Episode 42 – Call of Duty “reboot”, new guest hosts

recorded on May 31, 2019

Headliners

The next Call of Duty is a “soft reboot” titled Modern Warfare; revealed yesterday (Activision)

• Release date is slated for October 25, this is on a new engine and looks very good
• There will be no Season Pass for this entry and includes an emphasis on the campaign
• There will be cross-play support across PC and console at or near launch
• This is a departure from traditional COD in the sense that it is much more raw, gritty, dark

• “With the launch of Modern Warfare, the team is taking steps to unite the community,” Infinity Ward said in a statement. “First, the team plans for Modern Warfare to be played together across PC and console through cross-play support.  “Also, the team is eliminating the traditional season pass, so that they can deliver more free maps and content as well as post-launch events to all players.” (Polygon)

Death Stranding reveals official release date of November 8, 2019 w/ new trailer (Hideo Kojima)

• A 9 minute trailer showed more plot, new characters, new gameplay, and release date
• This is going to be a very hit or miss game and will not appeal to everyone

Little Bits

Microsoft revealed interesting xCloud information with more details about games (Brad Sams)

• Will be developer focused so that games will seamlessly work on the platform
• Currently supports 3500 titles and will continue to support future IPs
• More info to be revealed at E3

Xbox to share more details about Xbox Game Pass on PC during their E3 show (Engadget)

• There is a watered down version of xbox game pass, but this will be more PC focused
• More Xbox games like Gears 5 will come to PC via Steam and other stores

Phil Spencer says 14 Xbox first party games will be shown at E3 this year (Phil Spencer)

Below are the likely games to be shown (Resetera)

• – Halo Infinite (343 Industries)
• – Gears 5 (The Coalition)
• – Forza Horizon DLC (Playground)
• – The Outer Worlds (Obsidian)
• – Wasteland 3 (inXile)
• – Minecraft (Mojang)
• – Ori 2
• – Battletoads
• – Ninja Theory’s new IP
• – Age of Empires
• – Gears Tactics
• – We Happy Few DLC
  
  
• – Rare (Definitely Sea of Thieves, but also new game?)

Rapid Fire News

During the first week of Dauntless launch, 60% of parties were cross-play (Playstation Lifestyle)

A new Darksiders game is confirmed to make an appearance at E3 (ComicBook)

Beyond Good and Evil 2 announced a livestream slated for June 5 (ComicBook)

Respawn discusses Season 2 of Apex and a new limited time event called The Hunt (dexerto)

Square-Enix to reveal their Avengers game on thier stage at E3 on June 10 (Square-Enix)

EA’s E3 schedule has been released and is as follows: (EA)

• Starting with Star Wars™ Jedi: Fallen Order™
• Following with Apex Legends
• Continuing on with Battlefield V
• Updates on EA SPORTS FIFA titles
• More info on EA SPORTS Madden NFL
• Rounding out with The Sims 4

[Decide to take this out or talk about it, up to you]

There was a Pokemon Press Conference held recently and some weird ass stuff was shown

• Detective Pikachu game is in the works for the Nintendo Switch (Polygon)
• Pokemon Sleep in the works and is set to release in 2020 with more details to come
• Pokemon Home is a cloud based service that will store your Pokemon data (Nintendo)
  • Your pokemon data will be in one place across all your devices

Upcoming Releases and Deals

Playstation Days of Play sale starts June 7 and runs thru June 17 (Polygon)

• PS4 Pro is on sale for $350 down from $400
• Special edition steel black PS4 for $300
• PSVR bundles are on sale from $250 to $330 depending on the games
• Days Gone, God of War, Marvel’s Spider-Man, MLB The Show 19 are on sale for $20
• The Playstation Hits category is also on sale along with a bunch of other games

PS Plus games for June are Sonic Mania and Borderlands: The Handsome Collection (Sony)

Xbox Games with Gold for June are NHL 19 and Portal: Still Alive (Xbox)

GOG (Good Old’ Games) summer sale is live now and runs until June 17 (GOG.com)

Marvel’s Avengers will feature hero customization, single player and co-op modes (IGN)

Rumor Mill

Xbox E3 press conference details leak and looks to be biggest one yet (Zalker87, Dealer>reddit)

• Halo Infinite info drop with new trailer and holiday 2020 release window (launch title)
• Gears 5 full gameplay reveal, demo, walkthrough, multiplayer, September release
• Gears Tactics info dump with new trailer and release date for PC later in the year
• Ori and the Will of the Wisps final trailer with release date
• Ninja Theory’s new game titled Bleeding Edge with release window of early 2020
• The Outer Worlds info drop with new trailer and release date
• Cyberpunk 2077 new gameplay trailer and possible release date/window
• Age of Empires IV info drop with new gameplay trailer and 2020 release window
• New Fable game, not sure if is Fable 4 or a “soft reboot”
• Sea of Thieves update with new content
• Battletoads to get more attention and a target release date
• Project xCloud info drop with public test dates and rollout times
• Next gen Xbox hardware specs reveal

The Last of Us Part 2 pushed back launch from late 2019 to early 2020 (Jason Schrieier)

Death Stranding to be a timed PS4 exclusive and may come to PC later (wccftech)

Ubisoft Pass could be announced soon after E3 and would be Ubisoft’s version of EA Access

Smash Ultimate may have a VR mode in the 3.1.0 update coming soon (NintendoSoup)

The Witcher 3 could be heading to the Nintendo Switch sometime this September