HA, GOTCHA DUMBASS.
No, we’re not talking about Halo Infinite. At this point, I am completely and utterly convinced that it is going to be trash. I really hope it isn’t, but all signs are pointing toward the next Halo entry disappointing us yet again. This is about two games that had some major news released/leaked last week. I was going to discuss both in last week’s QTEs but I think it’d be better to cover them both here.
Last Tuesday, Riot Games (League of Legends) announced numerous games that are currently in development including an FPS shooter titled “Project A”. Most of the gaming media is classifying this as a Counter-Strike/Overwatch mashup, and you can see why. I am honestly so excited for this game already because it’s exactly what I’ve been asking for from game developers for the last year: an arena shooter with precision shooting and class-based abilities. Sure I was hoping that Epic Games would be developing it since they’ve become the masters of eSports, but I’ll settle for the developers of one of the biggest eSports games of all time. The only concern I have with this title is that Riot Games hasn’t ventured into FPS shooters at all. But what do you do when you want to breakthrough in a new genre? You hire someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. The creative director for “Project A”, Anna Donlon, was the senior producer behind some of the best Call of Duty titles including Black Ops, Black Ops 2, Modern Warfare 3, and Ghosts. She has no doubt built a great team and cast a clear vision of what the goals are for this title at launch. I love the talk about fixing ping and servers, and I’m sure we’re just scratching the surface of how they will innovate the arena shooter genre. No release date announced yet but I would be shocked if this game didn’t release at some point next year. It already looks like it’s close to an alpha/beta state.
That is not a clickbait video. The guys from the “Your Overwatch” channel on YouTube do an excellent job covering news for the game and they rarely announce a leak that doesn’t come true. We already heard earlier this year that Overwatch 2 might be announced at BlizzCon 2019 (Nov. 1-3), and I’m pretty sure this cements it. The question is will they release it as a new title or will they do something like Epic Games did with Fortnite Chapter 2? Like “Your Overwatch” points out it would be weird to split the player base between the two titles, so to me it makes the most sense to follow the Fortnite model, bring all the new players over, and gain new ones with all the new features that will be added. If there’s one thing I could ask Blizzard for in OW2, it’s a story. The lore and characters of OW are so fucking cool and I really would like to see a 10-15 hour PvE campaign. Do I think we’ll get that? Can I say yes and no? I think most likely they will launch with about 3-4 hours of episodic campaign missions and then slowly release more as the game ages. At least that’s what I would do if I were Blizzard. Regardless, as they say in the video, I would expect this release to happen sooner than we think. Q2 would be my guess.
