A busy month for video games rolled on this week, as Warzone 2.0 and Pokemon Scarlet & Violet joined a crowd that had previously been dominated by Sonic and Kratos. Not all of this week's releases have been positively received, however.
Joining the onslaught of Pokemon and Call of Duty news this week is Game of the Year nominations, The Witcher 3's long-awaited update, and a lot more as we recap the biggest news of the past seven days.
Not Everyone Is Impressed With Scarlet & Violet
Pokemon's ninth generation officially got underway on Friday and to say the early reactions to the games have been mixed might be a compliment. The reviews dropped on Thursday and while a Metacritic score of 78 is pretty good, the problems that have been highlighted since are not. Players have been pointing to severe framerate issues as well as making fun of the games' somewhat lazy animations. The fact that it's the first truly open-world Pokemon game continues to receive praise, but it seems there's a long way to go before Game Freak gets that formula right.
The Next Era Of Warzone Has Begun
A few days prior to Scarlet & Violet's arrival, Warzone 2.0 launched. The next chapter in Call of Duty's free-to-play book hasn't been lambasted nearly as much as the Pokemon games, although players aren't sure what to think of its proximity chat. A clear plus for the new game is including the original Modern Warfare 2's Quarry on its new map, but the issues linked to actually finding and installing the game that plagued the first Warzone appear to have been replicated. Unlike Pokemon, if you have managed to download Warzone 2.0, it sounds like there's more to like than dislike.
The Game Awards Nominations Are In
2022 feels like it has whizzed past in the blink of an eye to the point that we're all busy trying to figure out what has been the best game of the past 12 months. While there will be a lot of Game of the Year awards given out over the coming months, The Game Awards pick tends to be the one that officially carries the crown. As expected, God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring are the frontrunners for Game of the Year. Ragnarok picked up the most nominations with ten, while Elden Ring is surprisingly tied with Horizon Forbidden West with seven. The awards will also name the Best Adaptation for the first time with Arcane, Edgerunners, and Sonic 2 vying for that particular prize.
The Witcher 3 Is Getting A Current-Gen Update
CD Projekt Red has been flooding fans with so much info about the future lately, most of it revolving around The Witcher, that you might have forgotten The Witcher 3 is supposed to be getting a current-gen upgrade. Officially announced earlier this year, CDPR has now confirmed the promised update really will be here before the end of 2022 despite all of the other irons it has in the fire. The free update for people who already own the game will drop on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on December 14. Just in time for you to play the game all other again while you ignore your family over the holidays.
Dead Island 2 Has Been Delayed Again
Dead Island fans who have been waiting for a sequel for eight years might have thought the reveal that the game has been delayed again was a cruel joke. Sadly, it's not, and Dambuster admitted the irony of the game needing to be delayed again wasn't lost on it. Don't panic, Dead Island 2 won't be disappearing into obscurity again. It has simply been pushed back 12 weeks and will now launch in April 2023 instead of February. This is a decision that was likely made with the increasingly crowded February slate in mind.
MultiVersus Season 2 Has Begun
MultiVersus has slipped off the radar a little following Black Adam's addition to the roster and with all of the other games launching lately. Its second season kicked off this week, thrusting it back into a shared spotlight and hopefully bringing back some potentially lapsed players. While the new season hasn't brought any new characters along with it, we know that the next fighter will be Marvin the Martian. Big head mode has been introduced to silly queue to kick off season two, and ranked mode has returned this weekend.