Weekly News Digest #8

Whether you are an esports enthusiast or a simple humble gamer, the past week was full of major and minor news you might be interested in. There’s a been a lot happening, and we managed to include the hottest topics in our weekly news digest. 

Since this is a lengthy article, we’ve included handy interactive content for you to enjoy. Click on the topic you feel most attached to – and have fun!

• Esports news and reshuffles
• Assassin’s Creed saves the history
• The future of Sony
• PUBG is hit with hard times
• Apex Legends is losing popularity
• In other news…
• WePlay! tournaments and news

Esports news and reshuffles

There’s constantly something happening on the professional esports scene – not a single day is reserved for a break. The Astralis team, for instance, won’t attend any CS:GO LAN-tournaments for the next three months. It was the decision of the team, but unfortunately, we don’t know the true reasons behind it.

We’ve published a thorough review of the group stage of ESL One Mumbai that you can find here. There’s also a preview for OGA Dota PIT Minor 2019, and while the article consists mostly of sheer information, there’s yet another where we’ve decided to examine the OGA Dota PIT Minor 2019 format.

Will Smith has unexpectedly invested in Korean esports, and we are still feeling surprised by that move. Twelve European countries have united to form the European Esports Federation – a collective organization, which would serve as a partner to the regional esports scene. Finally, we’ve compared the usual sports to esports.

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Assassin’s Creed saves the history

You’ve undoubtedly heard about the tragic fire in Notre-Dame de Paris – or maybe even witnessed it. One might think that the gaming industry has no connection to the real world, but the situation with Assassin’s Creed Unity proved all the unbelievers wrong. First, it turned out that the game’s archives of thoroughly scanned interiors and exteriors of Notre-Dame might be actually used as a guidance to the restoration of the cathedral.

In an effort to bring more attention to the tragedy, Ubisoft donated €500,000 on the reconstruction process – and temporarily made Assassin’s Creed Unity completely free on PC. This move was followed by an overwhelmingly positive response from the community as the gamers “bombed” the title with positive reviews. With that in mind, you might’ve missed the release of The Fate of Atlantis DLC for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

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The future of Sony

Sony made it to the hottest news taglines thanks to the first official details regarding PlayStation 5 – or whatever it is going to be called eventually. We’ve learned a bunch of technical specifications, and you should definitely give the list of facts a look. Judging by the powerful “filling” of the newest PlayStation, it is going to cost more than we are used to when it comes to console pricing. Mark Cerny has indirectly confirmed it.

Interestingly, the information about the next PlayStation has helped several rumours in regards to the next Xbox to resurface. As insider Ainsley Bowden has noted, multiple sources confirmed that so-called Xbox Anaconda would be more powerful in comparison to the first official specs of PS5. It is worth mentioning that Xbox also fully supports cross-platform play, while Sony is continuing to battle it. Here’s the story of a missed opportunity to get cross-platform progress in Destiny 2.

This is not the only thing Sony tries to battle. The company has decided that it wants to see less sexual explicit content in the PlayStation games. In order to do that, Sony is going to control the censorship in its games so that nothing lewd slips through. Speaking of which, the adult Mass Effect parody Subverse has already attracted ten times more money on Kickstarter than initially planned. It’s rather obvious that this game is never coming to PlayStation.

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PUBG is hit with hard times

The huge popularity of PUBG – and the indisputable fact that the game is highly addictive – has caused some unforeseen effects. Several countries have questioned the value of the game for their cultures and societies, and in some cases, the research has gone too far. The Nepal authorities officially banned PUBG in the country (although the ban has been temporarily lifted by the court), and the very same decision was made by the Iraqi government. Time to switch to Apex Legends there.

While this is indeed troubling news for PUBG Corp., the company’s executives are probably whipping off their tears of regret with dollar bills. The recent financial report contains information that PUBG Corp. has made almost a billion dollars in 2018. And the devs are continuing to renovate the money-making game with new mechanics.

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Apex Legends is losing popularity

Apex Legends has recently introduced some long-awaited improvements to a couple of specific characters. Gibraltar and Caustic were effectively buffed, and the result is that we’ve started to see them more often. The battle with cheaters on PC continues, and an impudent cheater who’s been streaming his unscrupulous plays on YouTube got banned while playing.

Despite this inspiring news, the popularity of the game is declining, which directly affects EA’s stock price. The main reason is that the popular streamers are leaving Apex Legends, and shroud might soon join them. However, the competitive scene is growing strong with compLexity Gaming acquiring Apex Legends roster and Pittsburgh Knights signing even two.

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In other news…

The past week gave us a lot of information regarding two anticipated games. One of which is recently announced Borderlands 3. Randy Pitchford himself was the source of credible details answering the questions of fans on Twitter. Another game treated with new information is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which was officially revealed more than a week ago. This time we also have trustful official information from one of the EA employees.

Capcom has recently announced a home arcade device for a whopping price of €230. This plug’n’play device features two sticks and the sets of buttons for two players to make use of it along with 16 pre-installed classic games of the arcade era. Interestingly, the device was highly criticized for commercial use of the free open-source software.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is still getting a lot of attention. We’ve published several guides ranging from tips to kill mini-bosses all the way up to finding all prayer beads and picking the best skills. And there’s a new world record in executing a speedrun – or should we say, a speedswim? Yep, you can actually swim across the game in less than 25 minutes.

Mortal Kombat 11 has a busy week. Right before the release, we were treated with the final reveal of the last character to join the launch roster – it was the immensely redesigned Frost with a whole lot of new abilities. We’ve also made our own review for the game where you can learn about the predatory microtransactions and a “grindwall” behind unlocking the Fatalities and skins.

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WePlay! tournaments and news

The first part of Forge of Masters has concluded, and we’ve determined the four teams that would advance further to the LAN-part. And here’s a comprehensive guide on how to get the tickets to Forge of Masters LAN-finals – along with tips on how to travel to Ukraine. We’ve also made a Mirage map guide for rookies – in two parts.

Regarding our side projects, here you can find a masterful interview with Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson, a StarCraft 2 streamer and commentator. In addition to that, we’ve explored the history of original Half-Life and the way it helped to introduce the Counter-Strike mod, which later evolved into one of the major esports disciplines.

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