Get Your Game On: New Overwatch Skins and Nintendo Labo

Happy Wednesday! What games have you been playing lately? I just finished Hitman‘s Paris and Sapienza missions. If you love games involving stealth, disguises, and figuring out multiple ways to accomplish goals, Hitman will keep you busy for hours. I also started Night in the Woods and am obsessed! I relate with Mae returning to her hometown and feeling disconnected from yet drawn to the people and places she knew.

Let us know in the comments or on Twitter what you’re playing! Here’s news and links we’ve been thinking about.

More on Overwatch League’s Exclusion of Women

Ashley Oh at Polygon wrote more about Overwatch League and esports’ exclusion of women.

Overwatch: New skins, New Sprays, New Map

Overwatch released a bunch of new skins, sprays, and icons on January 23rd, as well as a new map: Blizzard World.

Nintendo Labo

Nintendo announced new cardboard-based kits for Switch that allow you to make physical objects, such as a remote control car controller, a fishing rod, a piano, and much more. The kits release on April 20th.

Although the kits are pricier than average game prices, I’m excited to see more companies combine physical building with video games, especially to create more fun and relevant classroom experiences. Here’s a list from Polygon of STEM toys that are already available if you’re interested in applications like Labo.

Night in the Woods coming to Switch on February 1st

Speaking of Switch, a favorite game among many of our friends is coming to Switch on February 1st.

Overwatch League Player Suspended and Fined for Homophobic Comments

A player for the Dallas Fuel has been suspended and fined for homophobic comments during his Twitch stream. I’m glad Overwatch League and the Dallas Fuel are taking homophobia seriously.

Game Developers Conference, March 2018

GDC is coming up in March in San Francisco, and will include an Indie Games Summit.

More links

• What happens when a loot box item is worth $1,000?
• The winner of the 2017 Hearthstone World Championships won $250,000.
• Modders are working to remaster Fallout 3 using Fallout 4’s engine.
• Artist Castpixel made art depicting the latest Jumanji movie as a retro arcade game:

• Here’s an interview with the co-director of The Last of Us, Uncharted 2, and Uncharted 4 who recently left Naughty Dog.
• The CEO of Activision Publishing (Call of Duty, Destiny) is leaving.
• Wolves in the Walls, a short film told through VR, is showing at Sundance Film Festival.
• A game developer shares about “crunch” and the experience of a labor problem that pervades the game industry.

Upcoming releases

• Dragon Ball FighterZ, developed by Arc System Works and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, releases on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on January 26th.
• Monster Hunter: World by Capcom releases on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on January 26th.
• Final Fantasy XII The Zodiac Age releases for PC on February 1st from Square Enix.
• The Shadow of the Colossus remake for PS4 releases on February 6th, developed by Bluepoint Games.
• Metal Gear Survive releases for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on February 20th, developed and published by Konami.
• Assassin’s Creed Rogue, remastered for PS4 and Xbox One, releases March 20th, developed by Ubisoft Sofia.

Games Bleat

Welcome to Games Bleat! I’m Joesph Langdon and I’m going to be walking you through some of the games and deals we’re excited for here at Sidequest! It’s a light week for sales, but I hope I can make up for that by showing off some of the newest games hitting the PC market. If you’re interested in a race against the clock there’s a huge sale going on over at Humble for just a few hours more.

PC

• Cook, Serve, Delicious! $1.99
• Kim $5.99
• Prank Masters $15.11
• Mini Metro $4.99

Xbox

• Beholder and Dear Esther $14.99

Nintendo Switch

• De Mambo $6.49

I waited at the crossroads of itch.io for three hours last night to get this next collection of new releases, so I hope it gets y’all excited to try something new. First on my list is Late Night Wanderer, an atmospheric horror game about those long walks home in the early hours of the morning. If you’re in the mood for a more light-hearted party game there’s also Genital Jousting, the only game I’ve seen on the market about dicks and butts exclusively. For those more literary inclined there’s a fresh, strategically minded take on Moby-Dick called Nantucket. What I’m personally here for is Full Metal Furies, a team based co-op shooter from the creators of Rogue Legacy with a cast of badass ladies with guns. Finally, there’s The Red Strings Club, a cyberpunk narrative experience created by Deconstructeam and published by Devolver Digital.

That’s it for this week’s Bleat! Come back next week and for a whole new selection of games with which to quell the unending fury of mortal form!