This Week in Games

Nagoshi's New Crew

Greetings, everyone! I am quite relieved today, as it was very likely TWIG might not have happened this week. I got the letter in the mail that most every adult dreads: a jury duty summons, set for the exact day I write and submit TWIG. Thankfully, I wasn't needed, which frees me up to both write this column and spend the weekend with my partner for his birthday.

Oh, and there's more good stuff today! Spike Chunsoft just dropped a new trailer for AI: nirvanA Initiative, which now has an official release date of June 24^th.

I really enjoyed the original AI: The Somnium Files and am super hyped to see a new game focusing on Mizuki, the best character… and I'm very curious to find out how she lost one of her eyes, knowing how significant they were in the previous game. I'm still on the fence about buying that collector's edition package, but damn, that Aiba figure by Good Smile Company is extremely tempting…

So, let's move on to this week's news!

NAGOSHI STUDIO FORMALLY ANNOUNCED, NO GAMES SHOWN YET

Last week, we talked a bit about Nagoshi Studios. While the logo for the new development team had been dug up by clever copyright office watchers, there hadn't yet been a formal announcement of the new team's establishment. Earlier this week, however, we got our first official glimpse at the new developer… though we still don't quite know what they're up to yet.

Nagoshi Studio is headed up by former longtime Sega producer Toshihiro Nagoshi, who got his start working with Sega's arcade teams before moving on to productions like Super Monkey Ball, F-Zero GX, and most famously the Yakuza series. He left Sega alongside some other staff late last year to establish a new studio owned by NetEase, a massive Chinese tech company that's a big player in the PC and mobile online game space—they publish one of China's biggest online games, Fantasy Westward Journey, as well as the internationally popular mobile multiplayer horror game Identity V. Netease doesn't have much going on in the more traditional console/PC gaming space, however, so they're betting on Nagoshi and company to help give them a foothold in that arena.

Joining Nagoshi at his new home are few other Yakuza series alumni: producer Daisuke Sato, artists Naoki Someya, Toshihiro Ando, and Kazuki Hosokawa, programmer Koji Tokieda, designer Masao Shirosaki, development engineer Mitsunori Fujimoto, and director Taichi Ushioda. Nagoshi has posted a public message introducing the studio on their official website, which Gematsu has translated for our benefit. They've also got translated profiles of all of the staff, too, so pay them a visit if you're interested (and thank them for their work).

While there are no announcements about games in development yet—and it'll probably remain that way a while—the design motif for both the company logo and website is movie film, which gives an indication that we can expect heavily story- and character-driven experiences like Yakuza in the future. But I'm also hoping that NetEase will let Nagoshi indulge in the arcade-style experiences that defined his early works. I'd love to see another racing game in the vein of F-Zero GX or a new SpikeOut-style 3D beat-em-up.

PUSHES TOWARD CHANGE CONTINUE AT THE SOON-TO-BE-MICROSOFT-OWNED ACTIVISION-BLIZZARD

After last week's news bombshell that Microsoft was acquiring disgraced publisher Activision-Blizzard, things have calmed down… slightly. It's clear that even with potentially new management (assuming the deal gets approved by the government, which is likely), there's still a hell of a mess that Bobby and company left behind. It could be years before the stench of the 2021 shitstorm is fully removed from AVTI's filthy halls.

One of the more notable movements have been various groups inside the company and its developers pushing towards unionization. Late last week, one of those groups, the Raven Software Quality Assurance team, made it official that they planned to establish a proper union. They gave ATVI top brass until January 25 to voluntarily recognize them… and with many of the old guard still steering the Activision-Blizzard ship for now, it should be no surprise that they refused that recognition. Instead, they will be forcing the issue to be voted on at the National Labor Review Board, asking that everyone—not just QA—at Raven Software vote on the issue, which could potentially bust the unionization effort.

For those less familiar with game development lexicon, Quality Assurance are bug testers: they play the game, they find bugs, they write up reports so the development team can fix them and (hopefully) deliver a better finished product. They often don't get the respect they deserve out of the mistaken belief that “they get paid to play games.” QA is tedious work, since you don't play games the “normal” way, but instead spend hours doing stuff like smashing yourself against every wall in the game to make sure they're solid and constantly picking and cancelling menu options to make sure nothing freezes or glitches up—and when it does screw up, you need to be able to carefully document what happened, when, and if you think it would affect the average player experience. QA testers are often overworked, underpaid, and viewed as expendable by large publishers, so I'm not at all surprised to see a group of QA testers be the first at Activision to move towards unionization.

Will they be successful, though? I'm no expert in labor relations, so I honestly don't know. I hope it does, and that other workers at the company follow suit, but it's clear already that there is going to be a lot of pushback from the top. Even if it fails initially, it could well be the start of something bigger and more transformative for Activision-Blizzard. Best of luck to them.

THIS WEEK'S ASSORTED NEWSBITS

• The much beloved Baiken is coming to Guilty Gear Strive this week, and reactions to her new gameplay design are… mixed. She's been changed a lot from previous games, losing her alpha counter-esque mechanics and dash cancels and instead gaining a weird tether skill. Come see for yourself:
  
  This is a weird case, as Baiken was previously kind of notorious for being popular for her design and personality, but not really on a gameplay level. By revamping her core playstyle, more people might be drawn to playing as her, but her longtime fans may be turned off. A lot of new players have entered the fold with Strive, so it'll be interesting to see if this gambit pays off. Also, apparently Baiken might be a little too saucy for YouTube:

The banned Thumbnail in question.

Baiken, my queen... pic.twitter.com/FoaWB7M6xA

— J I Y U N A (@jiyunaJP) January 26, 2022

• Yacht Club Games, of Shovel Knight fame, are teasing a “megaton announcement” for February 1^st on a G4TV livestream. Perhaps this is the long-speculated Shovel Knight 2? The team has certainly kept busy with spinoffs and DLC (along with a bazillion cameos in other games), but this feels like the right time for a proper follow-up. If they announce Bored Knight Yacht Club NFTs, we riot.
• Valve's much-hyped Steam Deck will be launching on February 25^th after a slight delay. This is for the first shipment of pre-orders. If you check on Valve's website, new orders won't be delivered until Q2 2022 at the earliest, so don't expect to get one of these on that day unless your preorder was very early or you're okay with playing some scalper scumbag on eBay. It'll be interesting to see how this is received: a powerful portable system with a huge game selection is a big deal, but the price might keep it away from the wide adoption of the Switch.
• Also after a slight delay, PlatinumGames will be launching its retro-throwback shooter Sol Cresta on February 22. Sol Cresta is legendary designer and Twitter block button masher Hideki Kamiya's ultimate self-indulgence, an April Fool's prank made real simply because he really, really wanted to make a new arcade-y shooter. I'm pretty excited, but that's because Kamiya and I are on the same wavelength when it comes to old arcade games. Your mileage may vary.

That wraps up this week's news! With Nagoshi's new studio established, what kind of games would you like to see them make? Are you intrigued or upset with Baiken's new gameplay direction in GG Strive? Would you rather just get back to playing Pokemon Legends Arceus? You know the drill: you got thoughts, we got forums to share them in, linked below. Take it easy, stay safe, and keep on gaming!