January was a lively month for video game news, characterized by breakups, new partnerships, demos, big releases, surprising announcements and more. Here, in my opinion, are my top five stories of the month, followed by some quick hits down at the bottom.
EA Cancels Project Ragtag…Again
Project Ragtag’s troubled history keeps getting more troubled. In development since 2013 at Visceral Games, the undertaking was never able to gather much steam with the higher ups at EA, even with Uncharted mastermind Amy Hennig joining the team in 2014, as well as being backed up by Jade Raymond’s Motive Studios.
EA shuttered Visceral in 2017, effectively canceling Hennig’s vision for Ragtag; a Star Wars meets Oceans 11 type game, according to reporting from Kotaku. Assets were moved to EA Vancouver to revamp the title from a linear single player story in the style of Uncharted to something more of a large open world style that could evolve over time.
Code named Orca, this version of the game would never be, either. On January 15th, it was announced that the it would be shelved for now, in order to make a smaller scale project to fit sooner on EA’s Star Wars calendar. More than likely in 2020, as Respawn’s Fallen Order should hit this holiday.
EA only had this to say, in a response to Kotaku’s reporting on the matter:
There’s been speculation overnight about one of our Star Wars projects. As a natural part of the creative process, the great work by our team in Vancouver continues and will evolve into future Star Wars content and games. We’re fully committed to making more Star Wars games, we’re very excited about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order from Respawn, and we’ll share more about our new projects when the time is right.
Is Parting Really Such Sweet Sorrow?
The marriage between Bungie and Activision is officially over. Their ten-year deal signed in 2010 came to a close early, as they announced on January 10th that Bungie would retain rights over Destiny, and the former Halo studio will self-publish future Destiny content as well as future IP’s. Activision will go back to go back to focusing on properties that they own.
The writing was on the wall as early as June of last year, as the Chinese Internet giant NetEase invested in Bungie to the tune of $100 million, making them a minority stakeholder and giving them a seat on the board, according to GamesIndustry. NetEase also handles the Chinese licensing for Activision games like Overwatch and World of Warcraft, and this move will open up that market as well for Bungie.
Ties between Bungie and Activision won’t be entirely severed, though, as the PC version of Destiny 2 will “…still receive full support on BattleNet and we do not anticipate any disruption to our services or your gameplay experience,” according to Blizzard’s Customer Service Twitter account.
Bungie themselves have high hopes for NetEase’s investment. In a statement on their web site, they touch on wanting to create more than Destiny, writing, “Now, our long-term goal is to become an entertainment company that sustains many worlds simultaneously – Destiny and new worlds to come.”
Time to Worry About Anthem?
From the start, Anthem has always projected itself to be an ambitious game, and with any ambitious game, there’s always a hurdle or two to overcome before launch. As such, EA offered a VIP demo for the upcoming multiplayer action role-playing game from January 25th through the 27th, open to those who’d preordered, as well as EA Access and Origin subscribers.
The response was substantial, as noon rolled around on the 25th, most who tried to log on were greeted with a message declaring that the servers were already at max capacity and to try again later. The problem was wide-spread to all platforms, but within a few hours, players began to trickle in to begin their Freelancer journey. Server problems aside, a new issue arose later Friday where some players were confronted with indefinite loading screens, which EA rectified overnight.
The demo did its job though, as the teams at Bioware Edmonton and Austin were able to identify and track a number of issues they can now work on and fix before the February 22nd launch, including server performance, the infinite load screens, and login bugs.
In a statement posted to Anthem’s website, the team noted that there’s already a list of past bugs that Bioware has fixed for the final launch (that won’t make it in the upcoming public demo, unfortunately). Those include adding the social hub, fixes for losing XP at the end of expeditions, party gathering issues, and many general performance updates.
Anthem’s public demo launches February 1st.
Quantic Dream Set to Diversify
The French studio of Quantic Dream, known recently for their PlayStation exclusives Detroit: Become Human, Beyond Two Souls and Heavy Rain, made waves on January 29th when they announced their next business venture. And it surprisingly had nothing to do with Sony.
The announcement came via Chloe, a fan-favorite android from Detroit Become Human, that NetEase, one of the biggest names in Internet in China, made an investment in the studio. This comes on the heels of their $100 million investment in Bungie. The number NetEase invested in Quantic wasn’t released today, however.
The investment is aimed to support Quantic Dream and their vision of becoming a “global, multi-franchise entertainment company, and develop advanced technologies and games for the future,” according to a statement from NetEase. And David Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière are just as excited for the change, as the investment will allow them to play an active role in how the industry evolves, and evolve their own storytelling, they wrote in an interview with Variety.
As for their games? No longer will they be restricted to just one system, as one of their new objectives is to have a presence on all platforms to experience their games, including mobile.
January’s Big Titles
Two big, long awaited titles hit shelves in January, within a few days of each other. The first being Resident Evil 2 which released on January 25th, a remake of the 1998 game built in the RE Engine, the same used for Resident Evil 7’s. January 29th brought Kingdom Hearts III, first rumored back in 2006 after Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix was released in Japan and officially announced in 2013.
Both titles released to good reviews, with Resident Evil 2 attaining a 91 on Metacritic based on 71 critics, and Kingdom Hearts III reaching an 88 with 36 critics. Reviews for each ran the gamut as Game Informer wrote that Resident Evil 2 “not only looks great, it plays well, and it forces you into a series of dark encounters that are a total rush,” while PlayStation LifeStyle wrote that Kingdom Hearts III is “the best Kingdom Hearts game Square Enix has ever created.”
First week sales numbers for Resident Evil 2 were pretty good as well, selling 3 million copies. For comparison, Capcom announced that in 1998, the original Resident Evil 2 reached just under 5 million copies on the PlayStation. Kingdom Hearts III is on track for a record launch as well, as the series itself has sold more than 20 million copies; and this time around, it’s also on the Xbox.
Other Notable News
- Mortal Kombat II was fully revealed after December’s tease at The Game Awards, with new characters, expanded customization options, and revamped combat.
- Metro Prime 4 hit a snag in development; namely, it’s been restarted and handed off to Retro Studios, who helmed the first three games.
- The Division 2 and Metro Exodus are coming to the Epic Games Store in lieu of Steam. Deep Silver will honor preorders for Metro that were done through Steam and announced that the game will return to the Steam storefront in 2020.
On Tap: February
Next month in video games looks to be an even livelier affair, as Anthem has its full release, and games such as Metro Exodus, Far Cry: New Dawn, Jump Force and the long-awaited Crackdown 3 are all set to release.