This Week's TOP 7 Gaming News Stories

Lara Croft is continuing her comeback tour to reclaim her title as the original Tomb Raider. Alongside remasters of her classic PS1 adventures as well as a Netflix anime adaptation, Lara Croft will be returning to live action for the first time since the Alicia Vikander led film in 2018. Led by showrunner Phoebe Waller-Bridge, whose previous efforts include her Amazon series “Fleabag” and the woefully disappointing conclusion to Indiana Jones’ saga Dial of Destiny, it would seem after a few delays the series is finally entering pre-production. Both Sophia Turner of Game of Thrones and Lucy Boynton of Bohemian Rhapsody have reportedly screen tested to bring the iconic heroine to life alongside Vikander and Angelina Jolie. Not much else is known about the series so far, but we’d wager a guess it’ll no doubt involve a globe-trotting adventure full of danger chasing down a mysterious and ancient relic. Or the whole series could be about locking the poor butler Winston in the freezer. With no clear release date for the series, all we can do is wait and see.

Everyone knows Nintendo is lawsuit and copyright happy when it comes to their games, but they also have a tendency to strike down fans attempting to share their catalog of iconic music. Well now Nintendo fans no longer need to worry about the gaze of Nintendo to enjoy some of their favorite Nintendo music. Nintendo shadow dropped their own app for IOS and Android simply titled “Nintendo Music” and features a variety of fan favorite tracks from games such as Animal Crossing, The Legend of Zelda, and more with additional tracks planned for future updates. Audiophiles can build their own playlists based on mood, characters, or favorite moments from specific games and will also be able to download their music to listen offline and can even play their favorites on a loop. All this comes at a cost however, as anyone who wants to relive these incredible musical moments will need a Nintendo Switch Online membership to access the app because of course there was no way Nintendo was going to give all this away for free. They’ve got a team of lawyers on standby they need to pay!

In a move that everyone saw coming, PlayStation formally announced the closure of Firewalk Studios after delisting and taking their live shooter Concord offline after barely two weeks. After the shooter failed to make an impact in an already overcrowded market, Sony pulled the game from both digital and physical sale and offered customers full refunds. While Sony originally stated they were “exploring options” for the game, given the abysmal player count, not even going free-to-play could have saved this shooter that was doomed from the start. Reportedly Sony acquired Firewalk during the development of Concord for roughly $200 million dollars and then plugged an additional $200 million into the game to get it over the finish line. While this has yet to be confirmed, Concord reportedly only sold 25,000 copies total, making the game and acquisition a complete financial loss for Sony. Sony was already facing quite a lot of resistance for their push into the live service market and after Concord’s tepid release, Sony has since scaled back their ambitions, with the likes of Fairgame$ and Marathon apparently still moving forward.

The rise of AI has become a major concern in all industries but particularly in movies, television and especially video game development. With numerous actors’ voices being recreated by fans, steps needed to be taken to protect the industry and its actors who bring some of our favorite characters to life. SAG-AFTRA announced a legal agreement with AI voice company Ethovox to protect voice actors' livelihoods and future projects amidst the rise of AI voice generation. Actors who sign up for the program will only have their voice used as a model for the program and will be compensated with ongoing payments for the duration of their use. While actors will still need to consent to their voices being used for the program, this is only a small step in the right direction to ensure the artists are protected from countless AI programs.

Nuketown has been a staple of the Call of Duty franchise for over a decade now, making its first appearance in Call of Duty Black Ops way back in 2010. Since then, fans of the claustrophobic map have seen numerous incarnations over the years and Activision and Treyarch have announced the return of the classic map as well as the addition of Infected Mode. Nuketown will mostly retain everything fans love about the classic map, albeit with some 90s aesthetic touches to match the time period of the campaign. Infected Mode will likely function much like previous iterations in which one player is infected and the uninfected attempting to survive the mounting numbers of zombies before the timer runs out. Activision also announced that the Call of Duty series has sold 500 million copies in its entirety since the series debuted back in 2003 and remains the undisputed juggernaut of the FPS genre 20 years later.

Even though video games have been a part of the mainstream and cultural zeitgeist for almost 40 years, these works of art have yet to be recognized in the same way films, television programs and music are. With roughly 87% of video games released before 2010 either going out of print or simply being completely lost to time, many fans have dedicated themselves to preserving this rich history but continuously run into roadblocks in this most noble of causes. In yet another blow to this desire to save gaming history, after a three year long battle, the U.S Copyright Offices struck down a proposal to allow libraries to share out-of-print games similar to the way library books or films used to be rented. Their reasoning? There was no way to guarantee there wouldn’t be a “significant risk that preserved video games would be used for recreational purposes.” Proving yet again that those in charge still don’t truly understand video games or their value as art alongside films and literature. The Video Game History Foundation has vowed to continue to fight for video game preservation and expressed their disappointment of what they called a “weak sauce argument” by the Copyright Offices and the Entertainment Software Association. With countless titles from Nintendo, Sony, and even Microsoft becoming unplayable every year, as well as these companies continuing to strike down emulators, hundreds if not thousands of games are at risk of being completely lost to time or forgotten.

After shuttering the Wii U and 3DS online store, Nintendo has been doing a fairly decent job of updating many classic titles from those consoles and porting them to the Switch. For a price of course. The latest update is Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition which brings the entire Xenoblade saga to Switch for players to experience in its entirety. While not officially part of the Xenoblade trilogy, Chronicles X is considered a standalone adventure that takes place within the same universe. The definitive version adds updated visuals as well as additional story elements not available in the initial release. Along with Xenoblade Chronicles X, Nintendo has also ported Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, New Super Mario Bros U, and Pikmin 3 among others that were once exclusive to the failed Wii U, giving these games a second chance to find an audience on a vastly more successful console.