We have officially completed one week of the TGO Newsletter. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a success. Thanks for all your positive comments! I’ll be continuing with this format for as long as I can handle (school is looming around the corner. How will I cope? Who knows!), and am looking forward to how it evolves over time.
Just so you know, this newsletter will only be running on weekdays, when I cover the news. You might know that I often have weekend “special” shows where I do something different than news — you’ll need to stick to an audio format to hear that. It’s less work for me, and it maintains the integrity of this being called a “newsletter.”
Folks, if you’ve enjoyed the newsletter up to this point, it’d mean a lot to me if you’d share it with a friend or two. I think there’s a much broader appeal with a format like this compared to the podcast, so I look forward to seeing if I can expand my audience a little bit. Otherwise, no worries, thanks for being here :)
Have a tremendous weekend,
Adrian
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Gamescom: Opening Night Live takes place
Today’s “Gamescom: Opening Night Live” has been hyped up for a couple of weeks, promising announcements and new looks at games, but I can’t say there was anything major. Make sure you check out the link above if you’d like to see absolutely everything that was shown off. If you interested in seeing a specific game, then here are some highlights.
There were announcements of brand new content. Sam & Max is getting its first entry in 10 years, though it will be a virtual reality game. There’s also a new Bridge Constructor game based on The Walking Dead. The Sims 4 is getting a Star Wars themed expansion, and Fall Guys detailed its Season 2 content (no release date though).
Plenty of existing games got more gameplay or info, including Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, the new Doom: Eternal expansion, Dragon Age 4, and the VR Medal of Honor game. One of the standout indie games called 12 Minutes managed to pick up an all star cast of Daisey Ridley, Willem Dafoe, and James McAvoy.
Less substantial trailers were shown for Call of Duty, Surgeon Simulator 2, World of Warcraft, Little Nightmares II, Star Wars: Squadrons, and Mafia.
As mentioned, the event lacked major headlines, but there are some interesting tidbits in there. Feel free to check it out at your leisure.
Sony opens pre-orders for PS5
In the most bizarre pre-order strategy I’ve ever seen, Sony has now opened up the potential for customers to shell out money on a Playstation 5. However, there are a great deal of caveats for who is eligible. The offer is limited to customers in the US and is on an invite-only basis, where people will be selected “based on previous interests and PlayStation activities.”
If selected, you can only pre-order a single console, up to two accessories, and it must be done within a limited time window. Not only that, but not everybody who is invited will receive their order due to limited quantity, so it is first-come first-served.
All of this for a console that has yet to have a release date or price tag. Why did this have to happen so early?
Left 4 Dead 2 receiving an update after more than a decade
This may be a surprise to you, but Left 4 Dead 2 is getting a content update! It’s called “The Last Stand,” and is a community-developed update that Valve has embraced and made official. Details haven’t been provided about content and a release date.
It’s pretty cool to have a game still updated in this way 11 years after it initally released. This isn’t the first time Valve has done this either — back in 2017, Team Fortress 2 received a similar community-made update.
Marvel-themed Fortnite season now live
Fortnite has just launched Chapter 2 Season 4 of the game, which is entirely dedicated to the Marvel/Avengers universe crossover.
Overall, it now feels far more like a Marvel game now than a Fortnite one - from its menus set within the Avengers helicarrier, to its match lobby where you can fly around said helicarrier while it hovers over the battle royale island.
— Tom Phillips, Eurogamer
I’ve always found the Fortnite crossovers extremely interesting. They interact with the biggest brands in the world to an extreme degree, and seemingly everyone benefits from it. Epic has built the game to essentially become a sandbox where you can play with any toy, and the audience is okay with that. I don’t think every game could get away with being so bold (Fall Guys, for example, could lose some allure if literally everything was Marvel-branded).
Of course, this season will not be available on iPhones or Google Play users, as the app can no longer be updated on those platforms thanks to the ongoing legal disputes.
Also In The News
More From TGO
Please submit your questions to this weekend’s mailbag! As mentioned, there will not be weekend editions of the newsletter, so if you’d like to hear the answers to the question, you’ll have to tune in to the audio version on Alexa or the podcast host of your choice. Thanks to NCIceman for submitting the question:
To submit, feel free to just reply to this email, or check out the #mailbag channel in the Discord!
Get In Touch
That’s all for today folks! Thanks for being here, and please let me know if you have any suggestions for the newsletter :)
You can always message me simply by replying to this email, and I’ll do my best to get back to you.
You can also find me on Twitter, or join our Discord community.
DCCLXXIV