Everything Everywhere Once A Week (12/02/2022)

Hello everyone and welcome to Everything Everywhere Once a Week for the first-ever December edition. They say time moves faster as you age so years pass by much quicker than they would if you were younger, which is observably true, but there’s a kind of weird stasis that the last few years have felt like where they’re simultaneously super long and passed by in a blink. I suppose I need to start thinking about Game of the Year soon.

Summer Games Fest Returning In 2023

We’ll probably never know the full story of what happened to E3 over the last few years. I’ve heard enough about it to say that their pandemic caution and cancellations were not the full story on why the ESA has skipped two of the last three years, the strained relationships with multiple partners being the first and foremost reason. One of those partners was in fact Geoff Keighley, who took the already-existing Gamescom show and expanded it out to fill the Summer void.

Now Keighley is directly positioning Summer Games Fest against a planned E3 event for June 2023, meaning that it’s not a simple matter of Keighley’s event replacing an absent E3 this time around. Granted, the ESA could once again fail to get their shit together and leave SGF as the lone show again, but at the moment they are scheduling toward a collision course.

While Keighley has somewhat of a vested interest in running E3 out of town, the mere existence of other publishers and platform-holders doing showcases of their own probably doesn’t do Summer Games Fest any favors. Microsoft held a not-E3 show last year that pulled a major title or two from SGF and ultimately weakened Keighley’s show. If more than Microsoft decides to hold a Summer show, then that means SGF is likely not going to be the destination for the huge drops.

Keighley also might be in danger at some point of just running too many shows. The Game Awards is next week, then he still runs that aforementioned Gamescom show, then there’s also Summer Games Fest. Something’s gotta give, even before you factor in your Nintendo Directs, Ubisoft Forwards, and whatever Microsoft calls their shows.

Maybe it’s time we stop expecting so much of live video game reveals as we transition into a world where they can’t all become huge events with megatons each.

The Callisto Protocol Reviews are Mixed

A few weeks…months? ago, I wrote impressions of The Callisto Protocol where I described it as a combat puzzle that is definitely not going to appeal to most people. That seems to mostly be bearing out in the reviews, where a handful of reviewers really picked up what the game was putting down and a large swath of others did not.

I think Kotaku’s review is the most interesting, not because I necessarily agree with it, but I think it’s finding something to like about the game that is far from universal. The reviewer seems to find all the game’s weird dissonant moments and odd pacing to be what works about it rather than what doesn’t.

“The Callisto Protocol also plays with the pace of this journey, often forcing Jacob to crawl quietly through tight cave walls or around blind biophages or thud his large, spacesuited body into a heavy sprint,” Kotaku reviewer Ashley Bardhan writes. “Confronting so many different textures at so many different speeds feels great with haptic feedback—even grabbing an ammunition box or in-game currency, Callisto Credits, triggers a satisfying, unique thwack. Callisto is like tangible cinema in this way, slow and steady, which might require readjusting some expectations if you were hoping for on-your-toes horror.”

I don’t know that I agree with this takeaway, but I find the idea that someone thinks the hurk-and-jerk pacing is a positive really quite fascinating. I’m all for finding those weird games we think are diamonds in the rough and that their turbulence is actually one person’s treasure. Maybe Callisto Protocol will be that for you, too?

We got code, but I passed it along to John for next week’s Materia Possessions, so we’ll find out what he thinks then.

Sonic Frontiers Fans are Warring with Genshin Impact Fans

So the Game Awards have a viewer’s choice category that, unlike the rest of the categories, heavily weighs fan online voting over anything else — though in this case I think the weight is 100%. The poll has multiple choices for fan-voted Game of the Year, including Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Cult of the Lamb, Sifu, Sonic Frontiers, and Genshin Impact. The blue blur was handily winning the poll initially, more than doubling runner-up Elden Ring, but Genshin Impact has since taken over, punting Sonic to the #2 position.

Sonic fans, who have been reveling in what is at best an alright game as if they just walked away with all the gold at the olympics, are not taking this well. Some of those fans on social media seems convinced that Mihoyo is bribing Genshin fans to vote or Genshin fans themselves are botting the vote to get the free-to-play gacha title up higher. Neither of which is out of the realm of possibility, but Mihoyo does not seem to be exchanging anything for votes as near as I can tell.

During a Reddit AMA today, one angry commenter asked, “What are you and your team going to do about the obvious vote bribery and botting that is currently occuring in the players' voice award?”

Keighley responded, “I don't know it's bots - I think it's fan bases activating to support a game, or a game promoting its nomination to its fan base. This is part of the reason we don't have 100% fan voting in the main categories. It tends to be which companies promote their nominations and which fan bases activate the drive the voting.” He finished off by adding, “But we'll looking into this now!”

I don’t really know where I am with Genshin Impact these days in terms of whether I like it or I feel obligated to keep playing it, but I’m inclined to agree with Keighley here. It’s probably just a fanbase getting together and voting a game they like to the top. That’s kind of how these online polls work. Hell, you could argue that’s how voting works as a whole. Campaigning isn’t cheating unless it’s not the result you want, then all of a sudden it’s a problem.

The Game Awards Predictions

As mentioned several times, The Game Awards is next week. As hard as I am on Keighley for a lot of his shows, The Game Awards usually does okay in terms of announcements. I think it’s a little too celebrity-obsessed for its own good, but maybe that’s me being out of touch instead.

That said, I think I’ll try and predict what we’re going to see at the show in terms of announcements. So let’s give this a shot.

• I don’t think we get a Tears of the Kingdom trailer, but I think we get the next Xenoblade 3 DLC in a short video.
• I believe here is where FROM makes Armored Core official.
• I would not be surprised if we got another Street Fighter VI character reveal, maybe even a date (which I expect to be post-March)
• Microsoft usually brings something to the show. Hellblade’s been a pretty consistent bet, though maybe bringing a clip for the third time is too much. Perhaps Everwild?
• We don’t really have a good sense of Sony’s 2023, this would be a fantastic place to debut a Spider-Man 2 trailer.
• I don’t necessarily expect Alan Wake 2 yet, though if they have something to show, Keighley would likely welcome it.
• We’re two years removed from Hades, if Supergiant is going to try Early Access again, I think this would be a good time to announce it.
• Who knows what is going on at WB Games right now, but assuming they’re going full-speed ahead, then I predict Wonder Woman will get a gameplay debut here. Maybe also a new Suicide Squad trailer.

Next Week:

• New Materia Possessions with John, Nerium, and Andrea! We'll talk The Callisto Protocol, Harvestella, Midnight Suns, and more.
• Right after posting this, I'm going to guest on Jeff Grubb's Jeopardy show to defend my title. I'll try not to spoil it this time.