It's the middle of May. This is supposed to be the quietest time of the year when it comes to video games. A short break between the busy launch slate to kick off the year and a summer of big announcements before we turn the corner into the holiday season. This week has been anything but as we have seen EA and FIFA clash, WB Games revealing a lot more about Gotham Knights, and of course another big release date delay. Two of them in the same announcement, in fact. More on that and all of the other biggest stories from the last seven days in video games below.
Starfield And Redfall Pushed To 2023
When Xbox revealed that it will be holding a joint presentation with Bethesda next month, hope that Starfield really will be here before the end of 2022 was renewed. While we will likely still see the very first gameplay from Bethesda's ambitious new sci-fi epic, the studio confirmed this week that it won't be here this year after all. Bethesda revealed that both Starfield and Redfall will arrive in 2023, busting the latter half of 2022 wide open. Quite a few people believed Starfield was the only game that might pose a threat to Elden Ring's game of the year ambitions. With the calendar now looking far more empty, that road might be clear for FromSoftware with seven months yet to go.
A Lot More Info On Gotham Knights
One game that is still slated to be here in 2022 is Gotham Knights. WB Games Montreal shared a lot of information about its DC game this week, but unlike Starfield, the studio behind it is sticking to its October 25, 2022 release date. This week's reveals included Nightwing and Red Hood gameplay and that the last-gen version of the game has been canceled, so all focus can go on the current-gen and PC versions. It has also been revealed that Gotham Knights won't include microtransactions and that cross-platform play and couch co-op will not be available.
FIFA Will Soon Be EA Sports FC
There had been rumblings for a while that after 28 years, EA was considering severing ties with FIFA and changing the name of its long-running football sim series. This week, EA confirmed those rumors to be true, revealing that starting next year, its football games will be called EA Sports FC. In response to this confirmation, FIFA's president revealed the series will continue on even without EA at the helm and the search for a new publisher has already begun. FIFA 23 will launch as normal, but in 2023, the football game landscape will undergo its biggest change since the early 1990s.
Is Commander Shepard Alive Or Not?
BioWare unveiled some Mass Effect merch this week, unexpectedly hinting that despite the ending of Mass Effect 3, Commander Shepard is still alive and will return in Mass Effect 5. That understandably sent fans of the series into a tailspin, splitting them over whether they would like to see that happen or not. Enter BioWare again a day later, taking back the wording on the new merch and confirming that it was a mistake, clarifying Shepard will not be back. However, that's exactly what someone would say after accidentally revealing a massive plotpoint of a game that is still a long way off. In conclusion, no one other than those making Mass Effect 5 knows if Shepard will return or not.
Xbox Goes Down
Online gaming is great and has changed the industry for the better. It does have its pitfalls, though. One of those pitfalls is that should any servers go down, millions can potentially be left unable to play certain games. Or as appeared to be the case for a lot of Xbox owners last weekend, unable to do pretty much anything at all. The issues reported by angry Xbox players ranged from not being able to buy games through their consoles to not even being able to start up games while offline. Not ideal for Xbox and the number of complaints flooding in would have been amplified due to the outage happening on a weekend. Everything appears to have been fixed now, though.
The Fallen Order Sequel Appears To Have A Name
It is known at this point that a Jedi: Fallen Order sequel is coming even though there has been no official confirmation from EA. The hope was that the next game in the series would be officially revealed on Star Wars Day, but that didn't happen. We've been left with nothing more than rumors and leaks to go by and this week we got a big one: a claim from an insider that the sequel now has a name. Apparently the next Jedi: Fallen Order game, whenever it is announced and eventually arrives, will be called Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. At least we have something else to call it now other than Fallen Order 2, unlike the still unnamed Breath of the Wild sequel.