Dynamic duo Zahra and Maylee take the reins in this weeks episode of Zed Games. Tobi brings us an extended look into the week in #GamingNews, Maylee talks teal in a review of the board game Hues and Cues, designed by @wscottbrady and published by @theopgames. Then Paul gets intrigued by the mysteries in Animal World by game engine designer Billy Basso and published by Big Mode.
In this week’s Zed Games podcast Hazel, Zahra, and Caroline talk Gaming News and Microsoft taking the box out of Xbox. Caroline farms pixels with clicks while reviewing Farm Keeper from @NapasGames. And Zahra practices their hosting skills in the late night radio host horror Killer Frequency from @Team17 Also, donât forget the upcoming Indie Dev Night @NetherworldArcade coming in August!
This week on Zed Games Zahra, Hazel, and Peter talk Gaming News and their Steam Library pride and shame, then a recap of this years @QueenslandGamesFestival and all that entails including the board game Casus Belli from @WallaceDesigns, the card game Epic Garden from Jade @epic_card_games, memorising regulars in Coffee Up by Jason Tam @_tototam, an ear plucking The Ghost of the Witch from @montros.is, farm and builder Delverium from @SagestoneGames, cute Cattoâs Post Office by @InShambleStudio, australiana filled Vivid Tracks from Wild Wattle/Beacon Games Studio, management sim Tavern Keeper from @GreenheartGames, frog game Frogreign from @Arkanpixel, multiplayer waiter in space @Servonauts, roly-poly spin-off Isopod from @SBugGames, On Point the VR Shooter from @ActuatorDigital, cartoony unpacking-like decor game Momento from @FatAlienCat, and the winners GoGo Town from @PridefulSlothStudio and Key Fairy from @OwlMachine⌠We even managed to squeak in a review With Zahra of Linea: An Innerlight Game, and a look at the Mass Effect Remasters to end the show on.
Remember Beyond Good and Evil 2?
Beyond Good and Evil 2 is still in development! Thatâs it, thatâs the news. Ubisoft have reassured us that they havenât forgotten about it, and theyâre still working on it, which is great because it was first announced in 2008, kinda disappeared, reappeared with a trailer in 2017, and then was kinda totally silent since 2018.
Thereâs been some concerns about its development since Emile Morel, creative director, passed away earlier this year, but Ubisoft has reassured that it is still in the works, and the 20th Anniversary Edition of Beyond Good and Evil, which was accidentally announced early on Twitter before the tweet was deleted, has launched digitally on the 25th of June.
The remaster is supposed to contain some more of Jadeâs past, and other content to tie into the second game. There will be a physical copy, and a Collectorâs Edition, with preorders for those kicking off 12th of July.
$19 Billion Dollars!
Thatâs how much Steam users have collectively spent on games theyâve never played. So, congratulations everyone, I know each and every one of you helped to contribute to this remarkable achievement.
This is a bit of a guestimate, as only 10% of Steam accounts are public, but that 10% was responsible for at least $1.9 billion USD.
Gamer Rage
What do you do if you have a dispute with another player in an online game? Most of us probably try to ignore it and move on. Maybe block âem. Maybe stooped to their level. You probably didnât fly to a different state,buy a hammer and a flashlight, break into a home, and attack said player, in real life.
Well, Edward Kang from New Jersey allegedly did just that, flying to Florida to confront a player that he had an argument with in ArcheAge, an online fantasy game. The two were found in a struggle by the playerâs stepfather, who heard the player cry for help. Both the player and Edward were taken to a nearby hospital, with the player having severe head wounds, but both will be ok.
Edward is facing charges of breaking and entering, and assault. When he asked how much time he might serve, Leeper, county sheriff, allegedly responded with âI would say, Mr Kang, itâs going to be a long time before you play video games again.â
So next time, just take a walk. Not to the hardware store.
War Thunder Apologises
Gaijin Entertainment, developers of the free-to-play multiplayer War Thunder, have officially apologised for âaccidentally including imagery from the Space Shuttle Challenger disasterâ in some key art. The Challenger disaster was an event from 1986 where the space shuttle broke apart soon into its flight, killing all seven crew members.
War Thunder players noticed how an image of the disaster lined up with the artwork in the âSeek & Destroyâ wallpaper, with one person overlaying a photo from the disaster with the wallpaper.
âHey guys, please accept our apologies for this, the picture was part of an aerial explosion reference pack used by our artists and the context was lost. Weâll change the key art on Monday and will make sure this doesnât happen again,â said community manager Oxy.
In the past, the War Thunder community has managed to leak classified military documents onto the forums, often to win arguments or to make suggestions for the developers, so attention to detail is definitely a common trait.
News Nibbles!
Nintendo Switch Sports has had a few updates since it launched, adding golf, and soon, basketball! The motion control should allow players to pass, shoot, and dribble.
Sylvie Nightshade, a software engineer, made a Stardew Valley mod that adds a âhardcoreâ mode to the game. What does that mean? Well, if you open the Stardew Valley Wiki, your farm will be deleted.
Ryan Lewis, a recent Cornell Tech graduate, created a program that converts the data from Google Maps into Minecraft worlds. The program first converts the data into voxels, and each voxel is turned into a Minecraft block, with the help of an algorithm, accurately recreating buildings, roads, terrain, and more.
And now for some upcoming games!
June 27th
June 28th
July 2nd
Thatâs it this week in gaming news!
This week on Zed Games, Hazel, Rani and Peter.. who vents about toxicity in games, Tobi brings us the week in Gaming News, Paul jump into the review of Leap Year from Daniel Linssen, Rani channels their feline psychic in a review of Cat and Ghostly Road from BOV, and then the team talks the upcoming Queensland Games Festival this Saturday! Come see us there!
This week the âHey, Hey, Heyâ team lead by the Mayleeâs (also Paul and Peter) talk the week in Gaming News⌠well, kinda? Paul hijacks the episode to talk about this years âAnnual Showcase Seasonâ but not before Zahra gets freaky in horror romance Sucker for Love: Date to Die For from Akabaka. Then Paul talks the week in game announcements including; Tempopo from Witch Beam, Mixtape from Beethoven and Dinosaur, Mars First Logistics from Shape Shop, Wanderstop from Ivy Road, Pinball Spire from Apparition Games, and Techno Banter from Dexai Arts.
The LEGO-end of Zelda
Yahahaha! The Great Deku Tree, a wise and monotonous figure in The Legend of Zelda series, can be in your home, after significant assembly, for the low-low price of $450. Oh yeah, this is a big one, with 2,500 bricks it stands at about 33cm tall once constructed. Not only that, itâs a 2-in-1 build, with one mimicking the treeâs form in Ocarina of Time, and the other taking after Breath of the Wild. Basically, one has green leaves, the other has pink blossoms.
Included with the build are figures for both versions of Link and Zelda, Hestu, and some Koroks, and thereâs even a little sidebuild that your kids can put together while you put the tree together.
Rainbow Six Siege Subscription
Tom Clancyâs Rainbow Six Siege, the online tactical shooter, will be changing to a monthly subscription system, and the news has not made Ubisoft very popular. The change was announced during BLAST Rainbow Six Major in Manchester, with quite a few boos in the audience. You can opt for a cool $10 USD a month, or $80 USD a year, giving you access to exclusive monthly content drops, Legendary items, access to the premium Battle Pass, and a lot more. Youâll also get to skip 10 levels each month.
This is a separate purchase to each seasonâs battle pass.
Diablo Be Damned
Diablo 4 update released, and version 1.4.1 has had some teething issues. The update was supposed to balance some areas of the game and fix up a few bugs, but instead it disabled Masterworking, an endgame crafting system that was only added recently.
If the fixes worked, then Masterworking was only meant to become cheaper, costing less gold. Oops!
LoL $400
League of Legends has released some special tribute bundles dedicated to the newest additions to Riotâs âHall of Legendsâ, Lee âFakerâ Sang-hyeok. These bundles arenât new, and often contain skins for the heroes, finishers, cosmetic items, currency, and more.
The three bundles are called the âRisen Legend Collectionâ, the âImmortalized Legend Collectionâ, and the âSignature Immortalized Legend Collectionâ, going for $60, $375, and almost $680 AUD respectively. It does contain a âFinal Boss Fakerâ title, themed signature move, 100 pass levels, and more, although some fans commented that they expected an Ahri statue to be included for that price.
What Can $700 Million Get You?
Not Star Citizen, thatâs for sure! Star Citizen, in development by Cloud Imperium Games, is a multiplayer game based around trading and combat simulations. It was originally announced in 2012, when their kickstarter launched and concluded successfully, raising $6 million, with an estimated release date in June 2014. During development, modules of the game have been released to tide over fans, but the extended development time has garnered a lot of criticism.
Through the sale of ships, ranging in price from $20 to a few grand, and crowdfunding, Cloud Imperium Games has managed to raise over $700 million. So maybe a release date is within the foreseeable future. I doubt that though.
News Nibbles!
Destiny 2: The Final Shape is upon us, and fans seem to be pretty hype about it. The newest trailer shows that yes, Cayde-6 is alive (and weâve known that for a while) but also Zavala appears to be having a continuation of his midlife crisis. In unrelated news: Iâm still in love with Ikora.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will be coming to Game Pass at launch, so you could get that CoD fix for a fraction of the price.
Days of Play is here! Running until June 12th, itâs Sonyâs season of sales, and coming with it will be an assortment of bonus games for Premium members, which includes PSVR2 games like Walkabout Mini Golf and Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord, or PS2 games like Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus.
Speaking of game events, weâve got Summer Game Fest and Devolver Direct on the 8th of June, Wholesome Direct, Women Led Game Showcase, Latin America Game Showcase, and Future Games Show on the 9th of June, Ubisoft Forward, Xbox Games Showcase, and PC Gaming Show on the 10th, and of course, most importantly, the Queensland Games Festival at the Brisbane Powerhouse on the 22nd of June.
And now for some upcoming games!
May 30th
June 3rd
June 4th
Thatâs it this week in gaming news!
No longer console wars, but console turmoil with Xbox and PlayStation going head-to-head in who can create the most controversy this week.
In Xbox News, last week Microsoft announced the studio closures of Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse Studios, and according to Bloombergâs Jason Schreier itâs not the end. Staff under the Xbox umbrella have been told more cuts are on the way and voluntary buyout offers have been reportedly sent to other ZeniMax Media staff. While addressing the closures Xbox president Sarah Bond claimed this was in response to a âflatâ industry over the last year, however leaked audio and emails from within Xbox claims the company is spread too thin and needs to double down on high impact titles, despite posting $15.6 billion US in revenue so far in this financial year.
Hi-Fi Rush from Tango Gameworks has been at the centre of the controversy surrounding the Xbox closures. When the announcement was made by Xbox the studio was not only working on a pitch for a sequel to Hi-Fi Rush it was also seeking to hire new staff. The team was reportedly blinesided by the announcement with Creative Director John Johanas telling Eurogamer last month after they won a BAFTA that the team was in a âgood situationâ and was able to take risks and own their creative freedom. In the townhall at Xbox the day after the fateful announcement, head of Xbox Games Studios Matt Booty told staff that they ââŚneed smaller games that give us prestige and awards.â Cinematic Editor of Naam based Summerfall Studios, Ethan Taylor weighed in on twitter with
âThe $375,000,000 Microsoft payout to known dog scum Bobby Kotick, could pay for the estimated salaries of both Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks employees combined for the next 17 and a half yearsâ
On the other side, PlayStation this week tried its hardest to imitate the Titanic in the fallout of the the announcement last week that Helldivers 2 was to require a PlayStation Network or PSN account. To give a scope to the issue Sony Interactive Entertainment or SIE are facing, Helldivers 2 is SIEâs golden egg, with a boom in players that hasnât been seen since the pandemic. This choice to enforce PSN Account linking after release led to the review bombing in steam, and the resultant refunds through steam leading to steam delisting the game from all countries where creating a PSN Account is unavailable. Sony eventually capitulated and stated that the link would ââŚnot be moving forward.â However, it doesnât end there. SIE has continued to support the removal and delisting of Helldivers 2  from countries without PSN coverage, much to the surprise of the team behind Helldivers. In fact, steam users who have pre purchased upcoming PC release of Ghosts of Tsushima Directors Cut and who live in those same countries are receiving auto-refunds. The refund comes with the attached message,
âYou are receiving a refund for a game you pre-purchased – Ghost of Tsushima. The publisher of this game is now requiring a secondary account to play portions of this game – and this account cannot be created from your country.”
So whatâs the future at Sony? Looks like the company wants to see a future in live service titles, after seeing a decline in PS5 console sales. They plan on doing this with an expansion in the content of Destiny 2: The Final Shape DLC coming in June, and the upcoming release of Concord. This is even after the report that devs are concerned with the sustainability of live service titles.
In the time being, SIE has finally announced the replacement for Jim Ryan, the previous CEO who stepped down September 2023. This will require some changes, as the position will be replaced with a âmulti-pronged leadership structureâ with PlayStation Studiosâ CEO moving to SIEâs new Studio Business Group, taking charge of first-party operations, and Hideaki Nishino being promoted from the SVP of the Platform Experience Group to the new CEO of SIEâs Platform Business Group. Nishino will oversee third-party relations and internal tech development. Only time will tell if this leads to any changes in the future at SIE and PlayStation.
In other news, hereâs some quick Gaming Bytes;
And now for some upcoming games.
Thursday May 16, Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut is coming to PC and multiplayer crossplay. If you enjoyed it in 1995, or want to play something inspired by DOOM and Quake, then PO’ed: Definitive Edition is coming to your mainstays. Or get psychic in the sequel to 2064: Read Only Memories, with Read Only Memories: Neurodiver. Coming to PC, Switch, and next gen consoles.
Friday May 17 brings us the next chapter in Morbid: The Seven Acolytes, Morbid: The Lords of Ire, or if youâre craving something different, try My Little PonyâA Zephyr Heights Mystery. Both coming to PC, and Consoles.
Tuesday May 21st brings us the award winning Paper Trail, which is releasing to your favs. The new Ubisoft free to play shooter XDefiant is coming to PC and next gen consoles. And according to fans â the under advertised Senuaâs Saga: Hellblade 2 is coming to PC, Xbox X and S.
Does This Count as Rage Quitting?
Twitch streamer niru spent April 25 grinding to become the first level 300 player in MapleStory, a free-to-play online multiplayer roleplaying game, originally launched in 2003. This stream was promoted by the developer Nexon, and had over 20,000 viewers.
After nearly 17 hours into the stream, niru then launched into an hour-long rant about the gameâs economy, and how the gameâs worlds differ.
âOver here [in Heroic] itâs free-to-play friendly⌠Pay-to-win is accepted here [in Interactive World] but the free-to-play experience is awful and thatâs what needs to be improved right now.â niru explained.
He then goes into detail about the number of servers available, the cash shop, as well as a number of other concerns, before ending the stream at level 299. It is estimated that he has spent over 10,000 hours before stopping at 99.993% of the way to level 300.
Niru booted up The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time the next day, apologising for the way the stream ended the day before, but he certainly doesnât regret how it ended.
âI genuinely think that that game is not worth playing anymore in Interactive World, and if I just jump ship over to Heroic, then itâs GG. Iâm running from the problem, and Iâm not doing that. And nothing wrong with Heroic World at all, I have nothing against you.â
Returnal Returns
Itâs the three-year anniversary since Returnal, a roguelike shooter that follows Selene Vassos, an astronaut looking for a mysterious signal on the planet Altropos. If you enjoyed this game, then you might look forward to Dark Horse Comics teaming up with Housemarque, as they revealed an animated version of the first issue of an upcoming graphic novel, Returnal: Fallen Asteria.
Itâs due to be published on October 22, 2024, with 88 pages of psychological-thriller-goodness.
There has also been an artbook teased, but a release date for that has yet to be announced.
Game Changer Made A Game
Game Changer is a game show that combines puzzle solving, improv comedy, a bit of pranking, and a lot of competition, hosted by CollegeHumor CEO Sam Reich. For the most part, the premise of the show usually involves the contestants trying to figure out the game being played, and the rules associated with the game, throughout the episode.
And now one of those games is a video game you can play, for free, right now. Based off the game âDeja Vuâ, it has players navigating a maze by choosing to go left or right at junctions. Make the wrong turn and you encounter a silly death.
Developed by Colin Watterson the game âworks well on PC, badly on Macâ.
News Nibbles!
Starfield will be getting a big update in May, which will include new difficulty options for gameplay, ship-building customization options, and more quality of life improvements. Land vehicles were also announced to be in development, but we donât know when those will join the game.
Roll7, responsible for Rollerdrome and OlliOllie World, and Intercept Games, responsible for Kerbal Space Program 2, will be closing down, as Take-Two Interactive announces its plans to lay off as much as 5% of its workforce in the coming months.
The Fallout TV show has hit 65 million viewers in two weeks.
And now for some upcoming games!
May 2nd – thatâs today!
May 7th
May 8th
This week on Zed we promote Maylee for Mayor of Gaming City, and ask you to Atone for this years 4zzz April Atonement. The team, lead by the possible mayor-elect Maylee, heralds the excellent Zahra and superb Peter in their reviews after chatting the week in Gaming News. Zahra talks tinkering to relax in a review of Assemble with Care from ustwo games, then Peter digs a happy bug filled hole in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor from Funday Games.