Apex Legends Season 3

This week we saw the release or technically the update with the third season of Apex Legends. The free to play battle royale, that has slowly been carving out its own niche in the market. Although not the Fortnite killer it was originally dubbed, Apex Legends has still made a name for itself since its release in February. By having a very smooth gameplay, with meaningful updates instead of constant patching, and by building out the lore slowly it has garnered a following. Yes, its had a few bumps along the way, mainly with its free-mium model pricing and server issues but this are fairly minor things on the overall picture.

For the first two seasons, things didn’t change too much. Skins were added, modes were introduced on a temporary basis, ranked leagues helped create an area for the casuals and elite to play separately. Season 3, dubbed meltdown, is completely changing the game. Up until now, Apex Legends was very fast paced game involving lots of sliding and plenty of third party attacking. For Meltdown, Respawn has introduced a completely new map that changes that way the game is played. The first major change is the size, this is a much bigger map. Having tested out the new map and the changes involved, many players are dying outside the storm. This could be due to the fact that many players don’t know the land just yet, but I have a strong suspicion that there is a lot more ground to cover and what seems like a lot less jump towers.

The second change with the map design is the elevation and how there is less areas to traverse by sliding. This makes covering large open areas a much more challenging and methodical task. The distance between teams has created a new meta with long range a priority. Long range combat has also been encouraged by the new weapon addition of a charge rifle from TitanFall that is great at long range as well as the new hop up for the G7 scout that adds double tap to the trigger. Be aware, there is still a plenty of third party attacks that happen but they feel much less and with the map size you sometimes have the ability to prepare and fortify when they happen.

If close range is more your play style then not to worry because there are a lot of urban areas featured in the new map with multiple floors. Which can be sometimes hard to navigate unless you happen to have surveillance on your team with the inclusion of bloodhound or the all new character crypto. Crypto, is a recon expert who has a surveillance drone that can be used to aid your team in locating targets. This comes at a cost because one of your team mates will be hiding controlling the drone and tracking down the enemy squad while the remaining two members engage the enemy team. The other method is to set up the drone, find the enemy squad and then join your team but crypto will generally always be behind the squad. If you can manage the logistics of having a two man squad with crypto being very long range then he is a very strong and welcome addition to the already varied character list of Apex Legends.

Troy Baker and Gearbox

Earlier this year with the lead up to the release of Borderlands 3 there was a lot of talk if certain characters and more specifically, voice actors would be reprising their roles. One of the fan favourites from previous titles is Troy Baker, who lended his vocal talents to Tales from the Borderlands, with Baker himself saying that he would love to get the chance to be involved again. I read an article on Polygon that echoed most of what other outlets had to say but Polygon had some original responses from SAG and Gearbox which really help clarify the situation.

The article references some of the comments that were made earlier in the year including the one from Randy Pitchford who came right out and said that Troy Baker turned down the role, which makes it sound like they offered him the role and he declined it. This turned out to be only half of the truth with Troy Baker recently making comments that he turned down the role because Gearbox wouldn’t go union.

Back in 2017, the union for voice actors reached a deal for fair treatment for voice actors in the video game industry after an 11 month strike. There are constantly stories from the video game industry regarding poor treatment for a multitude of reasons including lack of equal opportunities, overwork, lack of job security just to name a few which is why its good to belong to a union that makes sure all of its members get treated properly.

Troy continued on to say that he couldn't do a voice acting job if it wasn’t through the union. The plan all along was to introduce a lot of characters in Tales from the Borderlands and eventually bring them over to the main series. He said that he was waiting for the call and when they asked he said yes but explained that he had to go through the union, but that Gearbox would never move from that position. It sounds like Troy is happy that everything worked out the way it did because the character didn’t evolve the way he would have liked and that he was basically not the same character anymore. At the end of the day he was still hurt by the process because he was attached to the character.

SAG reached out to Polygon with the statement that Gearbox “refused and disengaged. The misguided decision by gearbox to deny their performers the opportunity to have fair union wages, a safe workplace, and the possibility of health care coverage for their families, is unfortunate”

This is where the story starts to line up with the way Gearbox has been doing business as of late, especially with other voice actors including the actor/employee who played claptrap who they are currently in the middle of a lawsuit with. As the saying goes “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, Shame on you. It seems that bad publicity has become a common thing for Gearbox which makes it hard to ignore all of these stories.

As if things haven’t already looked bad enough for Gearbox, they decided to respond to the comments made by Troy Baker by reaching out to Polygon and saying “Troy is an exceptional talent and we were disappointed that he declined to partner on Borderlands 3 after being offered the part. We wish him the best and hope he knows the offer to collaborate with him still stands. As a talent owned and talent led organization, Gearbox enthusiastically work to ensure our pay and working conditions meet or exceed union standards. We also believe strongly in hiring local voice actors whenever we can which is why we’re thrilled Troy’s career really took off after working with us”

The first thing is that these comments probably don’t come across as Gearbox may have hoped because they sound very petty. Every organization or business or anything is technically owned and led by talent. The other thing to note is that it sounds like they think Troy Baker owes all of his success to Gearbox rather than his actual vocal talents. The thing to note would be that hopefully they aren’t referring to his role in Borderlands but his much earlier work in Gearbox’s Brothers in Arms. Either way, its very frustrating when people take credit for your success. This is just another unfortunate story to come out of Gearbox recently but at the end of the day if you don’t support how they operate their business the best way is to not support their games.

Shawn Layden Departs PlayStation

In keeping with the theme of the business side of video games, this week, Shawn Layden who was the worldwide studios chairman for Sony Interactive Entertainment has parted ways with the company. Layden has been working for Sony since 1987 which is why it comes across as very strange that the only thing that PlayStation had to say was a very corporate tweet. “it is with great emotion that we announce that Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden will be departing Sony Interactive Entertainment. His visionary leadership will be greatly missed. We wish him success in future endeavours and are deeply grateful for his years of service. Thanks for everything, Shawn!”

This could just be a comment from Sony corporate who are headquartered in Japan and it’s possible somewhere along the way more meaning got lost in translation. This story broke earlier in the week and to be quite honest I expected to hear the story get fleshed out but that comment from corporate was all that was released. Even Shawn Layden has been off the grid and hasn’t made any public comments. This all adds up to something not being quite as it seems. One option was that Shawn Layden just wanted to move on and challenge himself as he may have felt that there was no more opportunity left for him at Sony. Another option could be that he has already found that opportunity and Sony may have felt scorned after employing him and treating him well for over 30 years.

Without any further information, the only thing that can be done right now would be to speculate with those two scenarios being the most likely options but there are plenty more ways this employment could have ended. As of right now we don’t know any more than that but i’m sure we will hear the reasons eventually.

Mobile Warfare

Popular shooters have been on mobile for some time now, with PUBG and Fortnite both being available since 2018. However, the grandfather of modern shooters, Call of Duty, has been absent.  That changed this week when Call of Duty mobile finally was released. In just a few short weeks we have seen major tent pole franchises being ported to mobile with Activisions darling and Nintendo’s Mario Kart World Tour. 

If you aren’t a fan of mobile gaming and how they control and monetize, then I don’t think it’s the end of the world with new things on the horizon including Stadia and project Xcloud, that will be able to give us fully fleshed out console gaming that we are used to on any device.  That is hopefully the future that will eventually be what gaming becomes before we are implanted with chips and devices that we would see in Black Mirror.

Although what we are here to discuss is how Call Of Duty is doing now that it’s available on IOS and Android. Activision acquired King Mobile in 2017 for almost six billion dollars, based almost solely on their success with Candy Crush which still remains largely popular and profitable. In 2017, shortly after the acquisition, King announced that they would be developing a Call of Duty Mobile game. It seems that combining their mobile skills with the otherworldly popularity of Call of Duty is a recipe for success.

After launching on Tuesday, Activision announced Friday that the game had already passed 35 million downloads which is very impressive considering that the game reached that goal faster than any other first or third person shooter on mobile. This means that the game is getting downloaded faster than both previously mentioned games including PUBG and Fortnite. The only question is can the game keep up the momentum and keep the community engaged. Investors seem to be happy as the stock ended the week about 6 percent higher than it started. Only time will tell if Call of Duty Mobile can keep its foot on the gas, but since Activision is a publicly traded company we will get concrete answers sooner than later. Unfortunately, as the quarter just ended we won’t find out until around late January or early February of next year when they will be doing the reporting for the three month period that Call of Duty Mobile launched in. At least this way we should have a full report to see exactly how the game is progressing.