing fines, jail and bedtimes without dinner.
Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision continues while PlayStation boss, Jim Ryan, throws his toys out the pram daily and is doing everything he can to stop it. Classy.
Cyberpunk 2077 has seen a resurgence thanks in no small part to the latest update and a Netflix anime. The other day it stood at 1million daily players on Steam.
Crystal Dynamics has put out a questionnaire to find out what players want for the future of Legacy of Kain and Soul Reaver games. For those unfamiliar these titles are legendary PlayStation 1 and 2 games. They have unparalleled gameplay, plot, and the best voice acting in gaming that didn’t include Nolan North or Troy Baker. For those that do know go here and hammer home “single player experience” as much as you can. We don’t want another failed MMO. This franchise deserves better than that.
Google shutdown the Stadia, frankly I thought that had already happened so I was more confused than shocked. But players who didn’t see the iceberg and actually purchased a Stadia have been stuck in limbo about their game progress. Several studios are now trying to transfer Stadia saves to PC to save players from starting over.
Players also said goodbye to Overwatch, which had it’s servers switched off on October 3rd to make way for Overwatch 2 and its going free-to-play shenanigans. I’m sure this will be a great move and certainly won’t bring more trolls and toxic players into the community now they won’t even have to pay. Sure Blizzard have announced some safety measures, but they’re very questionable - all party chats will now be recorded and you have to give Blizzard your phone number to be able to play... Grab some popcorn and let’s watch this one play out!
To leave things on a brighter note, by the time you read this the Dead Space remake will have a gameplay trailer out for us all to salivate over ahead of it’s January 2023 release. And if that’s not enough Nintendo have announced remasters of legendary RPGs Suikoden I and II are coming to Switch in 2023. Good times ahead!
And That’s, That
So, are you on the Call of Duty hypetrain? Will you be buying or avoiding on day one? Let us know what games you’ll be playing on the Zatu socials, and if you knew all of this video game news already (or not).