In this installment of The Wonderer's Podcast, Jared and Retro (Nicholas), are joined by the third and newest host: Haley (LocDown98)! The Wonderer's start right off with the writer's strike ending after the WGA (The Writer's Guild of America) reached an agreement with Hollywood studios after 5 months of protesting. Moving ahead the Wonderer's discuss Starfield's (2023) reception and its sales numbers. Retro brings up how the game was on par with previous developed Bethesda titles, yet fails to reach the narrative height of Bethesda's published title: Fallout: New Vegas (2010). Unfortunately, the game was laden with the same narrative blunders the title that was released before it, Fallout 4 (2015), did. The game did sell millions, making it a significant success for the company.
Moving forward the Wonderer's talked about Microsoft is now be pairing up with Ubisoft to acquire Activision. Due to anti-trust laws it's been a very arduous process to fully acquire the company. Ubisoft wants to take the cloud streaming rights. After their discussion, the Wonderer's moved away from company acquisitions to monetary transactions. A repeat offender on this podcast, Epic Games once again graces headlines with a variety of announcements. To start off, Epic Games will lay off 830 employees from the company, which is quite the number. At the same time, Epic will be increasing the price of V-Bucks sometime this year. Interestingly enough, the company will establish a new program to incite more people to buy from the Epic storefront. They will do this by giving developers 100% of all profits made of the games on the condition they are exclusive on the storefront for 6 months.
With there being new releases like always, the two most notable that are talked about on this episode were Mortal Kombat 1 (2023) and Counter-Strike 2 (2023). Mortal Kombat's launch was successful as the game sold remarkably well. With the entire narrative being retconned fully with Mortal Kombat 11's (2019) story, the MK universe has been renewed with Liu Kang as the new God or protector of Earth-realm instead of Raiden. With new mechanics and returning initial characters from the series' original plot, the game serves as a bold, new take on the series. From fighting to shooting, Counter-Strike 2's release was accompanied by many being surprised. With updated graphics, tik-rate, and the transfer of gun skins to the new game, many were left dumbfounded as the new installment replaced Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (2012) which has been the flagship title in the series since it's release 11 years ago (as this episode is being published in 2023).
Lastly, the Wonderer's chat about Microsoft launching an abusive-voice reporting feature for Xbox consoles, allowing gamers to report inappropriate remarks captured in a 60-second clip. The feature, part of the September update for Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One, is initially available in select English-language markets. Clips are only used for content moderation, not shared, downloaded, or modified. The update also enables direct streaming of Xbox gameplay to Discord and provides control over variable refresh rates, giving users 24 hours to initiate the reporting process, with notifications about actions taken against offenders.
Sorry for the late post, it's hard doing editing on a tight schedule. Burnout happens.
Socials:
Jared from Midnight Labs: https://linktr.ee/jaredkedzia
Retro_loneliness (Nicholas): https://linktr.ee/retro_loneliness
