Welcome back to Pause Screen! This week, Kyle’s been playing The Touryst, Xeno Crisis, Battletoads, and the original Final Fantasy VII, William’s finished his genocide run of Undertale and is moving through Fate/Extra, and Kaz has been playing Carrion, Ring Fit Adventure, and has finished The Last of Us 2. In news on the Hype Train, we talk Epic’s new legal battle, the Switch releasing in Brazil, new multiplayer modes, Oculus requiring Facebook logins, Control: Ultimate Edition and more! Come pause with us!
HYPE TRAIN – *toot toot*
- Epic has launched itself into a massive legal battle against Apple and Google after cutting their prices for in-game Fortnite currency by 20% and bypassing the respective phone stores with their own payment system, which resulted in them getting removed from Google Play and the App Store. They’ve had a whole ‘nineteen eighty fortnite’ campaign lampooning Apple’s classic commercial, and are really trying to paint themselves as the little guy taking down the big monopolies. It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out; in the meantime, Apple is going to block all Epic dev accounts as of August 28th, which is a big deal for anyone using the Unreal Engine.
https://www.polygon.com/2020/8/13/21366455/fortnite-ios-apple-app-store-gone-removed-v-bucks-change-discount
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/ibk713/apple_has_informed_epic_games_that_it_will/
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/08/as-epic-attacks-apple-and-google-it-ignores-the-same-problems-on-consoles/ - AGDQ started on Monday, is running entirely virtually. It’s… okay.
- The Switch is going to be released in Brazil, marking their big return after pulling out of the country in 2015 https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1296084506613624834
- Untitled Goose Game and Ghost of Tsushima are getting free multiplayer updates, but sadly no crossover play between the two games
- Microsoft Flight Simulator came out and is apparently neat
- Spiritfarer launched out of nowhere and is also apparently neat
- Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War: The Movie: The Game got announced
SAD TRAIN *womp womp*
- 505 Games announced Control: Ultimate Edition alongside the new trailer for the AWE expansion (the Alan Wake one). People don’t like it because to get the PS5/Series X version of the game with ray tracing and better performance, you have to buy said ultimate edition at full $60 price. So if you bought the game/season pass on sale this past week for $40, you don’t get to have those sweet upgrades when AWE comes out. It’s kinda sleazy, but 505 says their hands are tied on it. It’s an interesting aftereffect of the split between Microsoft and Sony this gen, I think.
https://controlgame.com/ultimateeditioncommunityblog/ - Oculus headsets will require you to log in to Facebook for full functionality (read: store access, some games not working) starting in 2023. Welcome to the dystopia! https://www.oculus.com/blog/a-single-way-to-log-into-oculus-and-unlock-social-features/
- Paradox fired its narrative lead and creative director on Bloodlines 2 out of nowhere, replacing them with a business guy to get the game out. Sounds like a troubled project. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/08/19/brian-mitsoda-has-been-fired-as-narrative-lead-on-bloodlines-2/
- Retro is hiring a lead producer on Metroid Prime 4. Can’t wait till 2027 https://twitter.com/RetroStudios/status/1294332258074218497?s=09