Gaming News: July 2022

News Headlines

• Halo Infinite Co-op Flight – 343 Industries had a 2 week public beta for the long awaited co-op feature for the Halo Infinite campaign. By now most people should have beaten the campaign but fans were upset from the lack of co-op at launch. Additionally, this test only covers co-op over the network and not split-screen. A separate flight is planned to test split screen capabilities but can roll out sometime in 2023. The online feature will release sometime this year (fingers crossed) but will it actually bring fans back to the game?
• God of War Ragnarok Pre-order and Scalping – Pre-orders for the sequel to God of War went live and featured different editions of the game. The highest tier, called Jotnar’s Edition, brings many cool pieces but none cooler than Thor’s hammer. Unfortunately, as the pre-orders went live the scalping began. Now, some of these pieces are going for up to twice the retail value. If you’re looking to buy this edition, you’re options are limited as many retailers have also sold out.
• Price increase on Meta Quest 2 – Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced a price increase of $100 on their popular VR headset. Scheduled to take effect August 1st, this is the first price bump for a gaming console. Historically, gaming consoles get discounted as newer iterations come out. However, gamers may see it as gaming hardware but Meta, instead, sees it as a tool for the Metaverse. It seems they did not consider the headset’s current use (a tool to play Beat Saber) as a need to follow gaming norms. In fact, they said this increase will help them achieve their goals.
• Bungie is officially part of Sony – After clearing regulatory hurdles, Sony’s purchase of Bungie is now complete. No new information has been released now that the deal is finalized but Bungie CEO Pete Parsons had stated in January that they will continue to publish games independently. At the same time, Sony claims that they do not intend to make future Bungie games exclusive to their platform. Instead, they are going to rely on Bungie’s expertise in the live gaming service space and multi platform development.

Game Updates and Info

• GTA 6 Information released – Credible news about the next installment of the franchise has surfaced. Although details are sparse, the game is set to take place in Vice City and feature a playable female protagonist. Story details have not come out, but some speculation suggests we could see a riff on Bonnie and Clyde. While it has been confirmed to be in development, a release date has not been formally announced.
• Best selling game of June – The game to take this title is none other than Elden Ring. Releasing in February of this year the game is on track to become the best selling game of 2022.
• Skull and Bones Update – The game from Ubisoft Singapore will finally be released this November. Additionally, a trailer revealing the campaign was also released showing some details of the game. My interest in the game piqued after playing AC: Black Flag, however, that was some time ago. It will be interesting to see how receptive gamers are when it releases.
• Doom creator making a new game – John Romero had announced he is developing a new FPS through his gaming studio, Romero Games. This new game is an original IP and the studio was looking for developers familiar with the Unreal 5 engine. No further details have been released and it will be some time before we get an update.
• Polish Developers Create New Game Studio – Former developers of Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 create Rebel Wolves studio. These developers want to promote a team first environment stating “Happy people make great games – games players want and deserve.” We’ve all heard about crunch and it seems this new studio will do whatever it takes to avoid overworking their employees. Currently, the primary focus of the new studio is on a dark fantasy, RPG game.