February may be the shortest month of the year, but it certainly was not short on video game news and releases this year. Among other things, a new challenger entered the ring to be crowed best Battle Royale, Xbox Live is seemingly branching out, Nintendo blessed us with TWO Directs, a veritable mountain of awaited games released, an icon announced he was hanging up his hat, and a studio that used to be on top of the world may be finding themselves a victim of their own success.
And another company forgot how to use Google.
With the amount of news this month, The Wrap will be in officially in two parts! Read on for the first half of the month’s news, and part two will include the last part of February, and the months quick hits!
A New Battle Royale King?
Respawn, makers of Titanfall and the upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, made waves on Monday, February 4th when they released Apex Legends, a free-to-play Battle Royale game set in the Titanfall universe.
You may hear the phrase “Battle Royale” and roll your eyes, but Respawn’s fresh take on the genre might just be what takes Apex from being just another Player Unknowns Battlegrounds knockoff to the new King of Battle Royale. For starters, it has a little Overwatch flair to it; instead of just being a generic avatar in the field, you choose to play as one of eight “Legends” in a squad of three, each with their own special ability and with that, their own unique play style.
Respawn Beacons and a ‘Ping’ communication system are other new mechanics introduced inside Apex Legends. Respawn Beacons are one-time use locations where teammates can be revived if they’re met an untimely end, provided you can get to their body to pick up their beacon in the time allowed. And the Ping system? Personally, it’s one of my favorite innovations of the game. Players can call out other squads and let your own squad know about cool weapons and gear that are littered through the map.
Respawn is in the game for the long haul as well, as evidenced by the year one roadmap. Each season will include the ability to compete for unlocking new Legends, awesome weapons, different themed loot, and more!
It’s also clear that gamers have embraced the vision that Respawn created; on Monday night, less than eight hours after the game had launched, CEO Vince Zampella announced on Twitter that Apex had hit a million unique players in under 8 hours. And in 72 hours? 10 million players and 1 million concurrent players were seen. (For comparison, it took Fortnite’s Battle Royale two weeks to hit the 10 million mark.)
This seems to be just the beginning for the Apex team; the only question seems to be how high can they go? Only time will tell.
Xbox Live…Not On An Xbox?
As first reported by Windows Central, it seems to be that Microsoft wants to branch out and bring Xbox Live to the Nintendo Switch, as well as Android and iOS devices in addition to the already established PC and Xbox consoles.
The information comes from the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019 website, which has since been deleted, but Windows Central was able to save the details from the upcoming session. Microsoft’s aim is for developers to “get a first look at the SDK to enable game developers to connect players between iOS, Android, and Switch in addition to Xbox and any game in the Microsoft Store on Windows PCs.”
Microsoft and Nintendo already have a relationship and have previously embraced cross-platform functionality, as seen in Minecraft, and Fortnite and Rocket League. You can even earn Xbox Achievements playing Minecraft on the Switch!
GDC 2019 takes place March 18th through the 22nd in San Francisco, California.
Release Roundup
Many games released this month, most notably Crackdown 3 from Sumo Digital (after numerous delays), Metro Exodus from 4A Games, Far Cry: New Dawn from Ubisoft Montreal, and Anthem from Bioware Edmonton.
Crackdown 3 released on February 15th, and critics seemingly found it lacking. The night before the game came out, it had a Metacritic score of 60, based on 46 critics.
On the high end, GamingTrend enjoyed the game, writing “Crackdown 3 makes no sense on paper. Its story is nonsense, you spend way too much time searching for hidden orbs and leveling up, and the presentation isn’t anything spectacular. And yet, the over-the-top madness and hilarious, memorable moments it brought me made it impossible to put down.”
Giant Bomb was one of the many outlets who found issues with the game, with reviewer Jeff Gerstmann writing “I don’t think I’d call Crackdown 3 an awful game, but I would call it dated. I don’t know enough about this specific game’s development to know what happened here, but I do know that this specific game feels like something that would have been better received had it been released several years ago.”
Metro Exodus also released on February 15th, nearly six years since the last entry in the series; Metro: Last Light. As of February 14th, the game had a Metacritic score of 79 based on 29 critics, with a majority of those being favorable reviews.
IGN scored the game well, with reviewer Tristan Ogilvie writing in his review, “In an era where most first-person shooters seem to be intent on constantly upping the tempo, Metro Exodus is refreshing in its demand that you take your time. This is not a run-and-gun experience; it’s a stay-low-and-go-slow crawl through some of the most atmospheric and detail-rich settings I’ve ever experienced in a story-driven shooter.”
Chris Moyse from Destructoid found much in the game he enjoyed, but did fall upon some flat spots, writing “When not out in the great unknown, however, Exodus tends to get bogged down by a dogged insistence on overly-fiddly technical details and humdrum foraging. Furthermore, Exodus’ personality-free protagonist and his pals can leave players alternately stifling giggles or rolling their eyes. Fortunately, exciting set-pieces, blood-pumping combat and the changing landscape work hard to keep boredom at bay.”
Following the February 15th train, Far Cry 5’s follow-up New Dawn also released. Reaction among critics was mixed the night before the game came out, with a Metacritic score of 73 based on 48 critics.
Press Start Australia was one of the more favorable reviews, stating in their review that “Far Cry New Dawn shares a lot of great similarities with Far Cry 5, but it’s the minor tweaks that allow it to stand as its own title. With so much to do, so many places to explore, and a post-apocalyptic world that is grounded in realism, there is no shortage of entertainment to be had in Hope County.”
Variety found themselves on the not-so-favorable viewpoint of New Dawn, writing in their review, “Sequel or side story, “New Dawn” feels like an overextension of both the story and ideas in “Far Cry 5.” Even as a streamlined experience tweaked to play up its strengths, the formula feels tired and bloated. A trip down memory lane always seems like a good idea, but sometimes it better to leave the past in the past.”
The biggest wild card of the month, Anthem from Bioware and EA released on February 22nd. As of the 23rd, the only edition of the game to have a critic score on Metacritic is the PC version (60, based on 36 critics); but many of the other reviews are “in progress” because of the nature of the always-online game.
Most critics acknowledged that the game was beautiful, but that the game as of now has some serious issues, with many things Bioware had said were fixed between the last beta and the launch. Many were left wondering if the staggered release schedule for Anthem really was the best idea in the end for development, and some even called Bioware’s future into question.
Snowstorm at Activision Blizzard
Seeing a declining number of users in Overwatch and Hearthstone, and less-than-stellar sales of Destiny 2: Forsaken, Activision is taking steps to restructure. Just last month, they parted ways with Destiny developer Bungie, and on Tuesday, February 12th, they let go of 8 percent of their workforce, which worked out to about 800 employees according to Kotaku.
The cuts, which affected both Activision, Blizzard, and mobile developer King, happened the same time as Activision held their quarterly earnings call, on which they also announced record profits.
According to Kotaku, most of the layoffs were expected to be “primarily in non-game-development departments, such as publishing, marketing, and sales,” and may mostly happen on the Blizzard end of things.
It’s been a tumultuous time at Activision Blizzard; in addition to issues with Destiny, Overwatch and Hearthstone, Diablo: Immortal did not get the reaction the company wanted, Mike Morhaime left the company in October 2018, and former Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann left the company to take the same job at Netflix in January.