In gaming news for this week, GameStop gets played in the stock market, while games like Cyberpunk 2077 are now allegedly playable in the latest Tesla automobile. Game Rant has compiled some of the biggest gaming news stories from this past week together into a concise post for fans and enthusiasts to stay up to date on the most important events in the industry per week. Highlighting the most relevant stories, this list is not inherently and totally objective, and will not contain every news story this week. Rather, this is intended for gaming fans who want a quick rundown on the largest/most impactful stories that occurred in the last week in games.
This week's roundup of gaming news is certainly busy, with tons of different stories coming out ranging from exciting, to disappointing, to downright strange. Obviously the GameStop "Stonks" and r/wallstreetbets saga has been the center of attention this week. G4 announces its most iconic shows are set to return next summer. Upcoming PS5 exclusive Returnal has been delayed, though not very far. Naughty Dog's The Last of Us 2 reaches another impressive milestone as one of the most critically acclaimed video games of all time. For some reason, Hideki Kamiya wants fans to "forget" about Bayonetta 3. All that and more in this week's recap of the biggest gaming news.
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One of the biggest gaming news events didn't necessarily involve games, but the GameStop retailer itself. This week, after a collective of activists under the r/wallstreetbets subreddit invested into GameStop, resulting in the struggling gaming company's share price soaring several hundred percent. The entire short-selling ploy was orchestrated from that Reddit forum, with many claiming they were gaining many thousands of dollars in market profit.
Currently, many of the investors from that subreddit are refusing to sell, with the goal of jeopardizing the hedge fund investors who were originally short-selling GameStop stock to make a profit at the company's expense. Now many hedge funds like Melvin Capital have closed out their short positions after incurring massive losses. Even as of this writing, many members of the community to express "don't sell" sentiments as GameStop's share price continues to fluctuate.
The unexpected return of G4 is finally starting to make headway in 2021, as the network announces two iconic shows are making a return. Both Attack of the Show and X-Play will be returning to the revived G4 network this summer. Many have taken the trailer's "the legends return" phrasing as a potential hint of the original cast returning to the shows as well.
Some of the industry's most iconic personalities, like Olivia Munn and and Adam Sessler, rose to fame because of the original G4 network and these iconic shows. This reunion was very much hinted at during G4's holiday special, but also new faces like Austin Creed will be joining the new G4 network as well.
Upcoming Housemarque PS5-exclusive Returnal has officially been delayed, though not by very much. Originally intended to release on March 19, Returnal's release date has been pushed back to April 30, 2021. According to an official statement from PlayStation, the game was pushed back "in order to give the team extra time to continue to polish the game to the level of quality players expect from Housemarque."
Returnal is the Groundhog Day-fueled space thriller and roguelike made by the developers of Resogun on PS4. Alongside its next-gen aesthetic and gameplay mechanics, the exclusive is also being fully optimized to take advantage of the PS5's DualSense haptic feedback and impressive loading speeds from the console's custom SSD.
Unfortunately, one of the actors behind the forthcoming release of Resident Evil Village has passed away. Announced on Twitter by Capcom, 39-year-old Jeanette Maus died on January 24, 2021, due to complications with colon cancer that she had been battling for several months. Maus is survived by her fiancé Dusty Warren.
Maus was the actor behind many characters in Village, though primarily known for her role as one of the witches (daughters of House Dimitrescu) that terrorizes Ethan throughout the mansion. Resident Evil Village is planned to release on May 7, 2021.
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The 10th annual New York Game Awards were held this week, once again highlighting the many great games that released in 2020. Co-hosted by Reggie Fils-Aime and Harold Goldberg, founder of the New York Videogame Critics Circle, nominees were up for 13 categories of awards. Hades in particular did very well at the New York Game Awards, taking home a total of five wins:
- Big Apple Award for Best Game of the Year: Hades
- Statue of Liberty Award for Best World: Ghost of Tsushima
- Herman Melville Award for Best Writing in a Game: Hades
- Coney Island Dreamland Award for Best AR/VR Game: Half-Life: Alyx
- Tin Pan Alley Award for Best Music in a Game: Hades
- Central Park Children’s Zoo Award for Best Kids Game: Animal Crossing: New Horizons
- A-Train Award for Best Mobile Game: Genshin Impact
- Off Broadway Award for Best Indie Game: Hades
- Freedom Tower Award for Best Remake: Final Fantasy VII: Remake
- Great White Way Award for Best Acting in a Game: Logan Cunningham as Lord Hades / Poseidon / Achilles / Charon / The Storyteller / Asterius in Hades
- Shea Stadium Award for Best Esports Event: Overwatch League
- Captain Award for Best Esports Team: Red Bull OG: CS:GO
- Knickerbocker Award for Best Games Journalism: Jason Schreier, Kotaku: "As Naughty Dog Crunches on The Last of Us, Developers Wonder How Long This Can Last."
Ironically, despite the crunch criticisms weighed against Naughty Dog's work, The Last of Us 2 has become one of the most critically-acclaimed video games of all time. As pointed out by a Reddit user, who compiled all of the awards the game has received, The Last of Us 2 has received 261 Game of the Year awards from various media outlets. This may come as no surprise to some, as The Last of Us 2 similarly swept Geoff Keighley's The Game Awards last year as well.
As Microsoft continues to expand the service offering for Xbox, the success of Xbox Game Pass is starting to gain some serious momentum. During Microsoft's latest earnings call, as pointed out by Daniel Ahmad on Twitter, Xbox Game Pass now has 18 million concurrent subscribers across Xbox and PC. Considering Xbox has been teasing new additions to the Game Pass lineup in 2021, it makes sense that the service is doing very well.
Additionally, Microsoft also noted some additional milestones; including 100 million Xbox Live monthly active users, $2 billion in revenue from third party content in its latest financial quarter, as well as having one of the most successful Xbox launches in Microsoft's history.
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Following several gruesome abuse allegations of "belittling, screaming at, groping" fellow developers, Scavengers Studio's creative director has been suspended pending an investigation. Nine anonymous developers and staff from the studio reached out to Rebekah Valentine of Gamesindustry.biz, detailing horrible acts on behalf of the Montreal Studio's director Simon Darveau.
Nearly every one of the nine anonymous staff described a working environment akin to "boys' club," a common reoccurrence in game development. This comes as deeply shocking compared to the studio's latest game Season, which is completely at odds with what the working culture is described as.
After years have gone by since the announcement of Bayonetta 3, it seems the game is still much farther away than anticipated. According to an interview with VGC, series creator Hideki Kamiya seemed to elude to the third game maybe being announced too early. Kamiya even went as far as to say "maybe we should all reset and forget about Bayonetta 3," granted as a joke. Kamiya recently also mentioned that Platinum Games would be providing an update on Bayonetta 3 at some point this year.
After many years of taking on and reprising the role of the titular character, Roger Craig Smith will no longer be the actor behind Sonic the Hedgehog. Announced by the actor himself, alongside the official Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter account, Roger is stepping down from the role after over a decade. Roger Craig Smith was the voice of Sonic in most mainline Sonic games since 2010, as well as spin-offs like Team Sonic Racing and the character's inclusion in Super Smash Bros.