The Concord Studio Gets Shut Down And More Top Gaming Stories
This week, people desperate for Nintendo to finally pull back the curtain on the successor to the Switch instead got an announcement that the acclaimed role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles X, previously only available on Wii U, will make its way to the handheld hybrid next year. Also, Guy “Dr Disrespect” Beahm was denied by YouTube in his efforts to have his channel’s monetization reinstated, and Sony shuttered Firewalk Studios, the team behind sci-fi shooter Concord. These stories and more await in the pages ahead.
5 Great Games To Clear Off Your Backlog
Play it on: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Current goal: Get some gaming spooks in for the season
This year, Halloween fell on a Thursday, and I was so busy with work and other things that I didn’t manage to make much time for spooky gaming in the days leading up to it. I still have a hankering for some interactive scares, however, so this weekend, I hope to play one of the landmark games in the history of survival horror, officially translated into English and released in the States for the first time: Clock Tower. The new version, Clock Tower: Rewind, comes to us courtesy of WayForward and represents my first real chance to play the 1995 SNES horror classic.
I actually don’t know much about the original Clock Tower, and I’ve kept it that way on purpose, as I want to go in knowing as little as possible and figure it out for myself. It’s scarier that way. But in short, it’s a 2D, survival horror point-and-click game that tells the story of Jennifer, a teenage orphan who’s adopted by a family with a big, spooky manor, and finds herself stalked by a horrifying entity known as Scissorman. WayForward’s release lets you play an enhanced version of the game “which features numerous gameplay additions and quality-of-life refinements,” and I may check that out as well, but for starters, I’ll be playing in Original mode, and experiencing the game just like it was when it scared the socks off of so many Japanese players way back in 1995. Sure, it may be November now, but I’m gonna linger in late October for just a little bit longer if it’s all the same to you. — Carolyn Petit
Everything You Need To Know About Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered
Since Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is the same game as the original, returning players should have a pretty good idea of its length and content. If you’re new to the game, though, you may be curious how long it’ll take to complete.
An average playthrough of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered should take you around 20 to 25 hours. This includes casually dabbling in a few side activities but mostly focusing on the main story. Of course, the remaster also includes the game’s only DLC, The Frozen Wilds, which can take another 10 to 15 hours to experience.
However, those seeking to see and do everything the main game and DLC has to offer can spend up to 80 hours exploring its stunning landscapes, to clear all the bandit camps, climb all of the Longnecks, and finish a wide variety of other optional but rewarding tasks—doing that ultimately results in earning its coveted Platinum trophy.
Chappell Roan’s SNL Look Has Dragon Age Fans Excited
We love Chappell Roan here at Kotaku. The “Good Luck, Babe” singer puts out queer bangers, dresses up in chainmail at award shows, and has cultivated a fanbase of gay nerds who record her shows on Nintendo handhelds. So when she shows up on Saturday Night Live this weekend on November 2, I will be tuned in and seated. But before the show airs, Roan has already appeared in some promotional material for the show, and her outfit has activated Dragon Age fans, as if they aren’t already having a stimulating week after the launch of The Veilguard on Halloween.
Roan is scheduled to be the musical guest for this week’s Saturday Night Live, with stand-up comedian and former SNL writer John Mulaney set to host the show. Both appeared in some promotional videos for the episode, and yeah, Mulaney is there, but Roan’s elaborate outfit is the star of the show. The green and gold outfit features a huge crescent headpiece with gold waist pieces stretching out to the side that seemingly double as armrests. The whole fit is something straight out of a fantasy RPG, and folks in fandoms like Final Fantasy are jumping on the jokes. However, Dragon Age is fresh in everyone’s minds and I, too, had to laugh at how Roan’s outfit is evocative of Ghilan’nain, one of the elven gods the player faces in The Veilguard.
Ghilan’nain is a blighted elf, and without getting too into the weeds, that means her body has been twisted into a monstrous eldritch horror. This lady has multiple sets of arms and tentacles, and her face is hidden under a mask connected to a crescent headpiece. In close-up shots you can see her face is just as horrifying beneath the mask, and why she was so willing to become this monstrosity is part of the story you’ll uncover in The Veilguard. With the headpiece and tendril-like appendages, Roan’s outfit calls to mind the elven god of guides and navigation, so Dragon Age fans are all making the same joke.
Ghilan’nain is nothing like Chappell Roan, though. Is the elven god a queer icon? I mean, not yet, but she could be. But all I’ve ever seen her do is try to kill the queer friend group that is The Veilguard. That’s not very “ally” of her.
Mario Kart Racers Look Awesome As McDonald’s Happy Meal Toys
As a grown adult, you likely don’t make a habit of ordering off the kid’s menu. I bet the only thing that could change that is a unique collab with a rare toy or collectible up for grabs. It’s that time again, as McDonald’s is partnering with Nintendo for the Mario Kart x Happy Meal collab. (Add that to the list of non-Switch 2 Nintendo announcements.) This collab is present at all McDonald’s locations throughout the United States, but it’s unclear whether other markets will receive the same promotion.
While these exclusive toys are technically meant for children, precisely ages three and up, we know plenty of people who’ll be ordering a Mario Kart-themed Happy Meal are those who grew up facing their siblings head-to-head in the game. Hey, I’m not judging. I want that Toad Kart!
In total, there are ten limited-edition Mario Kart x Happy Meal collab toys to acquire, including:
- Mario Kart
- Peach Kart
- Luigi Kart
- Toadette Kart
- Donkey Kong Kart
- Gold Mario Kart
- Toad Kart
- Yoshi Kart
- Bowser Kart
- Pink Gold Peach Kart
Each Mario Kart toy comes in an exclusive box. The front features the usual Nintendo marketing, and the side features the iconic McDonald’s smile commonly found on the Happy Meal.
Of course, every Happy Meal is different, and you may receive the same toy multiple times. You can ask to buy one of the toys separately, although many locations don’t go for that tactic and may outright deny you. Most require a meal purchase.
This promotion is specifically for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which launched on the Nintendo Switch on April 28, 2017. It’s an old version of the racing game, and many people feel it’s quite tricky, but it gives us hope that Nintendo is gearing up for another release within the franchise.
Click or scroll for a look at each toy and its box.
Pokémon TCG Pocket Already Feels Like A Well-Laid Trap
I’m really averse to trading card games. Despite loving me some Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid and tween, I’ve largely kept my distance from them in the time since. I’ve played a few hands of Hearthstone, I never touched Artifact, and I am straight-up dogshit at any card game baked into an RPG, except for Queen’s Blood in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Maybe it’s all the stories I’ve seen of players spending exorbitant amounts of money to pull rare cards from booster packs, but the pastime seems dominated by greed and status more than the fun of the tactics and interplay between cards that I always valued.
It’s for reasons like these that I didn’t start playing Magic: The Gathering until a few weeks ago. I was going on vacation and knew I’d be around folks who play the game, so I relented and tried it. Unsurprisingly, I found that Magic is deeply fun and rewarding, but when I texted my roommate who plays the game, he warned me of the cost of it all. As did my best friends when I shared that I’d successfully been Magic-pilled. Of course, that did little to stop us from heading to a shop hosting a ludicrous sale on singles, purchasing about $45 worth of cards I simply thought looked cool, and playing another few games before I left town. My first go was a bit rough around the edges, but by the second game, I’d already been able to take out another player in a fashion that even impressed me!
With that experience in mind, as well as a single (and might I mention, triumphant) game of the Pokémon TCG under my belt, I took the plunge into Pokémon TCG Pocket, the mobile and gacha-infused adaptation of the popular card game that has ravaged my friends and their wallets the last few years. Unfortunately, it’s good, bite-sized fun, and it feels like a trap.
The slow tutorial of Pocket does a great job of introducing the fundamentals: play and evolve Pokémon, attach energies to use devastating attacks, and use items and other support cards to pull cards from your deck and keep your critters standing. There’s more to know, like retreating, benched Pokémon, abilities, and so on, but Pocket is actually a wonderful place to start if you’re looking to get into the actual card game. It plies you with prebuilt decks and solo challenges that’ll familiarize you with the ebb and flow of battle in increasingly difficult increments, eventually letting you challenge other players. Bouts in these modes are pretty generously timed, making them perfect for beginners who are dipping their toes in for the first time, and the winner is the first to three KOs, which happens quicker than you might expect. It’s no Marvel Snap, but fights in Pocket aren’t exactly drawn out like they can be in the anime or video games.
However, all of this is secondary to Pocket’s real allure and danger. Its home screen consists of a bunch of icons, buttons, and panels, but the three biggest ones in the center of the screen are booster packs, a feature called Wonder Pick, and a shop. Let’s work our way down.
First up, the booster packs: there are currently three available, all within a larger promo called Genetic Apex, and they’re centered on Pikachu, Charizard, and Mewtwo. (You can pick between the three packs at any time and it’s free to open one.) Clicking on the panel brings you to a screen where you can preview the offerings inside each pack, and cracking them is how you first gain literally any XP in the game. Before you do anything, even battling, you must open a booster pack and become familiar with Pocket’s many currencies and systems.
For example, slicing open a pack, which comes complete with a satisfying sound and vibration from your phone, generates pack points, which can then be spent on picking out single cards that range in value depending on their artwork, whether they’re holographic or not, and more. The most prominent of these currencies, though, are Pocket’s hourglasses.
Underneath both the booster packs and Wonder Pick icons are timers. The one under the former is counting down to the next time you are allowed to crack a pack—you can snag two each day, or one every 12 hours basically— and the latter’s timer is counting down to the next charge of a Wonder Pick, which can hold five charges max. The Wonder Pick allows you to spend charges to select a randomized card from booster packs that random players or your friends have recently opened. (Don’t worry, they won’t lose the card.) Say someone gets a uniquely good haul. You can then spend an appropriate amount of Wonder Pick charges—which will scale with the value of the cards included—to kind of get a chance at at least one high-value pick!
At the moment, I have two Wonder Pick charges, with a third being restored within the next eight hours. That limits the packs that I can freely pick from, meaning I can do a trio of poorly rated drops, try my hand at a slightly better one costing two charges, or wait and see if I can pull one for three. Of course, these agonizingly long waits can be reduced by simply using hourglasses, which cut down timers by an hour per unit, and the game is sure to remind you of what you’re missing out on by featuring the extravagant pulls of everyone you know on the Wonder Pick page.
The early leveling experience and tutorial also make you flush with hourglasses, to the point where I was in the hundreds within about an hour of playing. It wants you to spend those hourglasses so badly to speed up the booster pack timing, reward you with some paltry offerings and a lone full art or EX card, and then hook you on that high. There’s also already an offer in the game to upgrade to a premium pass that allows you to open a third pack a day for two weeks with no charge and access premium missions with more rewards, like card sleeves, playmats, coins, and as of this moment, even an exclusive full-art Pikachu card. The obvious hope is that you’ll forget to cancel and lapse into becoming a full-blown sub, or worse, willingly offer it because you’re that hooked.
None of these systems explicitly get in the way of you just hopping into solo or online battles, but already, I’ve run into scenarios where I’ve just narrowly eked out victories over players who’ve obviously spent the dough (or just gotten lucky enough) to pull EX Mewtwos and the like. Meanwhile, I’m using fairly rudimentary decks and building my Pokedex and binder very slowly by comparison. While surveying the cards that friends of mine had pulled, I actually felt a pang of jealousy so great that I used hundreds of hourglasses to splurge on ten booster packs, which yielded me a lot of cards, but ultimately a whole bunch of nothing.
Pocket, just like the base TCG and every gacha and service game in the world, is banking on its systems to create these kinds of frustrations—these pockets of FOMO, if you will—and push you to spend so you keep enjoying the game. And since this is Pokémon we’re talking about here, y’know, the biggest media property in the world, there’s no telling the damage it’ll ultimately wreak.
I’m also wary of investing too much into Pocket because, frankly, I’ve little trust in digital media anymore. Years of shows being cut from streaming services, as well as games getting delisted and pulled from players’ libraries, have been a stark reminder that these companies are more than happy to sell you empty promises. A physical card can at least be tucked into a sleeve or binder that you can safely put away and bring back out. The Criterion Collection movies I’ve been assembling in my entertainment center aren’t going anywhere unless I want them to. Those physical things, be they cards or movies, are things that will last with care, care that I and many others willingly give them.
So long as Pocket makes Nintendo and The Pokémon Company richer, it’ll be around. The moment it stops benefiting them materially, though, I’m sure they’ll have no problem taking it all away from us, and that awareness is inevitably going to color my experience with it.
Which is a shame, because I really am enjoying Pocket. It felt good getting to trounce that player with the Mewtwo by simply outsmarting and outplaying them. The TCG version of Pokémon will be mostly familiar to someone who’s played the games before, but there’s just enough of a tactical twist in the management of energies and the whole party to promote smart plays over raw power sometimes. It’s still very early days for Pocket, meaning it’s impossible to divine its staying power or whether all of the problems I’m flagging will remain as such. For as much joy as it might bring, just never forget to treat Pocket, as well as its developers and publishers, with the caution they deserve.
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Nintendo Keeps Announcing Things That Aren’t The Switch 2
Where the hell is the Switch 2, folks? It’s the last day of October and Nintendo still hasn’t revealed the one thing every fan is waiting for. Instead, we’ve gotten almost everything else the company could think of, from random ports of cult Wii U games to literal alarm clocks. What else could the gaming giant throw at fans while it continues running out the clock on a new console announcement in 2024?
The signs were there, from mysterious leakers to the company’s own president. “We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year,” Shuntaro Furukawa tweeted back in May. Technically, Nintendo’s fiscal year runs until March 31, but my god, man! Give us a single image of the hardware, an official name, anything! Five months later, fans have survived heart-stopping levels of hype ever since the company ditched its regular September Nintendo Direct and chatter from developers and others about an imminent announcement reached a fever pitch.
With all eyes on the mustachioed plumber, the console manufacturer decided on a different course of action. Instead of revealing the Switch 2, Nintendo announced Alarmo, a $100 device that uses video-game sounds to get you out of bed, at least if you’re single. We got a mysterious online playtest announcement that turned out to be for a weird MMO. On a random Tuesday, Nintendo decided to drop the news that niche Wii U exclusive Xenoblade Chronicles X would all of a sudden, 10 years later, arrive on Switch next spring. And then last night the company busted out even more news: Nintendo music now has a standalone app for smartphone listening as part of Switch Online.
It now feels like time is running out for Nintendo to actually reveal the Switch 2 before the end of 2024. Maybe there’s a small pocket of time in November before the holiday, but why would the company decide to steal thunder from Mario & Luigi: Brothership or its big holiday push to help sell another 10 million more Switches this year. Maybe Nintendo just does not give a fuck anymore, confident in the knowledge that, whenever it chooses to announce its next console, the news will bend the attention economy to its will no matter the manner or timing in which it unfolds. Or maybe this means we really aren’t getting a Switch 2 reveal before mid-January after the holiday break.
In the meantime, here are nine more things I would be less shocked to see Nintendo announce between now and then that aren’t a Switch 2.