Death Stranding.

As we said a few weeks ago it certainly seemed like Kojima and the crew at Kojima Productions were working up to something big. Sure enough, on Monday, Kojima Production posted that we would be getting a new trailer for Death Stranding on May 29th. At the time of posting it remained very cryptic, only showing the title with long cords that are draping down from the letters on a backdrop of the world they created that we have already seen. A very grim looking shoreline with plenty of death and the all the posts say is “create the rope”. When Wednesday came we certainly weren’t disappointed for a variety of reasons. Things started of very Kojima-esque with a broadcast on Twitch with the whole video blacked out by the goo of the world. Slowly the video would start to reveal itself little by little with handprints. It was unsure if more handprints would appear with more time or more viewers but eventually we got a full trailer. Yes, we got a 9 minute trailer featuring as good an idea as we have ever gotten about what this game is. It is still very unclear but the basics is that you are trying to reconnect the world as it approaches extinction. There look to be multiple timelines in this almost indie like open world RPG. The next thing that was a little bit of a shocker was that the game came with a release date……and its this year. Death Stranding will be released worldwide on November 8th, which is quite soon considering it wasn’t too long ago that people were saying it wouldn’t be until well after the PS5 launch. On the official Hideo Kojima Instagram its says “people have built walls and become accustomed to living in isolation. Death Stranding is a completely new type of action game, where the players goal is to reconnect isolated cities and a fragmented society. All elements, including the story and the gameplay, are bound together by the theme of strand, or connection. You will attempt to bridge these division, and in doing so, create new bonds or strands with other players around the globe. Through your experience playing the game, I hope you’ll come to understand the true importance of forging connections with others”

Pokemon Direct

Nintendo is clearly in the zone right now in regards to shashing out these presentations. Only around two weeks ago we got a very long direct featuring the ins and outs of the next installment in the Super Mario Maker series. On Monday, Nintendo posted to their social media that we would be getting another 15 minute Direct featuring Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield. This direct will be happening on June 6th which brings up two important questions. This announcement has me more interested in what it means for everything else instead. If they are getting Super Mario Maker 2 and Pokemon out of the way then what is going to be the focus of the E3 based Direct. This clears the way for a few things, its open the door for some other games to take focus in the Direct and it also clears the way for some information that we don’t know yet. If they just did a E3 featuring the games that we already assume are coming including Luigis Mansion, Animal Crossing and Links awakening then I think some people would be a little disappointed. Granted, these are most likely going to be very excellent games, but I dont think they are focal points for E3. E3 is about big time games along with surprises and since we already know about most of those games it would be somewhat of a letdown if we didn’t hear about some new announcements. On a quick sidenote, we have many predications about what we hope we could hear from Nintendo. Some of the predictions seemed a little far fetched when I first started writing them but the closer we get to E3 and the more information they announce earlier the better the chances that we get some really great announcements. Are we looking at something Metroid ? Will we hear about SNES, N64 or GameCube games ? Will Xbox Gamepass make its way to the Switch? All of these have a decent chance of happening now that they have cleared a path for something else to steal the spotlight. With E3 only days away at this point, my excitement level for what Nintendo has planned is at all time high.

Call of Duty

The other big game reveal of this week was the newest Call of Duty entry. Before the trailer Posted on the official Call Of Duty Instagram account, there were just voice waves saying we are going dark. As we have now learned the going dark was what was assumed. That this would be a gritty reboot, where the series is literally and figuratively going dark. Considering that the reveal was only about 2 minutes we have lot of information to dissect from the press release. I think that rebooting the series is a good idea and my absolute favorite piece of news from this announcement is that we are finally moving the series into the future with a new engine. A new engine is something this series has been badly needing for a long time. The great news is that its getting a new engine right before the dawn of the next generation which most likely means that this engine has been built with future proofing in mind and it will be nice to see just how the horsepower of the new consoles take advantage of that. According to a press release from Activision the new engine will deliver an imerrsive and photo realistic experience. I dont want to get duped by what the developer and publisher are telling me but from what it sounds like from the people that have played the game it looks incredible. On the press release their are plenty of buzzwords related to the new engine including ray tracing, HDR, 4k, volumetric lighting and many more to get you excited. Combining all of these features with a fully new audio system that allows for Dolby Atmos should really create a sense of immersion this series has yet to see. This game is checking off all the right boxes and should be in for a massive launch this year and will without a doubt become the best selling COD ever. New engine, many veteran Infinity Ward members, new talent from Naughty Dog, Modern Warfare series, reboot including a spiritual Captain Price and a single player story line that pushes the boundaries of controversy. There is hope that we will get a full reveal including gameplay at E3 as there are still a few questions that I have regarding Modern Warfare.

Another huge piece of news that just slipped into the press release was that the game would feature cross play. “Every design decision has been made with our players in mind” said the creative director Patrick Kelly “Modern Warfare to be played together across PC and console through cross-play support” I am a little skeptical based on the way this is worded with how the sentence is structurued, by saying we plan and by not actually directly mentioning Xbox and PlayStation. Activision and Call of Duty are a big time company and franchise and this would pave the way for a lot of games after it similar to how Fortnite and Rocket League slowly opened the door.

“We’re eliminating the traditional season pass, so that we can deliver more free maps and content as well as post launch events to all players” He continued to say. This is a huge step in the right direction and it does give some weight to cross play being actually between the two major consoles as timed exclusivity would affect how you compete online if half the field has a better gun. Also if they are eliminating the traditional season pass then what’s the modern pass that they will be replacing it with. The company has to make that additional revenue stream. Are we looking at something along the lines of a battle pass that has worked pretty well for some of the more recent battle royales. The major hope here is that they replace it with a better method of collecting revenue from players rather than loot boxes, cosmetics and micro transactions. This move will make them look like the good people if they can finesse these murky waters properly.

Sony won’t be at the show which then begs the question will they show up back on the Microsoft stage for some new world premiere. Is it possible that the Sony timed exclusivity contract has expired as there was northing stating that it was PlayStation first. Also I am very interested to see what their plan is for the multiplayer. Mainly, I am curious to see what their plans on in regards to Battle Royale. This is still a very strong market for that type of game and the question is how will it tie into Blackout mode from Black Ops 4. At one point there was a lot of speculation that Blackout would just keep going and would continue to get updates, however with this new engine Activision and Infinity Ward would be crazy to use anything but the best.

EA PLAY

On Wednesday, EA announced the lineup for their pre E3 event, EA PLAY, which is to be held on the Saturday a few days before the show starts. The lineup seems pretty basic unless they plan on surprising us a little.

930am Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

10am Apex Legends

1030am Battlefield V

11am FIFA

1130am Madden

12pm The Sims 4

I dont know when they plan to fit in some great announcements. Especially when you consider that you are looking at over 2.5 hours of EA games and coverage. They have to understand that most people will not be fully tuned in for the full 2.5 hours, and thus you would have somewhat of a missed opportunity to get as many eyes on the announcements as possible. It will be very interesting to hear some more news about what the Star Wars game will be and they have already done a blog post about what to expect from season 2 of Apex. As a fan of Apex I plan to watch that half hour as well as the Star Wars but devoting half hour to Battlefield V seems clueless to me. That game didnt do well, compared to how it should have done, the battle royale mode has come and gone with a whimper, and its over 6 months old. This opens up a big question about EA and their fall shooter option. Based on this schedule we are left to wonder if they are going to release a new shooter this fall, some of the options could be a Bad Company Reboot, Battlefront has had a few years off and this is a year for a mainline Star Wars film so you would get the bump in interest. The only problem is that Respawn is releasing Jedi Fallen Order and then you wonder how many Star Wars games can be released in the same window and succeed. They also announced a new Need for Speed and Plants vs Zombies games that will be releasing this fall but they didnt include those in the list as well as games they have recently released including Anthem and what the future looks like for that game. I guess Madden and FIFA are the big cash cows for EA but this schedule doesnt help them get on the good side of gamers. The optimist in me hopes that there will be much more than this from EA in June.