Welcome back to Pause Screen! This week Kaz has finished up Shadow of War and picked Animal Crossing up again, Kyle’s had the full Mario experience in Super Mario 64, Super Mario Bros 35, and Paper Mario: The Origami King, and William has finished farming season in FGO to begin the endgame in Xenoblade Chronicles. For news on the Hype Train, we talk a lot about Microsoft’s purchase of Zenimax, but we also discuss Steve in Smash, Spider-Man Remastered, the new studio Dreamhaven, CD Projekt Red’s rededication to crunch, and more! Come pause with us!
HYPE TRAIN – *toot toot*
- Nexus Mods ban all political mods https://www.nexusmods.com/news/14373
- Microsoft bought Zenimax for $7.5 freakin’ billion dollars
- Digital Foundry got their hands on the Series X’s backwards compatibility, and it looks freakin’ rad. For example, Monster Hunter World runs at 30-35 fps on the Xbox One X, while it’s at 60 fps and looks even nicer on the SX. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oe1LUJyCCs
- Steve for Smash https://youtu.be/hA2Kyz9JFdQ
- Michel Ancel (Rayman, Beyond Good and Evil) has left game development for good, but has been accused of abusive workplace behavior in the wake of leaving https://www.usgamer.net/articles/report-michel-ancel-beyond-good-and-evil-2-abuse-mismanagement-liberation
- Sony detailed Spider-Man Remastered, which involves replacing Peter Parker’s face with a 14 year old’s, among other things. It looks nice! https://blog.playstation.com/2020/09/30/marvels-spider-man-remastered-detailed/
- Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity showed some gameplay, it looks nice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZB75gT8YTk
- Mike Morhaime Founds a new Game publisher, Dreamhaven https://www.wowhead.com/news=318121/mike-morhaime-announces-new-game-company-dreamhaven
SAD TRAIN *womp womp*
- Warcraft: Shadowlands release date has been delayed to later this year, no specified date. But the prepatch is coming Oct 13th https://twitter.com/Warcraft/status/1311766412571049990?s=09
- After seeking out reporters about a year ago and committing to never doing crunch again, CD Projekt Red sent out an email to their staff this week announcing mandatory crunch for the next 6 weeks until Cyberpunk comes out. Turns out business is still gonna business. https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1311059656090038272?s=20
- CDPR studio head Adam Badowski responded, saying it was “one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make” and that “everyone is well compensated for their extra hours” https://twitter.com/AdamBadowski/status/1311245204356304896