Another Friday, another weekly roundup post! Highlights for this week include an update on the Overwatch 2 release, some CD Projekt Red news, a teaser trailer for the upcoming Super Mario Bros. movie, and a jam-packed Pokémon Scarlet and Violet trailer. So read ahead to learn what’s in store with these headlines.
Continuing a story from last week’s post, Overwatch 2 launched this past Tuesday. However, the launch did not go as smoothly as planned. Many players, myself included, noted incredibly long wait queues to get into the game as servers were flooded to their breaking point. In addition, Blizzard’s President Mike Ybarra announced over Twitter that they “experienc[ed] a mass DDoS attack on [their] servers,” which certainly didn’t help matters. After a few-hours blackout period for maintenance Thursday night, some players are noting faster load times now. So if you were left lacking on Tuesday, give it another shot today!
Lots of news out of Poland this week as CD Projekt Red announced several of their upcoming projects in a series of tweets. The company revealed the codename Polaris for the previously announced fourth Witcher game, and stated that Polaris will be the first game in a new trilogy. They also announced two more Witcher projects codenamed Canis Majoris and Sirius, both separate from the new trilogy. The first is being developed by an outside studio led by developers who worked on past Witcher games. The second will feature “multiplayer gameplay on top of a single-player experience,” bringing some gameplay diversity to the series.
In addition to the Witcher games, CD Projekt Red also announced two other projects. The first is a new Cyberpunk game, codenamed Orion. The first game in this IP, Cyberpunk 2077, released in 2020 to mixed press. The game was criticized for many bugs and lags in performance, especially on consoles. At that time the only console versions were for Xbox One and PS4, but next-gen versions were released earlier this year with many improvements. Despite the setbacks of the first game, CD Projekt is sticking with this IP as evidenced by a newly released Netflix Cyberpunk anime and this second game. Lastly, they announced one final new IP codenamed Hadar. No game is in development yet as the team is “working exclusively on the foundation for this new setting.” Further details for all five of these announcements were scant, with no release windows given. I’d say it’s safe to assume they will take their time after the Cyberpunk blunders, so stay tuned for more.
Fans of Nintendo franchises have much to be excited about this week with trailers for both the next Pokémon games and the upcoming Mario movie. Starting with the Mario movie, the short teaser was released in a Nintendo Direct (skip to the 39:15 mark for the actual trailer) and gave us our first look at the animated Mushroom Kingdom. It opens with Bowser (voiced by Jack Black) and his Koopa army attacking a penguin kingdom in search of a star. Then we cut to Chris Pratt’s Mario pipe-warping into the Mushroom Kingdom where he meets perennial sidekick Toad (Keegan-Michael Key). After a title card, we see Luigi (Charlie Day) chased by a band of Dry Bones, before the release date April 7 pops up to close out the teaser. The animation looks gorgeous, and the character models are all spot on, avoiding the whole Sonic fiasco from a few years ago. I was a bit disappointed to not get a “Mama Mia” from Pratt’s Mario, but I’m looking forward to the spring release regardless.
The new Pokémon Scarlet and Violet trailer ran for a whopping 14 minutes, showing off some new gameplay footage. We get another look at the battle system, including the new gimmick for this generation: terastalizing. The trailer showed that glowing wild Pokémon will terastalize in battle, and that terastilization can be broken by dealing enough damage, both new details. Next, we were shown the “Let’s Go” autobattling command. When given this command, the first Pokémon in the party will roam on the map next to you, engage wild Pokémon on its own, and even find hidden items. Let’s Go is pivotal when entering Team Star bases, which were also highlighted in this trailer. In the bases, grunts have several of their own Pokémon roaming free which you must defeat using the Let’s Go command. After clearing the base, you’ll engage in a more traditional battle with the base’s boss.
Other new mechanics introduced in this trailer include the TM machine, Titan Pokémon, and a camera mode. With the TM Machine players can craft their own TMs from materials collected in the wild. Titan Pokémon appear to be similar to Legends: Arceus’ Noble Pokémon: extra-large challenges that you must defeat to advance the story. In the trailer, the player battles new Titan Pokémon Klawf, a giant rock-type crab. The trailer also shows off the in-game camera capabilities by having a player character take a selfie with their starter Sprigatito, blending in mechanics from Pokémon Snap. In addition to Klawf, we got our first look at another new Pokémon: Farigiraf, a new evolution for long-time staple Girafarig. I’m still waiting with bated breath to see the rest of the starter evolution lines, but that will clearly have to wait as this trailer didn’t release any new info on that front.
Alongside these new additions, the trailer also gave us a look at this gen’s gym system. The system appears to be similar to Sword and Shield’s gyms by having the player complete a task before battling the gym leader. In the trailer, the player character takes on the grass-type gym in a town called Artazon, tasked with seeking out Sunflora throughout the town before advancing to the gym leader Brassius. Other returning mechanics include character customization, Pokémon camps (called picnics in this gen), cooking (a seemingly more robust than in Sword and Shield), and multiplayer Raid Battles (this time against Tera Pokémon). So far, it appears that all wild Pokémon will be fully visible on-field as in Legends: Arceus, too. Even returning mechanics have new twists as Scarlet and Violet build on many of the changes introduced in the last several Pokémon releases. Fans of the series have a little over a month to wait until Scarlet and Violet launch on November 18.
That’s all for this week. I know Pokémon took up a lot of space today. If you can’t tell, I’m excited for that game. If there’s something I missed that you want to discuss, feel free to give a shoutout in the comments. Hope you enjoyed reading, and I’ll see you next week!