KeenGamer gaming news is a series of articles designed to bring you the hottest gaming and pop culture related news. Each news is presented in a bite-sized format and will lead you to the original source of the news if you want to find out more details.
Cyberpunk 2077 Full Map Leaks just as it goes gold
Do we get a Keanu when we buy Cyberpunk 2077?
The wait is almost over guys. Probably the most anticipated game of the decade – Cyberpunk 2077, has finally gone gold! This means there’s a hard copy of the game out there which is being copied and getting ready for widespread distribution. The information was delivered via CD Projekt Red Twitter with an image of Keanu Reeves’ character Johnny Silverhand holding up a golden disc. The work isn’t done yet as it was recently reported that CPDR was going into six weeks of mandatory crunch with some extreme overtime to polish the game and deliver it in our hands in the best shape possible.
Marketing for the game is likely to switch into 5th gear now and we’ll probably be exposed to more information about the game than ever before. As that happens, plenty of leaks are bound to happen with the latest one being the image of the full in-game map. The image offers a fairly good look at how expansive Night City and its surrounding areas really are. It’s safe to say, we’ll have a lot of exploring to do once Cyberpunk 2077 drops on November 19th. For more information check out our original coverage of the game going gold and its map being leaked.
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time receives universal praise
Old-school platforming at its best
As if anyone needed any excuse to go and play a new Crash Bandicoot game, the critical response should convince even the biggest doubters. The game currently holds an impressive 86 out of 100 over on Metacritic with many critics calling it the best Crash game yet and a perfect sequel to an incredible trilogy. More in-depth, the game is particularly praised for its difficult platforming – a staple of the originals – and its inventiveness and originality. For more info on the game and the critical reception, be sure to check out our original news coverage of Crash 4.
Spider-Man’s Creative Director comments on Peter Parker’s face change
Tom Holland? Is that you?
As you probably already know, the PlayStation 5 version of Marvel’s Spider-Man by Insomniac is getting some visual upgrades and changes. While most of them are met with praise, there’s one in particular that no one is exactly thrilled about – Peter Parker’s face change. The original face model of actor John Bubniak will be replaced by one of actor Ben Jordan to make use of the PS5’s technology in better suiting the face of the character’s voice actor, Yuri Lowenthal.
Many call this change completely unnecessary, saying that Peter Parker now looks bland and generic. In response, the creative director of the game, Bryan Intihar, took to Twitter and explained that Insomniac feels they did the right thing and won’t be reversing this change. Basically saying that you suck it up and get over it if you don’t like the new character model. To read the full statement and check the new model in action, check out our original news coverage.
Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War finally reveals its popular Zombies mode
Zombies are back. For what is probably the 27th time
Call of Duty franchise is, at this point is like a zombie. Whenever we think it’s the last one, a sequel just springs back up stronger than ever. It’s completely fitting then that it’s most popular multiplayer mode is titled Zombies and that it’s making its return in the upcoming Cold War. The newest iteration of the mode continues the cold war themes of the campaign and multiplayer with an obvious brain-eating deviation.
Players will get to fight for a secret group known as Requiem, led by Black Ops 1’s Grigori Weaver with plenty of improvement to the formula. The mode will have cross-gen and cross-play support so its bound to attract a significant audience. For the full list of improvements and the trailer, check out our original news coverage.
Around 25% of Ubisoft Employees Have Reportedly Experienced or Seen Misconduct
Ubisoft seems to have some real underlying issues in the company
A survey from a hired third party company reveals 25 percent of Ubisoft employees have seen or experienced some type of workplace misconduct. In hard numbers, this means that around 3500 employees out of 14000 experienced either sexual harassment, discrimination against people of color, and women or other systemic issues. The survey goes much more in-depth with the results particularly applying to women and non-binary employees.
The CEO of Ubisoft, Yves Guillemot was quick to say that the results will help focus the company’s efforts in improving the workplace environment. He also stated that the company will continue to work with third-party companies to always have an objective, professional and unbiased look at the state of their company. For more details on the survey as well as more details on how Ubisoft is combating these issues, check out our original news coverage.
Limited hard drive space won’t be as problematic on next-gen consoles
Selective installations should alleviate the problem just a bit
Limited hard-drive space and larger and larger games were a big issue, even on the current generation of consoles. 1TB hard drives could realistically have less than 10 top-tier games installed before forcing you to delete them if you wanted to play something else. With games becoming even bigger for next-gen and companies placing even more emphasis on selling them digitally, gamers are fully justified in being concerned.
Luckily, it seems like Microsoft and Sony designed their consoles with this issue in mind since both next-gen consoles will give you the option to delete unwanted sections of a game. Should a game support it you’ll essentially be able to “selectively uninstall different components of the game”. For example, you could theoretically uninstall a game’s single-player campaign while leaving multiplayer intact and fully playable. While this will not completely eliminate the issue, it’s sure to alleviate it somewhat to the joy of gamers worldwide. For more information on how the system will work as well as more practical examples, check out our original news coverage.
Genshin Impact had the biggest ever launch for a Chinese Game
Genshin Impact is a gacha take on Zelda
We’ve had several chances to play Genshin Impact before its release and had fairly positive experiences. Despite initial criticisms that the game is too similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Genshin Impact had one heck of a launch. In fact, the game has had the biggest ever launch for a Chinese game, grossing $1.84 million within two days. Additionally, gamers hurried to Twitch in droves either to stream the game or watch it being played, even pushing Fortnite out of the top most-watched game for the day. I, personally am very excited to dive into this colorful open-world adventure and any comparisons to Zelda are a definite plus in my book. For more information on the game’s commercial performance, check out our original news coverage. To help you get started, we even have a convenient beginner guide to make your life just a bit easier.
Cathal
Funny how these leaks happen at just the right time before a game’s release but not earlier when there would be time for the interest to fade. And Ubisoft are scum.