KeenGamer weekly 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.
PlayStation 5 event announced and postponed
Still coming out during the holiday season
We’ve been starving for any news regarding the PlayStation 5 and hoped to finally get it on June 4th. That’s when Sony was supposed to hold its huge event and let us know how the console looks and show off some games like Godfall, AC: Valhalla, and more. Unfortunately, the protests around the United States have put that plan on indefinitely on hold. The postponement was announced via a tweet from the PlayStation Twitter account in which they stated they want to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard.
Surely, the reveal of a gaming console fades in comparison to all the events taking place in the US and the postponement is probably a good move from a business and moral standpoint. Sony is still looking to release the console during the holiday season so there’s a good chance we won’t have to wait for the event to be back on the timetable for too long. For more details, check out our original news coverage.
Pokemon Sword and Shield DLC is coming soon
The Isle of Armor will make fans of Gen 1 very happy
Pokemon Sword and Shield are about to become the talk of the town once more as we have two DLC’s lined up for release. First up, we’ll be getting the Isle of Armor DLC which promises a new area to explore, a ton of new Pokemon, new clothing, and other items as well as some quality of life changes. More specifically, the Isle of Armor looks to address the criticism of painfully missing Pokemon, especially those from the first generation. We even got a new trailer for the entire expansion pass where we get a good look at some fan favorites like Blastoise and Venasaur. We also get a much better look at Kubfu, the fighting type Pokemon who will be joining us on our journey through the Isle of Armor. For the full trailer and more information about the expansion pass, check out our original news coverage.
Valorant is out and it has a battlepass
Valorant brings nothing new to the battlepass concept
Valorant is a game that’s trying to be the next big player in the FPS competitive scene. It does this by combining the narrow one-hit-kill hitboxes from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and unique heroes with abilities from Overwatch. After spending some time in the beta which you could access by watching Valorant streams over on Twitch, the game finally released on June 2nd. It did so with a substantial launch update which brought all new content while tweaking the existing to make the game more balanced.
New content entailed a completely new map and a new character named Reyna. The game also introduced a battlepass system that’s not very different from battlepasses seen in other games. It’s the same old same old – play the game and get XP to earn all kinds of cosmetics and other stuff along a free and a premium track. For more information on Valorant and specific changes made for the release, check out our original news coverage.
Harry Potter open-world RPG rumored for 2021 release
We can’t wait for a AAA Harry Potter game
We’ve known for quite some time that a AAA Harry Potter game was in the works. Other than the fact that it’s being worked on, we didn’t know much else. Until now that is. A Reddit user who goes by the name CorGrahven – claims that he’s been in contact with Warner Bros. regarding subtitle localization for the game which hinted at a 2021 release on next-gen hardware. This is somewhat in line with our prediction for the game which we based on how complete the game looked in the leaked gameplay video. Since we are huge fans of the Harry Potter games of old, we are absolutely looking forward to this one and hope the rumor proves to be true. You can check the leaked footage and all the information we know so far in our original news coverage.
The Last of Us Part II will be playable on the PS5
It makes sense that one of the biggest games is also cross-gen
Since Sony still didn’t throw us a bone regarding the PlayStation 5, we are left to speculate about everything from its appearance to its backward compatibility. When it comes to the latter, you can rest assured that most of the big titles that came out or will come out on the PS4 will be playable on the PS5. This was confirmed by the PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan who spoke with CNET about the upcoming The Last of Us Part II. In the interview, he said that although Sony hasn’t announced plans to offer a more visually rich version of the game for the PS5, the version releasing this month will definitely be playable on the next-gen console. It makes sense to offer it on multiple generations since The Last of Us Part II is already looking to be one of the most profitable Sony games, surpassing Spider-Man and God of War in preorder sales. For more information on the PS5 backward compatibility check out our original news coverage.
The Borderlands movie casts its first star
Cate Blanchett seems like a perfect fit for the badass siren
Eli Roth’s movie-adaptation of Borderlands is still in pre-production and a long way from being released. However, it seems the movie is far enough in production to cast its first actors and the first one is a biggie. Non-other than Cate Blanchett has been cast to play one of the most recognizable and fan-favorite Borderlands characters – Lilith the Siren. It is currently rumored Lilith will be the protagonist of this film, but nothing else of the plot has come out.
If it really turns out Lilith is the main protagonist, the movie will probably feature a story we haven’t seen in any of the games to allow the creator some creative freedom with the universe. Hopefully, it won’t go down in history like many other movies based on video-games. We remain cautiously optimistic until we find out more about the project. For everything we know so far about the movie and more information on the casting, be sure to check out our original news coverage.
