Highs and lows once again punctuate this week’s roundup of news, whether it’s more Cyberpunk 2077 controversy, or Nintendo’s promising future. Game Rant has compiled some of the biggest gaming news stories from this past week together into a concise post for fans and enthusiasts to stay up to date on the most important events in the industry per week. Highlighting the most relevant stories, this list is not inherently and totally objective, and will not contain every news story this week. Rather, this is intended for gaming fans who want a quick rundown on the largest/most impactful stories that occurred in the last week in games.
In this week’s news in the gaming industry, continued controversy surrounds the release of Cyberpunk 2077, as well as some new controversy for Twitch. On the flip side, fans got some insight into Nintendo’s future courtesy of Nintendo of America’s president. Speaking of which, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s latest fighter Sephiroth has a surprise early launch via a limited-time boss fight. Additionally, Shigeru Miyamoto unveils the first in-depth look at Super Nintendo World in Japan. Geoff Keighley, organizer of the Game Awards, addresses criticisms of The Last of Us 2 and favoritism. Here’s a recap of the biggest gaming industry news this week.
As a game that hasn’t left the spotlight since its release, Cyberpunk 2077 has been the center of attention for all of the wrong reasons this month. Continued criticism of CD Projekt Red’s mismanaged released of the PS4/Xbox One versions of the game have prompted unprecedented action. In addition to offering full refunds for the game (though only for a limited time until the game’s first patch), Sony and CD Projekt made the ultimate decision to pull the game from Sony’s storefront entirely.
As of this writing, Cyberpunk 2077 is still available on the Xbox store, albeit with a warning label indicating performance issues. While some fans have been quick to judge the developers, recent reporting indicates that hastened deadlines by CDPR management was allegedly the root of all these launch issues. According to a report by Bloomberg, many developers expressed disdain to CD Projekt management for setting unrealistic expectations for Cyberpunk 2077‘s release date and development state.
For those wondering when Cyberpunk 2077 will be fixed, it may be a while. The initial patch Hotfix 1.04 has already been released, and Hotfix 1.05 is rolling out to all platforms this weekend. However, while both of these updates have addressed numerous issues of broken quests and crashes, it’s still a long road between now and repairing Cyberpunk 2077 on last-gen consoles.
CD Projekt Red has outlined a tentative plan for two major additional patches planned for the future. The first major patch is planned for January, with an additional large-scale patch planned for February as well. In the statement, CD Projekt Red assures that these patches “should fix the most prominent problems gamers are facing on last-gen consoles.”
Recently, in an in-depth interview with Polygon, Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser discussed much about Nintendo’s future. In the wake of Nintendo Switch’s record-breaking sales, Doug Bowser has reiterated the company’s focus on the Switch platform and the upcoming new games ahead of an incredibly successful year. Doug Bowser’s comments were largely in response to rumors of a Nintendo Switch “Pro” console being in development for 2021.
Additionally, Doug Bowser addressed the widespread issues of Joy-Con drift, Super Mario 3D All-Stars‘ unprecedented exclusivity, as well as gave a small update on what to expect from Nintendo in 2021.
The latest addition to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate brings the notorious Final Fantasy 7 villain, Sephiroth, to the game. Announced during the Game Awards, Sephiroth will be the third character in Fighters Pass Volume Two. Sephiroth officially joins the roster on December 22, but players can unlock him early via a special limited-time event dubbed the “Sephiroth Challenge.”
So long as players can beat the stamina boss version of Sephiroth, he will be unlocked before his official release date. Sephiroth is another interesting ranged character added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate‘s roster, boasting high damage output with a relatively significant requirement of precision.
In some video-game-adjacent news, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto finally introduces fans to Super Nintendo World, opening in Japan next February. In a special Nintendo Direct, Miyamoto hosted a guided tour through some of the attractions coming to the Super Mario-infused theme park next year. Entering through a life-sized warp pipe, fans can explore microcosmic worlds from Nintendo’s most iconic franchise.
Additionally, there’s a companion app metagame players can participate in, which grants them coins and rewards throughout the park. Super Nintendo World is set to open in Universal Studios Japan on February 4, 2021, with additional locations preparing to open in Hollywood and Orlando in the U.S., as well as Singapore.
TW: Phrases and imagery associated with sexual harassment, racism.
Twitch has taken a positive legal step to eliminate the use of negative words and prejudicial imagery associated with harassment in the streaming community. This time, the Twitch terms of service are specifically noting terminology that reflects targeted harassment, such as “Simp,” “Incel,” “Virgin,” and more. Additionally, imagery such as the confederate flag or “blackface” is now restricted in the terms of service.
The company also clarified that usage of these words/phrases on their own won’t inherently warrant restrictive action. Rather, these guidelines will serve as a warning to those who use them with malicious intent will be infringing upon Twitch’s updated terms of service. These new rules go into affect as of January 22, 2021.
While the Game Awards have come and gone at this point, fans are still upset about The Last of Us 2‘s wins at the awards ceremony. Citing issues with development crunch as an example, many were upset that The Last of Us 2 received the award for Best Direction in the wake of controversial development crunch. Geoff Keighley, organizer of the show, addressed these concerns in an interview with Game Informer.
Keighley noted that this was a “healthy conversation” to be had in the wake of the show, but also believed issues with crunch culture becomes a slippery slope. In the interview, Geoff Keighley also talks about his respective critical distance from the awards process themselves, referencing the Death Stranding controversy from last year. He ultimately reiterated that nominees and winners are determined strictly by the Game Awards’ voting jury, and that he holds no input on the process.
Lastly, on a lighter note, Destiny fans had a great time poking fun at the United States Armed Forces’ latest announcement. The United States Space Force, a new branch of the Armed Forces established under the Trump administration, recently unveiled the nomenclature for service members in this military branch: Guardians. Of course, Destiny fans (and even Bungie’s Pete Parsons himself) were quick to chime in with jokes related to the heroes who share the same name in the game.
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