TGO Daily | October 1, 2021 | Sony Acquires Bluepoint
✏️ From the Author
Hey, here’s the other newsletter for today! Once again, sorry for the delay in yesterday’s. It is actually really annoying when I spend all that time writing it just to forget to hit send 😂
That’s all for this week. I’m actually going to be back with the regular news updates on Tuesday — Monday will be a special newsletter with a huge announcement for TGO. Stay tuned :)
— Adrian
📰 In The News
1. Sony acquires Bluepoint Games
Continuing their tradition of acquiring studios which they have long-term relationships with, Sony has officially welcomed Bluepoint to the team.
You’ll recognized Bluepoint as a team responsible for remaking a number of games, including Demon’s Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, and remasters like Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.
According to IGN, Bluepoint will start working on original games from here on out. They noted that the studio has grown dramatically over the years, which allowed them to move from remasters to remakes, and now to original titles.
“Bluepoint is now in a place where there's hardly an entity imaginable that knows PlayStation better than they do, because they've worked with so many different teams on their respective, iconic franchises that they've had a developer insight in a wonderful way”
“We've expressed that probably better together, making sure that Bluepoint can focus on their games, can focus on what they do best, making amazing worlds, wonderful character development, and make use of all the resources that we have got to offer”
💭Adrian’s Thoughts: This acquisition was foreshadowed a while back when the PlayStation Twitter account accidentally tweeted the wrong graphic. It makes sense though — Sony picks up studios who they’ve been working with for a long time, including Housemarque and Insomniac. They’re really bolstering and securing their first-party lineup, in an industry where acquisitions are happening left and right.
2. eFootball 2022 is bad.
Konami’s football simulation title changed names and pricing this year: from Pro Evolution Soccer to eFootball, from premium to free-to-play. Unfortunately for players of the franchise, this didn’t save the newest entry from being plagued with issues. It’s so bad, that the title has already become the worst reviewed game in Steam’s history (in one day!).
Diving deeper: As of this writing, the game has close to 9500 reviews, and 91% of them are negative. So what’s wrong with the game? Seemingly everything. There have been reports of technical issues, poor graphic renders, and most importantly gameplay deficiencies.
Of course, the title is free-to-play, so nobody who is reviewing this game lost any kind of investment. Konami won’t be happy with this outcome, and I question whether or not its even possible for them to turn this around. Even casual players who aren’t “in the loop” are going to see the extreme Steam rating.
3. Monster Hunter Rise heading to PC
The latest mainline entry for Monster Hunter is going to be arriving on PC on January 12, 2022. A demo will also be available super early on October 13th!
The PC version will support all the benefits of improved hardware, like 4K resolution and uncapped framerates.
In the video linked above is the Monster Hunter segment of the Tokyo Game Show. It also shared info about the upcoming expansion “Sunbreak.”
4. Other notable stories
The Game Awards 2021 will be an in-person event this year. It happens on December 9th, at the Microsoft Theatre in Los Angeles. It will be interesting to see how the viewership numbers compare with previous years!
Scarlet Nexus heading to the Xbox Game Pass today. I’ve heard lots of good things about this one, but my only memories of the trailers were “crazy anime people doing crazy anime things.”
God of War: Ragnarok was delayed for the main actor Cristopher Judge, who needed to rehab after surgery. A great story of kindness and patience in an industry which often lacks both.
Lots of awesome games free through a Twitch Prime subscription. Includes stuff like Ghostrunner and Star Wars: Squadrons.
📣STAY TUNED
As mentioned in the intro, I have a pretty major announcement to make for the next time this newsletter is typically scheduled to return (Monday, October 4). Please keep an eye on your inbox for me :)