Bethesda is releasing yet another version of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, this time to celebrate the popular title's 10th anniversary. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition will be available for the PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S and X, as well as the PlayStation 4 on November 11th, 2021, exactly 10 years after the game was first released in 2011. It will also have backwards compatibility with the PlayStation 5 — Bethesda isn't keeping PS players out even after it was acquired by Xbox, though Switch owners will have to get their copy on another console or PC.
The Anniversary edition contains the full game, along with all three of its expansions, namely Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn. It has all the enhancements that came out with the Special Edition, the remaster Bethesda released back in 2016, though it's unclear if this newer version has higher frame rates and better graphics to make them look better on current-gen consoles.
The game also comes with new features, including a fishing mechanic, as well as 500 pieces of Creation Club content, quests, dungeon, bosses, weapons and spells unique to the version. However, Bethesda has yet to release details about those new features, so players may have to wait for more information to figure out if the game is worth another purchase.
According to IGN, old fans can upgrade their game to the Anniversary Edition if they already have the Special Edition. The upgrade won't be free, but the studio hasn't revealed at this point how much it would cost.
There’s a scene in 2014’s Wolfenstein: The New Orderwhere J, a character inspired by Jimi Hendrix, explains to the game’s white protagonist, BJ Blazkowicz, why he’s not fighting. After Blazkowicz talks back, J tells him: "You don't get it, do you? Before all this, before the Germans, before the war, back home, man, you were the Nazis."
What I love about that scene is the way it complicates the easy narrative we so often tell ourselves about the Second World War. The New Order understands World War II better than almost any other game inspired by the conflict. Nazism, then as now, was never an ideology that only existed in Hitler's Germany. And in internment camps across the US and Canada and cities like Dresden and Hiroshima, the Allies committed countless injustices of their own.
It's that scene my mind returned to as Sledgehammer Games revealed Call of Duty: Vanguard, the next entry in Activision's long-running first-person shooter series, during an online event last week. Like 2017's Call of Duty: WWII, the studio's previous project as lead developer on the franchise, Vanguard takes the series back to where it all started: the Second World War.
After talking about the studio's commitment to diversity and creating a safe space for all employees, essentially repeating the same company line Activision Blizzard executives have been saying ever since California filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the publisher, Sledgehammer studio head Aaron Halon introduced Vanguard director Josh Bridge and campaign director David Swenson. Bridge told us how the studio came out of Call of Duty: WWII feeling like it had only scratched the surface of the stories the conflict had to tell. "We see [Vanguard] as being rooted in but not beholden to history. There is no revisionist history here," he said, a bullet point on his Powerpoint presentation reiterating the statement.
Sledgehammer Games / Activision
After showing the game's cinematic trailer and a snippet of gameplay, Swenson talked about the game's story. Like The New Order, Vanguard uses an alternate reality of the war to tell its story, but it appears a much less ambitious retelling on the surface. In a return to the way Infinity Ward did things when the series first started, Vanguard’s campaign will feature four playable characters, each loosely based on a different historical person.
In Polina Petrova, Sledgehammer took inspiration from Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Soviet sharpshooter who was known as Lady Death for her 309 confirmed kills, the most of any female sniper in history. Wade Jackson, one of the other characters, is based on Vernon L. Micheel, a US Navy pilot who bombed two Japanese aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway. Then there's Lucas Riggs. He draws from Charles Upham, the only soldier in World War II to earn two Victoria Cross medals.
Finally, you have Arthur Kingsley. His inspiration is Sidney Cornell, a Black British paratrooper who earned a Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions in Normandy. To Sledgehammer's credit, the studio enlisted the help of science fiction writer Tochi Onyebuchi to write Kingsley's character and cast Chike Okonkwo, best known for his role as Will in The Birth of a Nation, to give him his voice.
Sledgehammer Games / Activision
Initially, those four find themselves in different theaters of the war, but they're eventually brought together to take part in a fictional mission called Operation Phoenix. The Nazis, under the guidance of a character named Heinrich Freisinger, have hatched a plan to survive the end of the war and it's up to the newly formed special forces team of Petrova, Jackson, Riggs and Kingsley to stop them. Like the four protagonists, Freisinger has a historical counterpart. He's based on the infamous Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller.
Bridge said the studio sees the title as "a filmic blockbuster, with a contemporary lens on history." The throughline that connects both the story and multiplayer components of the game is how the Second World War saw the birth of the modern idea of the special forces. This is World War II reframed as an entry point into the expanded Call of Duty universe. I won't say that's unexpected, but after Sledgehammer tried to tell a more nuanced story about PTSD in CoD: WW2, I had hoped it would set its sights even higher.
At the reveal event, Sledgehammer spent far more time talking about Vanguard’s story than letting the game speak for itself. Of the single-player campaign, the developer only showed a brief snippet of an early level that features Kingsley taking part in Operation Tonga, which saw British paratroopers land near the city of Caen during the Allied invasion of Normandy. If you've seen Band of Brothers, you already know exactly how this segment plays out.
Sledgehammer Games / Activision
You jump out of a plane as part of a pre-scripted sequence in which you lose your rifle before landing on the ground. After a series of quick time events, your character finds himself in front of a field, an objective marker telling the player to make their way to a windmill in the distance. For part of the level, you have to sneak your way through enemy lines.
Other than an unexpected moment toward the end of the clip, nothing about what I saw struck me as something the franchise hasn't done before, but the execution was still compelling. True to the conditions Allied paratroopers found themselves in during the D-Day invasion, much of the mission takes place in suffocating fog and darkness. That gave the level more of a sense of atmosphere than your typical CoD mission. In particular, the use of lighting was intentional in a way I hadn't seen from the series in a while, the effect made more realistic by the work Sledgehammer and the other CoD studios did to update Modern Warfare's IW 8.0 engine.
What also struck me about this sequence was the stolen Kar98K Kingsley used to dispatch his Nazi pursuers. When he fired the bolt-action rifle, it let out a deafening blast and left enemies crumpled against the floor and walls. There was more physicality to the weapon than the assault rifles that usually dominate the CoD metagame. That "down the barrel" gameplay is something the studio said it spent a lot of the nearly four years since CoD: WW2 perfecting.
Sledgehammer Games / Activision
It's hard to say if the rest of the single-player campaign adopts the more methodical pace to gunplay Sledgehammer showed off in the snippet I saw. However, I can state that multiplayer will feel familiar to current Black Ops Cold War and Warzone players. What you will find is that Sledgehammer designed the maps to feature more destructibility and interactive elements. A clip the studio shared showed off how you could shoot bookshelves, tables and boarded-up windows to open sightlines as a match progresses.
At launch, Vanguard will feature 20 multiplayer maps, 16 of which will support up to 12 players for six-on-six matches. Additionally, Sledgehammer is bringing Gunsmith back, a fan-favorite feature that allows you to customize your weapons with different attachments and ammo types. Naturally, Treyarch's Zombies mode is making a comeback, and it will connect to the lore established in Black Ops Cold War. Oh, and Raven Software is working on a Warzone map and update that will feature an all-new anti-cheat system. Sledgehammer promised to share more information about the multiplayer component of Vanguard, including details on a new mode called Champion Hill that the studio says will offer something new for players to experience, in the coming weeks.
That will give Call of Duty fans time to see if Vanguard is worth another trip to World War II before the gamelands on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PS5 and PC via Battle.net on November 5th.
Holoride’s VR gaming system for passengers caught our attention a few years back at CES when we were given a ride in an Audi on a track and had the game react to the movement of the vehicle while we played. Well, the company is back and this time they demoed two games and threw off the shackles of the track for the real world.
We took a ride in an Audi with the Holoride system and again enjoyed video games while someone else drove. The company is currently courting developers to build games via their recently announced SDK and are partnering with automakers to make sure that the data they need from the car to make their games a reality is available. Watch the video above for the full story.
You'd think EA would have released a Madden NFL soundtrack years ago given its penchant for licensed music, but no — it's only getting to that now. The publisher has teamed with Interscope Records to release its first album for the football game franchise, Madden NFL 22: The Soundtrack. The title unsurprisingly tries to walk the line between big names and indie cred with artists like Swae Lee, Tierra Whack and multiple up-and-comers.
The full game will include more than 50 extra tracks while you're playing the new Yard mode, including originals from artists like Killer Mike and hit-of-the-moment songs from the likes of Drake and Lil Baby.
You can stream or buy the soundtrack through common services like Apple Music, Spotify and Deezer. This probably won't convince you to buy Madden if you weren't already sold on the formula, but that's not really the point. Much like other game soundtracks, it's another way to capitalize on the game beyond the usual sales.
A new(ish) Castlevania game is on the way to Apple Arcade. Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls is coming soon to iOS, tvOS and Mac via the subscription service. Konami announced Castlevania: Grimoire of Soulsin 2018. It soft launched the game on iOS in Canada in 2019 before removing it from the App Store last year.
As noted by Gematsu, this outing features character designs and music from Castlevania veterans Ayami Kojima and Michiru Yamane. Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls features a bunch of familiar playable characters, including Alucard, Simon Belmont, Charlotte, Shanoa and Maria. You'll fight your way through Dracula's army with a range of weapons (including the whip) and special moves. Along with the story mode, there are co-op and bounty hunt modes.
Meanwhile, Apple announced the Apple Arcade library now includes more than 200 games.
Today we hit over 2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ games!
That's hundreds of games to play on the go, at home with the family, or during your break between meetings.
Thank you to all of our incredible developers and community that made this happen.
Three senior designers pivotal to Diablo 4 and World of Warcraft are no longer at Activision Blizzard. Kotakuconfirmed the trio of abrupt departures after initially learning about them from internal sources. They include Diablo 4 game director Luis Barriga, lead designer Jesse McCree, and World of Warcraft designer Jonathan LeCraft. Insiders told the publication that the three developers names had been removed from Blizzard’s internal directory and Slack.
News of the shakeup arrives as Activision Blizzard is grappling with allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment. The incendiary accusations, which were revealed in a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), have already led to damaging repercussions for the publisher. Blizzard is facing an internal outcry, with workers staging walkouts and demanding corrective action. Earlier this month, the company lost its president and was hit with a lawsuit by investors irked by its handling of the crisis. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has admitted that the publisher's original response to the DFEH filing was "tone-deaf."
While the company did not give a specific reason for the latest departures, two of the designers (namely McCree and LeCraft) were reportedly pictured in photos of the infamous "Cosby Suite." This was the hotel room explicitly mentioned in the DFEH lawsuit where male employees allegedly harassed women at company events. As Overwatch fans may know, the battle royale game features a cowboy called Jesse McCree named after the now ex-Blizzard employee. It remains to be seen if the publisher changes the character's name.
“We have a deep, talented roster of developers already in place and new leaders have been assigned where appropriate," a spokesperson for Blizzard told Kotaku. "We are confident in our ability to continue progress, deliver amazing experiences to our players, and move forward to ensure a safe, productive work environment for all.”
Axiom Verge 2 is not the only Switch indie you can download today. In all, there are six other games you can play today. Of those, the highlights are Boyfriend Dungeonand Garden Story. The former is a hack-and-slash title where you can romance and date the weapons you find on your adventure, while the latter is a top-down Zelda-like RPG set in a charming world filled with anthropomorphic plants.
Then there are the indie games you can look forward to playing at a later date on your Switch. Leading that pack is Tetris Effect, which will finally make its way to Nintendo's portable console on October 8th. This latest version of the game will include both single-player and multiplayer components.
Other highlights include Eastward, a new action RPG from Stardew Valley publisher Chucklefish Games, and the highly-acclaimed Loop Hero, which came out on PC and Mac earlier this year. Both will arrive on Switch before the end of the year. We're also looking forward to a game called Bomb Rush Cyberpunk. It's reminiscent of Jet Set Radio and is coming to Switch sometime next year.
In the midst of a sexual harassment lawsuit that has engulfed the company in turmoil, Blizzard will give Diablo II fans the chance to play the game’s upcoming remaster during two separate early access weekends. The first of those will begin on August 13th at 1PM ET. It will be open to those who pre-ordered Diablo II: Resurrected or the Diablo Prime Evil Collection, which includes both the remaster and Diablo 3, on PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5 and PS4.
Blizzard Entertainment
If you fall into that camp, you’ll have until August 17th at 1PM ET to play through Act I and II of the story as the Amazon, Barbarian, Druid, Paladin or Sorceress. What’s more, this time around, Blizzard will allow you to play with up to seven other players, with support for cross-progression enabled. Just note that during the early access weekend, that feature will only work on platforms where you’ve pre-ordered the game.
One week later, starting on August 20th at 1PM ET, Blizzard will open the beta to anyone who wants to take part. At that point, you’ll have until the 23rd to see the work the studio has done to update its beloved action RPG. Unfortunately, neither beta will be available to check out on the Nintendo Switch. And if you want to see how the Assassin and Necromancer play in the remaster, you will also have to wait until the game’s September 23rd release date.
Microsoft will host its second ID@Xbox indie game showcase of the year on Twitch next week. The stream starts at 12pm ET on August 10th. You'll be able to watch it on the Twitch Gaming and Xbox channels.
Xbox will show off "tons" of games during the showcase, which will involve developers and publishers including Rebellion and Chump Squad. Along with updates on games such as OlliOlli World and The Artful Escape, new titles will be announced.
There will be some Xbox Game Pass news as well. During the first ID@Xbox and Twitch showcase in March, Microsoft revealed another 22 indie games that were bound for Game Pass on their release day, including S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Boyfriend Dungeon and The Ascent, which has blown up since it arrived last week. On Tuesday, you can expect to learn about a bunch more games that have set a course for Game Pass.
The showcase isn't the only notable gaming event taking place this month. Gamescom's Opening Night Live is set for August 25th. The two-hour shindig will show off some of this holiday season's biggest titles and offer a look at "what lies beyond," according to host and producer Geoff Keighley.
When California’s fair employment agency sued Activision Blizzard, one of the largest video game studios in the world, on July 20th, it wasn't surprising to hear the allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment at the company. It wasn't a shock to read about male executives groping their female colleagues, or loudly joking about rape in the office, or completely ignoring women for promotions. What was surprising was that California wanted to investigate Activision Blizzard at all, considering these issues have seemingly been present since its founding in 1979.
Activision Blizzard is a multibillion-dollar publisher with 9,500 employees and a roster of legendary franchises, including Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft. On July 20th, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, alleging executives had fostered an environment of misogyny and frat-boy rule for years, violating equal pay laws and labor codes along the way. This is about more than dirty jokes in the break room — the lawsuit highlights clear disparities in hiring, compensation and professional growth between men and women at Activision Blizzard, and it paints a picture of pervasive sexism and outright abuse in the workplace.
Here’s a rundown of some of the allegations:
Just 20 percent of all Activision Blizzard employees are women.
Top leadership roles are filled solely by white men.
Across the company, women are paid less, promoted slower and fired faster than men.
HR and executives fail to take complaints of harassment seriously.
Women of color in particular are micromanaged and overlooked for promotions.
A pervasive frat-boy culture encourages behavior like “cube crawls,” where male employees grope and sexually harass female co-workers at their desks.
It’s been a few weeks since the lawsuit was filed, and employees, executives and players have all had a chance to respond. Meanwhile, additional reports of longstanding harassment and sexism at Activision Blizzard have continued to roll out, including photos and stories of the “Cosby Suite,” which was specifically named in the filing. According to the lawsuit, this was a hotel room where male employees would gather to harass women at company events, named after the rapist Bill Cosby.
Days after the filing, Kotaku published photos of the supposed Cosby Suite, showing male Activision Blizzard developers posing on a bed with a framed photo of Bill Cosby at BlizzCon 2013. Screenshots of conversations among the developers discussed gathering “hot chixx for the Coz” and other insulting, immature things (especially when you remember these are middle-aged men, not middle-schoolers).
One of the only executives actually named in the suit was Blizzard head J. Allen Brack, and it alleges he routinely ignored systemic harassment and failed to punish abusers. Brack called the allegations “extremely troubling,” but this line was thrown back in his face on Twitter when independent developer Nels Anderson compared it to a video out of BlizzCon 2010, featuring Brack on the far left.
In the video, a young woman asks the panel of World of Warcraft developers, all six of whom are white men, whether they'll ever create a female character that doesn't look like she just stepped out of aVictoria's Secret catalog. The panelists laugh and one responds, "Which catalog would you like them to step out of?" They proceed to essentially dismiss her question. At the end of the exchange, Brack piles on and makes a joke about one of the new characters coming from a sexy cow catalog.
On August 3rd, just two weeks after California filed its lawsuit, Brack stepped down from his role as the president of Blizzard. In his place will be GM Mike Ybarra and executive development VP Jen Oneal. Oneal will be the first woman in a president role since Activision’s founding in 1979; the lawsuit notes that there has never been a non-white president or CEO of Activision Blizzard.
Activision Blizzard’s initial response to the lawsuit was tragic, with one leader calling the allegations meritless and distorted. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who regularly gets into fights with shareholders over the ridiculous fortune he’s amassed, published his own response to the lawsuit, where he essentially promised to listen better. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t alleviate many employees’ concerns. A petition in support of the lawsuit ended up gathering more than 2,000 employee signatures, and workers organized a walk-out just eight days after the filing, calling for systemic change at the studio.
Shareholders weren't bolstered by Kotick's response, either. Investors filed an additional class-action lawsuit against Activision Blizzard on August 3rd, alleging the company failed to raise potential regulatory issues stemming from its discriminatory culture. Blizzard's head of HR, Jesse Meschuk, also left the company in the weeks following the initial lawsuit.
Meanwhile, other major game developers have rallied behind the suit, and former Activision Blizzard leaders have shared their support for employees, apologizing for their parts in sustaining a toxic company culture.
None of this is new. As evidenced by the photos, videos, stats and personal stories flowing out of Activision Blizzard, the company has operated on a bro-first basis for decades, and honestly, it’s been sustained by an industry that largely functions the same way.
In 2019, a wave of accusations against prominent male developers crashed over the industry, and AAA studios like Ubisoft and Riot Games made headlines for fostering toxic workplace environments. California is currently suing Riot over allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in hiring and pay practices.
But even that’s not new. Women, non-binary people and marginalized folks in the video game industry have been speaking up about systemic harassment and discrimination for literal decades. Sexism is apparent in the hiring and pay habits of many major studios, and it’s also clear in the games themselves, which feature an overabundance of straight, white, male protagonists.
What is surprising, this time around, is that the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard kind of came out of nowhere. It took a blockbuster media report to make California sue Riot in 2020, but the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard appeared on its own, after years of quiet investigation by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. If sexism is systemic in the video game industry, it feels like the system is finally fighting back.
