Seven eleven… like the store… yeah…
Hello fellow gamers. I hope you are all well!
Just to give you a recap, I’m trying my hardest to beat Horizon Forbidden West and Dying Light 2 while finding the courage to play Elden Ring, but for some unknown reason, every game that came out in the past months is over 900 hours long. I’m going to retire from working and just play video games for the rest of my life.
On topic though, this one might be a bit lighter. Looking at my notes, I didn’t see much that I wanted to cover/that I would be able to provide thoughtful discourse on. I’m sorry, I failed you. I won’t be able to cover the State of Play featuring Hogwarts Legacy since it’s not until later today, but if there’s enough content to break down, I’ll do a write up and have it ready for Tuesday!
Now let’s talk what went down.
Gaming
Dr Disrespect’s Twitch case and his studio’s next project
Way back in June 2020, larger than life streamer, Guy “DrDisrespect” Beahm, was permanently banned from Twitch. The reason for his ban was unknown and a topic for quite some time especially after reports came out that he signed a deal for “life-changing money“.
Fast forward to March 10th, 2022 both parties have settled after a legal dispute. The Doc has stated that he won’t return to Twitch, and while I’m happy he managed to get this resolved, I wonder what the reasoning behind this whole debacle was.
But that’s not everything folks.
Back in December 2021, the Doc went on to announce his next venture, Midnight Society, a new AAA studio with big talent from the FPS scene such as Robert Bowling from Infinity Ward. The studio’s first project was pretty much predicted to be a multiplayer FPS, and on March 15th, they announced that and more.
Titled “Project Moon”, the project is set to be a free to play multiplayer PvP and is allowing players to purchase a “Founder’s Pass” NFT at $50 USD for early access to the game and extra perks such as (link to a full breakdown)…
- One-of-a-kind Midnight Society call sign and VisorCortex that you own.
- Early access to game builds and weapons tests.
- Voting rights on game features.
- Exclusive access to studio events.
- First dibs on merchandise and future VisorCortex drops.
- Early access to Industry Guilds via The Eyes.
The gaming community was quick to jump on this, and while my small brain can’t comprehend the full scope of this news drops, I do know the first couple of NFT implementations have been worthless cash grabs from companies that could care less. Not to mention, the whole idea is sort of half baked; invest in a game that you know nothing about. I’ll pass on that concept alone.
The Doc went on stream to clarify the integration of NFTs in the game which involved the typical “you don’t have to purchase them” (even though the “perks” make me feel otherwise), and he mentioned something along the lines of “ownership of the first piece of history from Midnight Society”.
I’m not sure about this one Doc.
Trailers
Ghostwire: Tokyo– Immersion
As we get closer to this game launching, I release I’m drowning in games. The above trailer just shows how the game will take advantage of the PS5’s capabilities. I’m stoked for Doctor Strange in Tokyo on March 25th!
Grand Theft Auto V/GTA Online for next gen
Alright, I’ve heard mixed things about this since it’s the same game for almost 9 years at this point. I am interested in picking it up though due to the shorter load times. I know that last sentence sounds crazy, but Skyrim is so much better with 5 second load times, guys.
This is out now!
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak
For all 10 of you Monster Hunter fans (just kidding), the newest expansion to Monster Hunter Rise is set to launch June 30th!
Return: Ascension – Tower of Sisyphus
18 minutes of gameplay from the new survival gauntlet being added to Returnal in the next update coming March 22, 2022.
Esports
Competitive integrity at an all time low
The COVID pandemic has brought about many changes to all aspects of our lives, and while gaming has seen a huge growth, it has also taken a few steps back at least in the competitive atmosphere.
The biggest draw for esports is the LAN environment: being in a building full of other fans, cheering or booing your favorite teams/players, and just vibing are experiences that can’t be recreated. COVID took those events away from us, for good reason, and has seen a lot of events take place online. Now as you can imagine, the problem with moving to online events is a problem for many reasons, but the most prevalent has been cheating.
Since the shift took place, cheating has seem to be on a steady increase since some of the competitive titles don’t have good anti-cheat systems to combat cheaters (for example Call of Duty Warzone, Apex Legends). Besides the lack of sufficient anti-cheats, the issue grows as players have taken it upon themselves to call out others for cheating creating a huge distrust in the community.
The above tweets are just a few examples, but I also believe there was some turmoil in the Call of Duty Challengers League for cheating as well. Listen, the fact that players are the ones going through and “handling” these issues is embarrassing. These games host leagues/tournaments, make so much money from them yet fall victim to cheating and allowing cheaters (proven/unproven) to participate in them.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is these companies need to get more involved in the competitive side of things. I know they can’t do everything, I know cheating will always be an issue, but damn help the players out and protect the integrity of the scenes.
VALORANT recap
Alright, this is probably going to be a shorter segment, but it’ll still be full of VCT goodies.
So in the NA scene, we have our teams ready to duke it out for a trip to go back to Iceland.
I don’t know who I’m rooting for since my 100T HOPIUM is on receiver for Masters 2, but I do know these matchups will be absolutely incredible. Playoffs start today 1pm PT and will take place over the course of two weeks. I believe two teams qualify so my money (not literally because I don’t gamble) is on Cloud9 and Version1 as they’ve been ahead of other teams so far during the main event. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Sentinels make their way back or The Guard make a deep run since they’re really good.
I’m mostly entrenched in the NA scene because NA’s the best, but I am hoping to see KRÜ come out of LATAM since they were a pleasant surprise during their run in Champions last year. Speaking of KRÜ…
Post their third place finish at Champions, KRÜ’s Angelo “keznit” Mori caught some flack for unprofessional behavior that stemmed all the back from 2020. Keznit was accused of discriminatory behavior, and that caught up with early in the year as he was banned from the practice servers due to his actions towards another player.
Time has passed, and following a long process of interviews and investigations, Riot Central issued a one game suspension for keznit with many not happy how the ruling turned out, in light of what was believed to be one sided behavior from keznit was instead both players being disrespectful to each other. The other party did not receive any punishment, and this brings forth the questioning of Riot’s handling of certain rulings.
Now let me be clear; I do not condone keznit’s actions. If you break the rules, you deserve to face the consequences, but in this scenario, both parties were guilty and only one party faced consequences. Like I mentioned, it has many people questioning Riot’s management and enforcement of rules especially since they’ve been streaky with punishments in the past (G2 losing a one map ban for an in game exploit versus T1 being disqualified from the open qualifiers back in January). Stuff like this is concerning given the fact that they’re in charge of the competitive scene, and you have to set clear standards from the beginning or else this could be the undoing of this game.
I’m going to follow Riot rulings more closely as this game continues to evolve so be sure to check back here!
Next up is Acend and Aleksander “zeek” Zygmunt.
Acend made THE announcement on March 13th that professional player zeek would be taking a break from the game due to struggles with mental health. I echo similar sentiments as Acend; it takes a lot of courage to come out and acknowledge your struggles. Mental health has become such a hot topic in the world for quite some time now with everybody feeling the ramifications of COVID and working from home.
I hope he gets the help he needs, and for everyone else who struggles, don’t be afraid to seek help.
A bit of shocking news, former CS:GO IGL (in game leader) now turned VALORANT caster Sean Gares has told the world he will not be casting anymore.
He went to discuss more about the situation in a video posted to his YouTube (link to the video) citing it not being an issue related to pay. I think what hurts me the most is you could feel the passion he has for the scene. Gares has been entrenched in the tactical FPS scene since 2005, and while I didn’t know about him until just a few months ago, he brought extensive knowledge to the scene as a caster and his casting is top notch.
In a bit of a positive spin, he does seem very committed and focused on whatever opportunity he has next with many speculating that it could be a coaching gig with Sentinels. However, I’m a big brainer, and I know that he’s joining 100T.
Trust me.
Is this really the end?
Bit of a double whammy here.
First off:
Gears Esports has been supporting/running the comp scene for Gears 5 for the past two years, and on Tuesday, they announced that this season is the final season of the comp support for Gears 5. To be fair though, they did say that The Coalition (dev team behind the newer Gears games) is hard at work on their next project. So maybe we’ll see a return of Gears Esports sometime in the future?
I just wonder what the pros will do in the meantime.
Next up is Gambit Esports.
Now this is just rumors but word on the street is that Russian esports giant, Gambit, maybe closing down due to the conflict going on between Russia and Ukraine. Gambit allowed their VALORANT team, winners of Masters Three Berlin, to compete in the EMEA VCT as an independent team. Their CS:GO roster is also facing similar issues due to Gambit being banned from the ESL, but the players will be allowed to compete independently.
I do hope the players find homes, and while I don’t know the Gambit organization too well, it is sad to see such a well known org possibly go down because of outside conflict.
Memes and Wholesome Pics
Other News
- Eight former PlayStation/Sony employees have accused Sony of sexism and other systemic limits on women in the workplace.
- A Valve data miner discovered 4 unannounced projects including strategy-shooter Citadel, CS:GO on Source 2 engine, and Half-Life Alyx sequel.
- Anees “Free Palestine” Assaf donated all his winnings from Smash Summit 12 a Palestinian charity.
- Dead Space stream was a banger as the devs showed a ton of new audio features such as different tones depending on Isaac’s current state (such as fatigued or low in health).
- Square Enix is sending out surveys on how to improve Babylon’s Fall after what was a disastrous launch.
- Hideo Kojima had an interesting Twitter thread on the new Batman movie, and I have no idea what the hell he was talking about. I think he enjoyed it?
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 made a resurgence on Twitch last weekend with over 400K people watching. Turns out there was a throwback tournament for it showing gamers what CoD used to be.
- Overwatch 2 is getting a closed PVP beta in April! In the meantime, pros and employees will play the game and test out the additions.
- Red Dead Redemption 3 is.. real?
- Sniper Elite 5 dropped a new trailer (I couldn’t put it in the trailers section because it’s age restricted) and confirmed a launch date for May 26, 2022. I don’t know, but they keep making these, and to be fair, they’re pretty fun.
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