Weekly Roundup: Stop Killing Games Progress, Metro 2039 Reveal, Space Dads and Cartoon Gumshoes, and More

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Stop Killing Games Makes Headway

It’s been a good week for the Stop Killing Games initiative. The last main movement happened back in November, when the UK Parliament debated the matter. It’s still an ongoing concern in the UK (SKG has been advising that government’s Department for Culture, Media & Sport), while over in the States and the EU things have also been happening.

SKG has been working with the California State Assembly, advising on the drafting of the Protect Our Games Act. This would require game companies to give proper notification to players about an online title being shut down, as well as whether the game will continue to function after it’s been sunset. Importantly, the Act also includes a clause that “prohibits companies from selling the game within two months of its end-of-life date and requires them to either replace the game or provide a plan allowing users to continue running it after support ends.”

Also this week, a public hearing was held in the EU featuring three European parliament committees, IMCO, JURI and PETI, to discuss Stop Destroying Videogames (the official European initiative). Group organiser Moritz Katzner was joined by SKG founder Ross Scott at the hearing, which was available to view online.

Of those who spoke in favor of implementing consumer protection law, Prof. Hidalgo Cerezo, a member of the European Law Institute from Madrid, highlighted how EULAs often include language and terms unfair to gamers/consumers. He used the EULA for Fallout 76 as an example, as it states that Bethesda can terminate the license at any point for any reason, thereby revoking access to the game whenever they want.

“I think that everyone that watched it might have noticed that there was no MEP that wasn’t responding positively,” said Katzner. “Even the [European] Commission was pretty positive I’d say.” Katzner also noted that this is just the first step into getting a concrete SKG-related law passed, but it’s still a step in the right direction. 

Metro 2039 Revealed

SKG isn’t the only battle affecting video games at the moment; the continuing war in the Ukraine has long had a knock-on effect for many game developers still living in the country. Jon Bloch,

Executive Producer at 4A Games, revealed an update on the next game in the popular Metro series yesterday, with particular reference to not just what players can expect from the game but how the war has shaped it.

“As a Ukrainian studio, we’ve spent the last few years developing Metro 2039 with many of our team having to shelter from drone strikes and use batteries and generators to complete our work. What’s more, original author Dmitry Glukhovsky is living in exile from his native Russia after being sentenced to eight years in prison (in absentia) for criticising the invasion of Ukraine.”

“Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has had a direct impact on our approach to the next Metro. The series has always been about preventing war but our new reality meant we needed to take a different approach. While this is still an authentic Metro story, set in the Metro universe, it’s told from our uniquely Ukrainian perspective. The themes you’ll see in this next chapter are focused on the consequences of war – the cost of silence, the horrors of tyranny, and the price of freedom.”

As for what the actual gameplay involves, Bloch promised a return to the Metro tunnels of previous games, but they’re now under the control of the Novoreich. Ostensibly a unified faction presided over by a new Fuhrer (the legendary Spartan, Hunter), it unsurprisingly becomes apparent that the tunnels are flooded with propaganda and lies.

Players take on a new, fully-voiced protagonist, the Stranger, as they find themselves drawn back to the Metro system. Bloch said “Metro 2039 promises to be the darkest chapter in our saga that once again provides a tragic view on what humanity must do to survive.”

Hadoken! 

In cheerier news, a new Street Fighter movie trailer dropped this week, and it’s objectively nuts (in a good way). Official plot details haven’t been released yet, but it looks like the film’s taking a ‘comeback’ story arc tact, with Ken Master (Noah Centineo) presented as a washed-up fighter convinced to enter the World Warriors Tournament.

There, he’ll get to fight a ton of familiar faces from the Street Fighter games, from Guile to Balrog and a lot more. Seriously, there is a LOT going on in this trailer. Take a look below.

Directed by Kitao Sakurai (The Eric Andre Show, Bad Trip), it’s set to hit theatres on October 16. It also stars Andrew Koji as Ryu, Callina Liang as Chun-Li, and David Dastmachian hopefully doing his best Raul Julia as this film’s version of M. Bison.

Sad Space Dads and Hardboiled Mice

It’s been a good week for new games, too, especially ones that are being well-received by players and critics alike. Two in particular: Pragmata sees an astronaut becoming a surrogate father figure to an android girl as they try to escape evil robots on the moon, and it’s out now from Capcom. The other is Mouse: P.I. For Hire, an FPS set in a 1930s cartoon noir world, from indie studio Fumi Games.

For those who warrant Metacritic as a valuable barometer of taste, its congregated score for Pragmata sits at a “Generally Favorable” 86, whereas Mouse is also at a comfortable 81. Pragmata has been pretty roundly applauded for bucking the trend of live service titles by feeling like an Xbox 360 game with a focused (offline) single-player experience that knows exactly what it is and does it well.

Mouse: P.I. For Hire has also grabbed eyeballs, partly thanks to its distinct “rubber hose” animation that has characters bend, flex and bounce like elastic, but also because its skeleton is a robust “boomer shooter” akin to something like the newer DOOM games or Metal Eden. We’ll have our own review this coming next week.

Playdate for Education

We’ve covered the Playdate before, and now the quirky handheld has branched out into education, with the appropriately-named Playdate for Education initiative. In a recent post on its official site, Panic (the game studio/publisher and creator of Playdate) outlined the idea.

“With Playdate, students create real, playable games on a device they can hold in their hands. Students can code on their computers, test out the game on a Playdate, then go back to fine-tune. It’s experiential, project-based, learning-by-doing at its very best.”

Panic have highlighted how the device’s SDK, Pulp, is a no-code engine that allows potential devs of any age, from middle-school and up, to craft something fun and interesting. There are already over 1,300 games available for the Playdate made with Pulp, from indie developers and bigger names like Subset (FTL, Into The Breach). 

Anyone interested in taking a crack at this doesn’t even need a Playdate to get started (although it helps), as the handheld and SDK come with a Simulator app that can run Playdate games without a Playdate device. Panic also has a bunch of Case Studies on its site, showcasing educational establishments that have already implemented software and game development with a Playdate, or plan to.

Meanwhile, Panic has also revealed that season 3 of Playdate’s games are coming later this year, which gives players access to a ton of new, exclusive games for a set price (season 2 has 12 games for $39, as an example). Other games can be bought directly from the Playdate site.

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