Written by Mary Joaquin
Welcome to the Weekly Round-Up!
Every week, we cover the latest in the gaming world. It has been quite a ride these couple of months for gaming news and this week will be the last Weekly Round-Up this Fall. We’ll be back in Winter to keep the updates coming!
The hype for The Game Awards was inescapable this whole week but we still saw some steps in the right direction for accessibility, inclusivity, and safety. Here’s to another year of gaming ahead of us!
Let’s get right into it!
On Saturday, Dec 5, The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley confirmed that the show will feature an audio descriptive mode livestream.
Announcing the news over Twitter, Keighley added, “Accessibility matters”. The addition will be a first for the award show, earning nods from accessibility advocates.
“It’s one thing to include accessibility as a topic but to practice it is showing commitment and willingness to include,” tweeted James Rath, one of the judges for the award show’s new Innovation in Accessibility category.
Steve Saylor and Chris Robinson, both Video Game Accessibility Consultants, have also praised the move.
On Sunday, Dec 6, Fall Guys teased Season 3 content with four new costumes.
The game’s reputable Twitter worked its magic once more, showcasing what appear to be festive costumes for its bean characters—a reindeer, candle, and a yeti. The fourth appears to be a dress with a veil though it remains unclear what it is in reference of.
Fall Guys had also announced that more Season 3 information will be revealed at The Game Awards on Dec 10.
On Monday, Dec 7, The Sims 4 widened its array of customization in its free new update.
Adding over a hundred skin tones, new hairstyles and improving on its make-up, the game now features sliders that enable lighter and darker shades and even a miscellaneous category for more fantasy options, according to PC Gamer.
A petition had circulated some six months ago asking for better inclusion of darker skin tones to which Sims executive producer Lyndsay Pearson addressed via Twitter in August.
The official Sims Twitter had also lauded the content creators whose insights contributed to the new update: @Xmiramira, @EbonixSims, @MiaZaff, @RaonyPhillips, and @catherinegYT.
On Tuesday, Dec 8, Business simulation game Parkitect released a multiplayer update.
Both name and premise are simple enough: build a custom theme park and see its business through. With the update, players can co-op with a maximum of seven other people to build a park together.
Players also have the choice of going through sandbox parks, campaign scenarios, and which DLCs and compatible mods to enable in a session.
“You can see what the other people are doing,” the update reads. “It’s a bit like everyone is playing together on the same PC.”
On Wednesday, Dec 9, Twitch introduced significant changes to its Hateful Conduct & Harassment Policy.
Slated to go into effect on Jan 22, 2021, the new policy lays out the categories of Harassment, Hateful Conduct, and Sexual Harassment to better distinguish what it deems inappropriate.
Such elaborations ranged from specifying “protected identity-based attributes” which include the following and more: race, sex, gender, and disability, to “[adopting] a much lower tolerance for objectifying or harassing behavior”.
PC Gamer pointed out the criticism behind the move, with several citing that while it is a smart move by the platform, Twitch’s enforcement remains the deciding and key factor.
On Thursday, Dec 10, Telltale Games announced that The Wolf Among Us 2 is still underway albeit absent from this year’s The Game Awards.
Since the sequel announcement occurred on the 2019 show, rumors circulated that the studio will have whipped up something new for 2020’s show.
“What we can say is that we are developing the entire season at once and there is more to do before we’re ready to share what’s next for the Fabletown gang,” the post reads. “It’s just not time yet.”
The studio also disclosed that its former IPs have reverted ownership and that “their fate is not currently in [their] hands”.
On Friday, Dec 11, Phasmophobia released a new Prison level update.
Winning yesterday in The Game Awards for Best Debut Indie Game, the game gives nothing away from its concise patch notes, saving all the spooky details for the game experience.
According to TechRaptor, however, the Prison map is on the smaller side compared to the Asylum though larger than house maps still.
Phasmophobia also detailed several fixes of either ghost or player getting stuck and the exploited option of colliding with cabinet doors to hide.
EGD’s Weekly Round-Up gives a quick look into the newest in the games industry. From triple-A games and indie titles to events and gamer tech, the Weekly Round-Up covers all and more every week. Join the EGD Community Server to discuss the latest news!