Despite the fact that it feels like barely any time has passed at all since last we convened, it’s time once again to take another look at what’s been happening in the world of gaming news this week.
We’re about to enter the realms of the Tokyo Game Show, which kicks off in the coming week, and as such, news is perhaps just a little quieter than it usually is.
Still, there’s plenty to pick over, as you’d expect, so grab your favourite chair and let’s recap the week in the world of gaming!
Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford hits back at Borderlands 4 PC complaints
If you’re familiar with Borderlands and with Gearbox as a developer, you’ll know that its head honcho Randy Pitchford isn’t exactly known for his reserve and decorum on social media.
That was proven again this week, when Pitchford took to X and posted a couple of very lengthy threads in order to refute claims that Borderlands 4 isn’t running very well on PC.
According to Pitchford, Borderlands 4’s performance is “pretty damn optimal” on PC, and if your experience is different, you “must accept the reality of the relationship” between your hardware and software. Hmm.
Hell Is Us director calls Silksong’s sudden release “callous”
Hollow Knight: Silksong launched earlier in September, and Hell Is Us creative director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête has some choice words for that decision.
Speaking to Skill Up’s Friends Per Second podcast this week (thanks, Eurogamer), Jacques-Belletête described Silksong’s release announcement as “a little callous”, describing the game as “the GTA 6 of indie”.
Essentially, Jacques-Belletête means that Team Cherry didn’t give other developers enough notice that one of the most anticipated indie games of all time would launch just a couple of weeks after its release date announcement.
Steam seemingly ditches Early Access for mature games
According to an indie developer, Steam has quietly changed its rules so that adult games with mature themes can no longer launch in Early Access on the platform.
Dammitbird, who’s responsible for the indie game Heavy Hearts, posted on X that they applied to launch their game via Steam Early Access, but that they received a response claiming Steam is “unable to support the Early Access model of development for a game with mature themes”.
If this is a platform-wide change (and it’s hard to believe that it wouldn’t be), then it seems to us to be a rather dangerous precedent, but we’ll have to see what happens next.
September’s remaining Xbox Game Pass games revealed
This week, we learned what games are coming to Xbox Game Pass throughout the rest of September, and there are quite a few gems on the list.
Games like Hades, Visions of Mana, and Frostpunk 2 will all be made available for subscribers to various Game Pass tiers throughout the month, so you should have plenty to play if you’re a member.
That’s in addition to new games for Standard subscribers, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, For the King, and Overthrown.
MindsEye’s lead says it was “hard” seeing the reaction to the game
Many people pointed out just how broken MindsEye was when it launched earlier this year, but we’d be willing to bet that few spared a thought for the game’s lead actor during the whole furore.
Well, it turns out that he was paying attention to MindsEye’s reception; he told FRVR this week that seeing how the game was received was “hard”, and that he worried he might “never work in a game again”.
We don’t think that’s likely; after all, the problems with MindsEye aren’t Hernandez’s fault, and we don’t think seeing his face in another game would give people flashbacks to the (admittedly apparently terrible) third-person shooter.
The Mass Effect TV show might revolve around male Shepard
Hey, remember Amazon’s Mass Effect TV show? If you don’t, that’s alright; it’s been quite a while since we heard from it, but a leaked casting call this week might provide some clues as to how Amazon is proceeding with the show.
The casting call was leaked by industry insider Daniel Richtman, and it appears to be seeking a man between 30 and 39 with features similar to heartthrob Colin Farrell, among many other types of actor for other roles.
That, to us, sounds like the show will foreground male Shepard as its protagonist, although there’s still a chance the character won’t be Commander Shepard but a new figure entirely. With scant details about the project available, we’re left to speculate, unfortunately.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 reneges on paywall decision
When a game has been awaited for as long as Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, it’s probably not a great idea to trap two of its clans behind DLC paywalls, but that’s exactly what Paradox was intending to do.
That is, until this week, when the publisher, along with Vampire IP owner White Wolf, announced it would remove the paywalls and make the clans available for everyone at launch.
We reckon that’s the right decision, although it’s worth remembering that Paradox is still the same studio that initially thought it could get away with putting the paywalls up in the first place.
Nintendo reckons mods don’t count as games
As part of its ongoing lawsuit against the folks who make survival game Palworld, Nintendo appears to be taking a rather extreme position that likely isn’t going to win it any favours amongst the gaming community.
Namely, Nintendo seems to reckon that game mods don’t count as standalone art because they require other games to run, which means that mods altering other games to add the kind of mechanics over which Nintendo is suing Pocketpair can’t be used as precedent.
Whether this helps or hinders Nintendo’s case remains to be seen, of course, but we can’t say we’re particularly enamoured with the position itself, because modders work very hard to create works of art that can often surpass the games on which they’re based.
