New Game Plus (September 2 - 8)
Nintendo Direct
We anticipated a few episodes back of a Nintendo Direct in Early September. This week, Nintendo Delighted us with said Direct on Wednesday, and clocking in at 40 minutes. I suppose you could always predict a Nintendo Direct and be right every so often. However, the thought process I had was that if you are planning to convince people why they should renew their subscription for Nintendo Switch Online then you would need to give them a good reason and you would need to do it before the anniversary of its launch happens which is mid September. We didn’t mention it on last weeks podcast but one thing that did happen last week was a listing for Nintendo Switch travel case on Amazon. The reason for it being newsworthy was that it an Overwatch case. There are so many fake listings that get put up on Amazon or other retailers only to be pulled down quickly, however this one was made by a official Nintendo case maker and it was also nearly identical to the Diablo 3 case that was announced right before the game last year. With Blizzcon not until November this year it made sense to make this announcement now and get the game out as soon as you can once it’s ready. You for sure want to make sure its ready to launch for the holiday season as there will be plenty of opportunities for people to buy that game as a gift for the holidays.
My main questions is why was Overwatch brought to the Switch over other Blizzard titles that dont rely on a good internet connection and need higher quality visuals to compare to the other console versions. One game that Blizzard is still strongly supporting and has a very active community that doesnt require a great internet connection and strong visuals is Hearthstone. This game seems like it would be a perfect fit for the Switch with its touchscreen capabilities and minimal technical requirements. I would obviously very much welcome a port of Starcraft 2 as well or just a new version of StarCraft in general. RTS can work on consoles with Halo Wars being a perfect example. Also it wouldn’t be the first time that StarCraft would make its way to Nintendo as back in the 90’s we saw the release of StarCraft 64. If a game like Dauntless, which was announced for the Switch at this Direct as well, can be ported to the Switch then I dont see why we aren’t seeing some of Blizzards top franchises making their way to the Nintendo Switch. World of WarCraft Classic has just seen a massive resurgence and the data is there to back up that Nintendo Switch owners purchase a higher than average amount of software.
At 40 minutes long I was expecting deep dives on Links Awakening, Luigis Mansion 3 and Pokemon as they said the focus would be on games coming to the Switch in 2019. However, the game that got the most screen time was Animal Crossing, which isn’t due out until 2020. We got a slightly longer video that didnt overly feature much that we didn’t already know but it was nice to see a bigger chunk of Animal Crossing gameplay.
They showed a little new information regarding Luigis Mansion 3 including some of the new themed areas that will be coming to the game in October when it launches and well as a little snippet of party game/mini modes with up to eight players.
The biggest announcement came right in the middle of the presentation and its finally here. We are getting Super Nintendo games on Nintendo Switch Online. I assumed that Nintendo would roll out tiers for Nintendo Switch Online with SNES games being included in a higher tier. Not only was the announcement amazing in its own right but they hit all the right notes for fans. There won’t be an additional cost for the SNES library of games, the first group of offerings are great choices and its available on September 5th. On top of this, the patent that was spotted a few weeks ago that we discussed showing the wireless SNES controller, similar to the one that was sold last year for the NES. These awesome controllers will be available for order thought the Nintendo website exclusively for NSO users for 29.99 each.
In regards to which games will be available when the service launches you are looking at a top tier group including Super Mario World 1 & 2, Super Mario Kart, Super Metroid, Link to the Past, Star Fox, F-Zero and Pilotwings. I think for now this will be enough to keep most subscribers for at least another year when maybe in September of 2020 we will get N64 games or Gamecube. I myself have already spent more time playing Super Metroid on the service in just a few days than I spent with the NES games on the service over the past year.
There is one huge thing to mention that didnt make headlines regarding the service and that was the release cadence. Typically, we have seen new games for NES release every month with around 2-3 new games every month. However, a representative from Nintendo spoke with Business Insider “More NES games will be added in the future, but those releases will not adhere to a regular schedule” They continued on to say that the SNES will stick to the same sentiment and that we shoudln’t expect a routine. They did go on to say that it would be more in the form of announcements when new games would be released. This isn’t a terrible things as we have just entered the busy fall where we are going to see a lot of great games released on all the consoles. In terms of just Nintendo we have three more huge titles coming this fall with Links Awakening in just a few short weeks, Luigis Mansion 3 in October and Pokemon Sword and Shield with all its curry recipes at the end of the year. It’s also possible that Nintendo might try to plan some releases of SNES in conjunction with new releases to generate hype. Either way, we received a lot of top tier SNES games that should keep us busy for a little while at least.
Gears 5 Reviews
Gears 5, the newest Xbox exclusive is out for GamePass ultimate subscribers,. If you aren’t a member of the ultimate service then the game will be released on Tuesday, September 10th. This is a large part of Microsofts attempt to evolve GamePass into something bigger than it currently is. Releasing first party, blockbusters on the service day and date is a huge part in how they are going to attract new customers and existing customers to continue to subscribe. Considering how much Microsoft has added to the service since its launch and how many studios it has acquired, Game Pass has the potential to turn the tides when Project Scarlet releases next fall.
Back to the topic and hand, we are now seeing the reviews for Gears 5 rolling and overall they are falling in the categories of good to great, with the average score around the mid 80’s which I imagine will end somewhere in the mid to high 80’s once all the in progress reviews are finished. I am currently playing through the game, working on our review and don’t want anything to be spoiled but overall the critics seem to like it. Coming to the end of Act 2, the game seems great so far with great looking visuals, refinements on existing mechanics to the game and additions of new game mechanics that help the series feel fresh. Overall its still Gears, so expect to do a lot of shooting, a lot of getting into cover and a lot of great set pieces, but it has done enough so far and the story has me interested in where it’s going next.
CyberPunk 2077
It’s seems as though cd project red is becoming less tight lipped on cyberpunk 2077 as we get closer to April. Up until now we haven’t heard much from the polish video game studio about their upcoming dystopian RPG. Although in the last few weeks they have started to talk much more about it and even last week they showed off their behind closed doors demo for the game that they shared at E3.
Recently on Twitter, global community lead at CPR explained the teams decision to make the game almost exclusively in first person despite what we have been shown over the years.
He said “achieving full immersion in an FPP is extremely important and the decision made by the team to go 100% first person in cyberpunk 2077 is something that will benefit it greatly from gameplay and story telling perspectives. That said players will still be able to see their characters in the inventory screen, during driving sequences, in mirrors and very occasionally, in some of the games cut scenes”
The other piece of news that came from the studio this week was from the studios social media regarding the future of the game post launch. “ up until now the only thing we have said about multiplayer was that it was in R&D. As we are getting close to launching single player cyberpunk 2077 in April, we’d like to confirm that multiplayer is in the works! The plan for now is to deliver cyberpunk 2077 in April, then follow up with DLC’s (free!) and single player content and once were done, invite you for some multiplayer content”
As you can see there is plenty to digest recently from the studio. It was just a few shorts weeks ago that we heard that multiplayer was being tested so clearly CPR think they are onto something good if they are going full steam ahead and announcing the multiplayer suite.
In terms of their gameplay perspective comments, many fans seem to disagree with this move. Many people argue that they can become better immersed in third person perspective. To use broad strokes I personally prefer first person perspective over third but nonetheless CPR has gained enough trust with all their work on The Witcher 3 and all of its post launch content that they should be given the benefit of the doubt to decide what is best for the game.
I would expect to start hearing a lot more regarding the game in the coming months as most games generally start a big marketing push once the release date is about 6 months out and April is around 8 months away.