TGO Daily | Monday August 9, 2021 | Kerbal Space Program
In the news: Kerbal Space Program sets course for home, Niantic facing some backlash for Pokémon Go, and South Park is getting a new game.
TGO Daily | Monday August 9, 2021
✏️ From the Author
The Pokémon Company likes to yell at us, did you ever notice that? If you look at their titles, they use capital letters quite frequently. Pokémon UNITE, Pokémon SWORD, Pokémon GO, Pokémon SNAP. How odd does that look?? No, you don’t get to sit here and yell at me to “SNAP!” with your cover art.
Am I the only one who noticed this?! I feel like I’ve uncovered the lamest ‘Da Vinci Code’ conspiracy right now.
If you’re reading this, and they say they found my body inside my house, yet it looks like I was struck by lightning, I urge you to investigate. Don’t let them get away with it. The MONSTERS.
That’s right, Pokémon Company, I can yell in text too. Your move.
Until next time,
Brandon
Kerbal Space Program Development Coming to a Close
Over a decade after its release (2011), Kerbal Space Program will no longer be receiving major updates. This will not interfere with the free next-gen update coming for Xbox and PlayStation players this Fall.
The developer, Squad, confirmed that no longer sustaining development of the title doesn’t mean they won’t do small bug patches - they did warn however that, “Bug fixing for the original game will be slowed down significantly from now on.”
Squad went on to say that they will now be focusing more heavily on the development of Kerbal Space Program 2. Originally planned for a 2020 release, the sequel has hit several major setbacks and is now planned for a release some time in 2022.
For those of you interested in the famed simulator, you should check out the cool cinematic announcement trailer they put out back in 2019 for the second game:
Pokémon Go Receiving Some Fan Backlash
When lockdowns and quarantines started around the world, Niantic made some critically necessary changes to Pokémon Go in order to keep up a game that encourages you going outside, in a time when that was quite discouraged. Niantic announced in June that they planned to rollback some of the pandemic features, much to the displeasure of fans. After the announcement, fans took to the internet to voice their complaints. However, earlier this month, in the US and New Zealand, the rollbacks still went through. Fans main concerns expressed were that the pandemic changes made the game safer to play and more accessible, especially for people with disabilities.
Niantic has since released a statement acknowledging fans complaints. They explained their reasoning for the change was to encourage exploration. In response to the backlash of the distance of PokéStop’s and Gyms being cut in half, they went on to say:
“We are assembling an internal cross-functional team to develop proposals designed to preserve our mission of inspiring people to explore the world together, while also addressing specific concerns that have been raised regarding interaction distance. We will share the findings of this task force by the next in game season change (September 1). As part of this process, we will also be reaching out to community leaders in the coming days to join us in this dialogue.”
A petition on change.org, with over 170,000 signatures, is urging fans to, “continue to cut or stop spending altogether until they increase interaction distance back to what it was.”
Brandon’s Thoughts: With such a large volume of fans making their voices heard, I’ll be rather surprised if Niantic doesn’t revert the changes. I do find it interesting that they’re forming a whole team for something fans are clearly adamant about. It’s even more interesting that they won’t be sharing the “findings of the task force” until a full month later after the change. Perhaps they’re hoping the backlash will die down and they can keep it changed? Doesn’t seem worth the wait to continue to bring out the ire of many of your fans, but I don’t run a million dollar company so what do I know.
New South Park Game in Development
Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park, have signed a deal with ViacomCBS for more than $900 million USD over the next six years. The deal included contracting the duo to continue making South Park episodes, to create multiple spinoff movies, and now another game. The show has had two games so far, The Stick of Truth and The Fractured But Whole, both of which were well-received by critics and fans.
We don’t know what to expect of the game, not even the genre, but we do know that it will be produced in-house - the previous two games were developed by Ubisoft. South Park Digital Studios worked in collaboration with Ubisoft on the first two, as well as designing the mobile title Phone Destroyer and several other smaller games, so they do have design experience. We do not have an expected release date as of yet.
Brandon’s Thoughts: I became a big fan of South Park back around 2005. While I haven’t caught up with the show in a few years, I did play both games and enjoyed them very much. They felt very true to the show and the combat was good enough to keep me hooked through both games. I’m excited to see what they do with the new game. Will it be an RPG or something entirely different? If you’re a fan of the show, I’d certainly recommend the first two games, especially if you enjoy RPGs.
🔦 Twitter Spotlight
Let's talk about the 2016 AAA Power Rangers game that never was: PROJECT NOMAD!
An interesting Twitter thread on a pitch for an open-world co-op Power Rangers game. It was a neat idea with some real great art that never got off the ground. It makes for an interesting look at the kind of work that goes into a pitch for a game.
💡 Read More
Evil Dead: The Game has been delayed to 2022 but will now get a single-player mode. The game is pushed back to February 2022 for release. It seems like the multiplayer is reminiscent of Left 4 Dead in gameplay.
Take-Two has three "unannounced" remasters or remakes in development.
Now a $2 million copy of Mario Bros. is ‘the most expensive game ever sold’. The record in July 2020 for highest price for a game was $114,000 and barely over a year later we’re here. Someone build me a time machine, please.
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Thanks for the read <3