Splash Damage

By all accounts, this should have been a big year for gaming, but recent releases such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ghost of Yotei, and Outer Worlds 2 are not selling as well as developers (and shareholders) perhaps hoped. We discuss why they might be underperforming along with Ubisoft’s potential pending destruction, a Eurogamer reviewer who admitted to regretting giving Dragon Age: The Veilguard such a high score, the Steam Machine and what that means for Xbox, and more!

CNN wrote a lengthy piece illustrating how the male gaze is returning, bringing with it the things human beings actually find attractive in media. We talk about this welcomed return to sanity along with Microsoft continuing to kill the Xbox brand by increasing console and Game Pass subscription costs, EA being sold to Saudis, and the weird social justice games indoctrinating children in Roblox.

Several game developers, including a prominent one behind Ghost of Yotei, mocked Charlie Kirk’s assassination. We discuss the irony of “anti”-fascists celebrating a political opponent being killed for his free speech along with Sweet Baby Inc.’s hilarious take on colonialism in cozy games, Metal Gear Solid Delta’s trigger warning, the failure of Relooted, and more.

In an amazing case of everyone involved with the train wreck that was Dragon Age: The Veilguard continuing to fail upwards, Bethesda has hired one of the lead writers of the game, presumably to work on Elder Scrolls VI. We discuss our eroding faith in the anticipated game along with Polygon calling Street Fighter 6 fans gooners, voice actor ProZD’s hypocrisy when it comes to “diversity” in casting, TeamKill Media’s ironic excuse for not putting their game on PC, Outer Worlds 2’s weak anti-capitalist message, and more!

It seems everyone from governments to giant companies to random grassroots groups are suddenly gunning for video game censorship. We discuss recent pushes made to quell what games people are able to buy along with Xbox and PlayStation shifting away from hardware, reviewers dinging great games for the sin of including attractive female characters, and Obsidian dropping the price of the upcoming Outer Worlds 2.

Wonderfilled Games created GiantLands, a game that proudly imagines a future with no white people. We discuss the open and blatant racism of the game along with insider rumors that diversity is being removed from games in response to Trump’s America, Ubisoft’s hilarious idea to make consumers destroy copies of their games once support for them ends, Polygon’s plea for trigger warnings in Death Stranding 2, news that video games sales are plummeting, and more!

Popular PlayStation 5 exclusive Stellar Blade just launched on PC, and it’s the best-performing PS exclusive ever released on PC, despite games journalists constantly (and hypocritically) trying to smear it. We discuss its success and journalists’ out-of-touch takes on the game along with its CEO’s based take on modding games, RuneScape’s canceled pride event, Jason Schreier’s ignorant reporting on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the wokeness of Brandon Sanderson’s new Wind and Truth book, and more.

Since Ubisoft won’t release official sales data for Assassin’s Creed Shadows, internet sleuths have put together their best guess, and it’s not good. We discuss the lackluster sales along with fan reactions to Ciri being the protagonist and a witcher in the upcoming Witcher IV, author Brandon Sanderson showing an example of how Hollywood purposefully butchers TV and movie versions of beloved IPs, Take Two’s removal of queer-focused efforts from its annual report, Nintendo’s removal of gender from Miis, and Debra Wilson voice acting as someone who actually doesn’t look like her for once.

A small studio of about thirty ex-Ubisoft developers have released an ambitious, critically and commercially acclaimed RPG called Clair Obscur: Expedition. Despite being made by such a small team, it’s blowing the woke, bloated AAA industry out of the water. We discuss how the video game industry at large should be embarrassed by this indie game’s success along with The Last of Us show’s plummeting ratings due to the golf club scene, the racist recasting of The Last Airbender characters for upcoming sequel movies, Nintendo proving how much they suck lately by suing the makers of Palworld, Polygon’s destruction, increasing Xbox prices, and more!

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered shadow-dropped this week, and while it’s mostly faithful to the original 2006 game, it has been adjusted in some ways for “modern audiences.” We discuss these changes along with the announcement of the Nintendo Switch 2 and its expensive games, Sweet Baby Inc. being dropped by Sony, and Compulsion Games’ distaste for white men.