This is the rain in question. What do you think?Gif: Game Informer / Capcom / Kotaku
First, there was Spider-Man’s infamous Puddlegate. Then there were the not-so-watery streets of Cyberpunk 2077. Now it seems video game fans’ next watery, pre-release controversy involves the heavy rain seen in some early gameplay of the Resident Evil 4 remake. Some think it looks as bad as the awful-looking rain the GTA Trilogy remasters. Others are convinced it’s just video compression. And remember: None of them have actually played the game yet.
Rumored for some time, Resident Evil 4 was officially announced by Capcom back in June 2022. This new remake will update the game’s controls and combat, while keeping the same basic story and characters. Once again players will play as Leon as he travels to a rural part of Western Europe to save the President’s daughter and gets caught up in a whole lotta campy, horrific shenanigans. But based on newly released gameplay by Game Informer, some Resident Evil fans seem to think Leon’s biggest threat won’t be giant monsters or infected villagers, but lackluster rain.
Across Reddit and Twitter, you can find many players who think the in-game rain looks awful in the upcoming remake. While I’m not sure who was the first person to share these concerns online, they’ve quickly spread around the community. Some have even suggested the rain looks as bad as the infamously horrendous rain seen in the critically thrashed Grand Theft Auto Trilogy: Definitive Edition. That rain was so bad looking that it made the game nearly unplayable during storms and was eventually improved by the devs via a post-release patch.
Anyway, here’s the remade RE4’s rain that’s causing such a kerfuffle:
Capcom / Game Informer
I’ll fully admit that I watched this footage twice when Game Informer first posted the video and didn’t think anything of the rain. But even in the comments on YouTube, you can find people worried about how intense and distracting it is.
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Kotaku has contacted Capcom about the weather in the upcoming remake.
Others think people are being too nitpicky and suggest that the real problem isn’t the rain but YouTube’s awful video compression. I’m inclined to think YouTube’s compression is definitely not helping this rain look good, but I can also see how some might find the large and distinct white drops of water to be too much.
Of course, this being the internet and gamers, some people are going too far and suggesting the devs are lazy or that this is a sign the entire game will be a giant, rushed “cash grab.” That is completely silly and asinine. Remember: None of us have played the game, which isn’t even finished yet.
Resident Evil 4 is due out March 24, 2023 on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Maybe it should include a rain intensity slider.
Look, everyone wants to play Spider-Man. It’s perhaps any actor’s most sought-after role behind Hamlet and The Joker. To prove yourself as a young Hollywood A-lister, you better start learning the phrase, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
One actor who would love to play Spider-Man is Tobey Maguire, an actor who has played Spider-Man four times. After playing Spider-Man throughout the 2000s, he donned the mask one more time for 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. For those counting at home, we have now said the name “Spider-Man” five times in this article.
“When they called initially, I was like, finally!” Maguire said in an interview with, ahem, Marvel. “I got the call and was immediately open about coming to do this. Not without nerves–you know, ‘What will this look like, and what will the experience be?’ But to get to show up with beautiful, talented, creative people and play together? It’s just like, ‘Yes!’ It’s fun and exciting.”
“I love these films, and I love all of the different series. If these guys called me and said, ‘Would you show up tonight to hang out and goof around?’ or ‘Would you show up to do this movie or read a scene or do a Spider-Man thing?’ It would be a ‘yes!’ Because why wouldn’t I want to do that?”
Maguire doesn’t appear on screen much these days, outside of going pure goblin mode in Babylon. Seeing as that movie didn’t do so hot; it makes sense that he’d tell Marvel that, yes, he’d love another job, especially if he has to “read a scene” or “do a Spider-Man thing” or simply hang out in the background of scenes until the other Spider-Men are ready for a hug. Fellow Spider-Man Andrew Garfield is also open to more, so we look forward to the Marvel Cinematic Universe becoming even more unwieldy, confusing, and laden with crossovers. Excelsior!
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Officially-licensed socks Sock Affairs wants you to enrobe your feet in their officially licensed socks with art from Pink Floyd and AC/DC records.
Sucker Punch hasn’t announced what it’s working on, but has confirmed what it isn’t working on.Image: Sucker Punch Productions
Sony’s San Diego Studio is a multiplatform studio now that MLB The Show is available on Xbox and Nintendo platforms. So while it won’t be a PlayStation exclusive, expect an MLB The Show 23 later this year. God of War Ragnarök was one of the biggest games of last year, and was also one of the last big games in 2022, having only launched about two months ago. Sony Santa Monica also doesn’t seem to have plans to make DLC for Ragnarök, so it’s probable the team goes mostly silent in 2023.
Sucker Punch could be a wildcard in 2023, as it’s been about three years since Ghost of Tsushima, but the studio also seems to be working on a sequel to its open-world samurai game rather than a new IP or a sequel to its previous series Infamous and Sly Cooper. The gap between Infamous: Second Son and Ghost of Tsushima was about six years, but if the studio is iterating on old systems, we may hear about the new samurai sequel sooner rather than later. Finally, Valkyrie Entertainment was a more low-key acquisition for Sony, and the team has acted primarily as a support studio as recently as God of War Ragnarök. That being so, the team is likely helping out with other projects that launch in 2023.
Whew, I think that’s everything on the PlayStation radar so far. Has anything got your interest piqued, or are you hoping Sony will announce some more enticing projects in the coming year?
Late last week, Square Enix announced that its beleaguered2020 live-service game, Marvel’s Avengers, will no longer receive new content or major updates after March 31. And all official support for the game will end on September 30, 2023, with digital sales ending on that date too. While you’ll still be able to play it offline and online with friends after these dates, it’s effectively game over for the troubled online action game. Yet, even in death, developer Crystal Dynamics just confirmed that the character of Spider-Man will remain exclusive to the PS4 and PS5 versions.
This saga began when, shortly ahead of the release of Marvel’s Avengers, Crystal Dynamics announced that Spider-Man would be added to the game at a later date. However, the famous web-slinger would not be coming to the Xbox or PC versions. Instead, only PS4 (and later PS5) players would have access to the character. It took longer than expected, but eventually, in November 2021 Spider-Man popped up in the PlayStation versions. At the time fans theorized that it was because Spider-Man was owned by Sony and therefore Spidey was only on PlayStation. (That isn’t the case, as Sony merely owns film rights to the character.) But since then, the famous superhero has appeared in Midnight Suns across all platforms. So it’s not like Spider-Man can only exist on PlayStation consoles.
And yet, Crystal Dynamics confirmed in a blog post on January 20 that Spider-Man will still notbe coming to Xbox or PC. What a shame! Even as the failed live-service game dies, none of Spidey’s corporate overlords can agree to let him swing free across all platforms for the few Avengers players out there still enjoying the game.
Marvel / PlayStation
Kotaku contacted Marvel, PlayStation, Square Enix, Embracer Group, and Crystal Dynamics for comment, but didn’t hear back before publication.
I already know people in the comments or quote retweets will claim Sony completely owns Spider-Man (it doesn’t) or that Sony can’t legally allow the character to appear on other platforms (it can). Yet he’s in Midnight Suns, a game released on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. He’s in mobile games released across iOS, Android, and PC, too.
So it’s totally doable to have Spidey show up on other consoles if the people pulling the strings, cutting the deals, and making the contracts can agree to it. But apparently nobody cares enough about Avengers and its community to muster one last gesture of goodwill for players and let the web-slingin’ hero show up on Xbox and PC. If you want to play the complete version of the game after support ends in September, it seems you’ll have to own a PlayStation. Say it with me once again: Console-exclusive DLC sucks.
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This may come as a surprise to the players who abandoned the game long ago and assumed this time had come already, but Crystal Dynamics and publishers Square Enix have announced the impending end of online support for Marvel’s Avengers.
In a blog post published on Friday evening, a latter signed by ‘Marvel’s Avengers Development Team’ reads in part:
To our amazing community,
After two-and-a-half years and introducing twelve of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, following Update 2.8 on March 31, 2023, we will no longer add new content or features to Marvel’s Avengers. All official support for the game will end on September 30, 2023.
Even after official support ceases on September 30, 2023, both single- and multi-player gameplay will continue to be available…
…As a show of our appreciation for our community, starting March 31, 2023 we will make all the game’s Marketplace, Challenge Card, and Shipment cosmetic content available to all players for free. Every single Outfit, Takedown, Emote, and Nameplate from the Marketplace, Challenge Cards, and Shipments will be free for all players from this date onwards if you own a copy of the game.
Gifting the full library of Marketplace cosmetic content is a way to thank our community by letting everyone experience the breadth and depth of content in Marvel’s Avengers.
We know this is disappointing news as everyone in our community has such a connection to these characters and their stories. We’re so, so grateful that you came on this adventure with us. Your excitement for Marvel’s Avengers – from your epic Photo Mode shots, to your threads theorizing who our next Heroes would be, to your Twitch streams – has played a large part in bringing this game to life.
We hope you continue to play and enjoy Marvel’s Avengers. We can’t thank you enough for your support and for being part of our super team.
– Marvel’s Avengers Development Team
While the opening up of the game’s Marketplace is framed here as a gesture of goodwill, it is of course that same marketplace—shackled as it was to some insane notion that every game needs to be a Forever Game, reliant on the grind inherent to a live service experience—that helped kill it off. ‘
While Embracer made a deal last year to buy the game’s developers, severing them from the publisher that made the Avengers licensing deal, it was made clear at the time that any games released prior to the sale would continue to be supported. Which suggests this decision is simply down to not enough people wanting to play or buy stuff in Marvel’s Avengers anymore.
As the note says, this doesn’t mean the game is disappearing off the internet entirely. You’ll still be able to play it, even in multiplayer; there just won’t be any further updates or even technical support for it after September 30.
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If you’re a player and want to see the specifics of what’s shutting down when, and what this means for individual updates, you can check that out here in a series of charts and FAQs. One of which contains the deeply funny reminder that Spider-Man must remain a PlayStation exclusive, even in death.
Gotham Knights came out a week ago and I’ve found it exceedingly difficult to find anything to love about the open-world loot brawler. Red Hood’s snickerdoodle recipe, maybe? The latest Batman game borrows from a ton of other, mostly better rivals, and struggles to craft a clear identity in the process. Kotaku’s Levi Winslow also spent the last week trying to save Gotham city from feuding gangs and supervillains, and the two of us sat down to try and hash out what the game does well, what it does poorly, and all the ways it left us confused.
Levi Winslow: Ok. So, like, I feel Gotham Knights is a bifurcated game, something that has two separate identities living within itself. First, there’s the narrative action-adventure stuff where you’re solving crimes, meeting the villains, beating up goons before getting a cutscene taking you back to The Belfry. That is a solid gameplay loop. Then you hit the open world. I don’t dislike it, There’s some enjoyment in grapple-hook-jumping from one rooftop to another, but the RNG RPG-ness of it, the Diablo-like nature to the unnecessary loot grind, makes for some of the most tedious parts of the whole game. What do you think? How do you feel about the linear narrative juxtaposed with the open-world grind?
Ethan Gach: I’m incredibly underwhelmed by both so far. Everything just fits together so awkwardly, and I mean everything. The individual scripted cutscenes? Great. Love ’em. Completely fine. But everything else, going room-to-room in a story mission, crime-to-crime in the open world, and even enemy-to-enemy during the big brawls, all just feels rough and uneven and not good. Like you could describe the back-of-the-box bullet points of this game, and I’d go, sure, that sounds fine. It’s not the new Arkham I want, but I love the Batman comics, I love the universe, lets go jump off some rooftops and solve some mysteries. And yet almost nothing in this game feels actually good to do in my opinion.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
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Levi: Can’t argue with you there. The gameplay is especially clunky and imprecise. I don’t mind the combat. It isn’t as smooth as Marvel’s Spider-Man or as impactful as the Arkham games, but it definitely carries more weight and feels way better than Marvel’s Avengers, which is the closest comparison I could give. Like you said, something about it all just feels off and awkward. I really can’t stand the stealth and how sticky and slippery the characters are. You wanna open this chest after busting some skulls, but you gotta stand in this exact spot to trigger the contextual button input. Deviate from it just a little bit, like barely even a centimeter, and the prompt will disappear. Or you’re perched on this ledge to scope the area, looking for some stealth takedowns but, whoops, you accidentally flicked the left stick forward and now your vigilante has just jumped off and lands in front of the enemies you were trying to stealth. It’s frustrating.
Ethan: Yeah I basically haven’t even bothered with stealth for that reason, especially because the rest of the incentives feel like they are pushing me toward just complete chaos. Who have you been playing as? I’ve rotated every mission, but so far I think Red Hood is my favorite, mostly because he feels the most substantial and least slippery. Batgirl is a close second.
Levi: Lol, I’m just a perfectionist who wants to complete all the challenges. So when it’s like “Perfect whatever number stealth takedowns,” I’m like, “Bet.” But yeah I started with Nightwing, then switched to Batgirl, who’s been my main ever since. She’s just so OP, it’s insane. I’ve heard Red Hood is pretty good so I’m gonna have to give him a try. What do you think of Robin? Considering how frustrating stealth is, I couldn’t imagine playing him because of how stealth-focused he is. His bo staff’s looks cool.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
Ethan: There are too many big enemies and dudes that will come at you from off-screen, to the point that I just didn’t want to bother with Robin after the first time I tried him. I also really don’t like Gotham Knights’ version of the character. I’m a huge fan of The Animated Series’ take on Tim Drake, and this feels more like a weird cross between Spider-Man’s Peter Parker and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s Cal Kestis, if that makes any sense.
I also don’t really feel any compulsion to grind, which is weird, but I think mostly stems from just how diffuse everything is. There are not nearly enough villains in this world to beat up to sustain an entire upgrade and crafting loop.
Levi: Very that, both on Robin’s timidity and the unsatisfying number of villains in the open world. Gotham here truly feels lifeless. Sure, there are citizens wandering the streets and GCPD patrolling their headquarters (or getting bullied by some dudes), but there’s no energy to the city. I know I compared Gotham Knights to Marvel’s Avengers—which I admittedly did like for a hot minute—but I can’t help but wanna play Marvel’s Spider-Man every time I’m protecting Gotham. There’s something about the bland color palette and the sameness of the districts that strips Gotham of its character.
Ethan: I think the city itself looks cool, and I like the way they tried to play off the four heroes’ iconic color palettes with the neon lights and how steam and fog hang on the skyline. But I also kept thinking of Spider-Man, mostly because I was always frustrated I couldn’t chain the grappling hook together like I was web slinging.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
I think a large part of that is how much space you have to cover because of how scattered the actual things for you to do are. I would have preferred a much smaller but denser section of the city than having to hopscotch around all the dead space. Usually, open-world games thrive on constantly finding things on the way to your objective that distract, intrigue, and send you down an entirely separate rabbit hole. Here it really does feel like moonlighting as an Uber driver in the worst-paved metropolis in the world.
Levi: Yeah, like, there really isn’t a whole lot to do in this world. And what’s available to do is incredibly repetitive: Go here, beat up some guys, check out a clue, escape before GCPD shows up, rinse and repeat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m having fun dominating dudes as Batgirl. But the fun isn’t as satisfying as in other, better superhero action games that have come out recently.
Ethan: I also feel like the game is in a very weird place tonally. Batman’s family is left to figure out what their relationships are without him to orient them, but they are all pretty unfazed by the actual fact that he’s dead. And despite the dramatic premise, things get off to a very slow start. I will say I prefer aspects of Gotham Knights’ gameplay to Marvel’s Avengers’—whose combat felt indistinct and very much in the licensed game bucket—but the way the latter was shot felt like a much better approximation of the feel of the MCU than Gotham Knights is for the DCU.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
As a Destiny guy who loves a mindless gameloop I can sink into at the end of the day, I thought I was primed to see the glass half full in Gotham Knights, but that’s just not what’s happened.
Levi: Same. I really wanted a mindless loop that offered solid gameplay with an intriguing story, and Gotham Knights misses the landing. There are good elements here, don’t get it twisted. The combat is fine, serviceable actually. And the sometimes tender, sometimes tense moments between characters during cutscenes is captivating. But the actual meat and potatoes of the game, the core gameplay loop, just isn’t as satisfying as I was hoping. I’ll finish it, though. I’ve completed Nightwing’s Knighthood challenges to get his Mechanical Glider, so I gotta do the same for Batgirl. And I wanna play some co-op to see just how untethered the experience is, but I can’t imagine thinking too much about Gotham once I finished the story. It isn’t sticking in the same way Marvel’s Spider-Man did.
Maybe that’s an unfair comparison, but truly, in my head canon, Gotham Knights is somewhere between Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Avengers. It’s fine, but I don’t know if that’s necessarily a good spot to be in.
Screenshot: Warner Bros. Games / Kotaku
Ethan: I’m still only about halfway through the game, but feeling much less generous. It’s an indecisive mix of a bunch of games without any one solid thing to hold onto. The co-op that I’ve tried so far is very decent overall, and I think certainly sets a kind of standard for games like Far Cry—which have traditionally struggled with multiplayer that feels consistent and rewarding—to aim for.
But man, every aspect of the Batman mythos recreated here feels like it’s done better elsewhere. Maybe when the four-player mode comes out it’ll be closer to the 3D brawler it should have been. At this point I almost wish it were a live-service game. At least then there might be a shot at a better 2.0 version a year from now.
Levi: Right? Gotham Knights certainly feels like it could’ve been a live-service game. I’m hoping that four-play co-op mode Hero Assault extends to the open-world stuff too. There are four heroes. This game should be chaotic as hell, kinda like that underground Harley Quinn mission with that punk rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca.” That, so far, has been the most memorable part of the whole game.
While the Steam Deck, Valve’s souped-up mini PC, offers a wealth of gaming experiences in a portable format, the lack of a kickstand has been a sore spot. Enter the Deckmate: A simple, plastic bracket that lets you attach not just a very handy kickstand, but also several other specialized mounting solutions to the back of the Deck.
The Deckmate is the brainchild of product design engineer Siri Ramos. Ramos has described how the Steam Deck community’s enthusiasm and support has helped them grow what was once a fun personal project into a fully featured product. To be sure, the community’s love for small maker-style projects is evident just from scrolling through r/SteamDeck. The Deckmate evolved from a series of prototypes and early 3D-printed parts to a professional-feeling final product. Now having used it for a few weeks, it feels like a very natural extension of my Deck, one with a few surprises of its own.
At the center of the Deckmate “system,” as the creator calls it, is the “grip,” a simple plastic claw that, well, grips the back of the mini-PC like a headcrab on a poor zombie. And like that headcrab, this is a pretty seamless attachment, one that doesn’t interfere with the system’s stock protective case. The grip can also hold two spare SD cards, and like a headcrab, is likely to want to stay where you put it. I’ve transferred it to another Steam Deck just once, and bending the plastic back to get it off feels like something I only want to do a handful of times at most.
The clips are visible on the top and bottom of the device when looking at it from the front, but the color and texture of the plastic blends in well with the Deck. I hardly notice it anymore, and don’t feel it with my hands when playing.
The “grip” bracket snaps on snugly and provides the attachment point for everything else.Photo: Kotaku
The grip bracket itself doesn’t do much. Instead, it allows for a variety of “mounts” to slot into the back of the device. These lock into place with a pair of springs. Available mounts include that remarkably handy kickstand, “pucks” with adhesives to fasten a battery or USB-C hub, wall mounts, and even a 75mm VESA mount like you see on the backs of PC monitors.
While I used one of my pucks for a handy USB-C hub that allowed me to plug in a variety of USB devices along with an ethernet cable to speed up downloads, the kickstand felt most essential to me.
You might not think much of a kickstand; it’s a very basic device and concept. But given the size and weight of the Steam Deck, being able to attach one to the back has been sort of like growing a third arm, especially when playing on a couch or bed.
This dawned on me when I decided to fire up Spider-Man: Remastered one night. Laying in bed, with the kickstand in place, I could just rest the device in front of me to watch the opening cutscene, then pick it up when I was ready to start swinging around Manhattan island. That may not seem so revelatory if you haven’t put in too many hours on a Deck, so let me give some context.
The Deckmate is compatible with the sun, though I am not.Photo: Kotaku
The Steam Deck is about as heavy as it looks. It’s a big device! And playing for extended periods of time, at least for me, kinda makes my hands get prickly and then, numb. Being able to set it down with the screen still facing me and give my hands a break during non-interactive cutscenes has allowed me to spend more time gaming. The kickstand also has a nice amount of adjustment. It can move a full 120 degrees, and it never feels like that notoriously flimsy piece of junk attached to the Nintendo Switch, which always seemed to threaten to snap right off. The Deckmate kickstand is also ideal for setting the unit down on a desk and connecting a keyboard.
Read More: Yes, You Can Use The Steam Deck As A Computer (Here’s How)
One unexpected benefit involves the Deck’s high heat output. Being able to prop it up with the exhaust fan pointing in a more vertical direction feels like a better way to set the device down while it’s downloading something or playing a graphically intensive cutscene. If Reddit’s to be believed, there may also be aromatherapeuticbenefits to enjoy.
Another surprising use of the kickstand was that, while laying in bed or on a couch, I could sort of use it like a monopole, letting it support more of the weight of the device. As a result, my hands weren’t doing the work of both playing the device and holding it. Overall, the Deckmate with the kickstand accessory has just made the Deck a more cozy machine for me.
Though I found the kickstand to be the star of the show, others might find more utility in mounting extra accessories onto the adhesive pucks. As the Deckmate’s site warns, the adhesive used on these pucks is virtually permanent. So if you want to adhere a big battery pack or USB hub or whatever, be aware that you’re creating a pretty permanent bond between the puck attachment and the accessory. They’re going to be friends for life.
I’ve got a lot going on back there now.Photo: Kotaku
A few other caveats exist. If you have some kind of smartphone-style case wrapped around your Deck, thereby increasing its thickness, the base grip bracket probably won’t fit around it. Fortunately, a Deckmate adapter that sports the same 3M adhesive as the pucks offers an alternate means by which to fasten the grip to the back of a third-party case. It may be impossible to resolve conflicts with certain docks, though. While the Deckmate’s FAQ seems very optimistic about it fitting into something like a JSAUX dock, I found the grip bracket was just a bit too big and made it unstable when sitting in my dock.
You can also only use one mount at a time, so if you want to both use the kickstand and charge the device with an external battery, you’ll have to choose which is getting attached to the device. Granted, if you’re using the kickstand, you probably have a flat surface to rest that battery down anyway.
The Steam Deck, with the grip attached, sits next to various Deckmate attachments (the right-most puck is adhered to a generic USB-C hub).Photo: Kotaku
Critically, if you’re using a USB-C hub, you should pay careful attention to cable length, especially when making the final decision to adhere a puck to the hub. In my case, I suspect I adhered the puck a little too low on my hub, and as a result, the USB-C cable has a bit too much tension when reaching all the way up to my Deck’s single USB-C port. I’m likely going to try and reposition this, but given that the adhesive is a one-time use thing, I’m probably going to have to get creative. Moral of the story: Measure your cable lengths and make use of right-angle adapters where it makes sense.
Once detached, the kickstand and any puck-equipped devices will easily fit in the storage case the Deck comes with. You can just tuck it into that compartment on the underside that many a Steam Deck user has foundcreative uses for. That said, if your accessory needs extend to a gamepad, keyboard, and yet other other peripherals, you’ll need a larger bag. For those times you want to travel light, you can just detach the Deckmate mounts and leave the hardly noticeable “grip” bracket.
Deckmate parts fit snugly in the underside compartment of the Steam Deck’s stock case.Photo: Kotaku
If you just want to get the kickstand, you’ll need the grip bracket, which runs for $20, and then the kickstand mount itself for an extra $15. Individual pucks are $7 each. You can also opt to buy the “Entire System,” which includes the grip, two pucks, the VESA mount, a wall mount, and the case-agnostic adapter for $49. While you can certainly find cheaper kickstand options on Amazon and elsewhere, the Deckmate system feels sturdy and reliable. Sitting the Deck down with the Deckmate kickstand, it never feels like it’s going to topple over (as long as the angle is set right). Its size and build quality feel like a good match for the Deck itself.
You can also go the DIY route by downloading the Deckmate’s digital files and print them yourself. I imagine it will take some trial and error, but the files are free and distributed, as all things should be, under a Creative Commons license.
Overall, the Deckmate, particularly with its kickstand, is a great Steam Deck accessory that expands where (and how) I can play games on it. It’s high quality, looks good, and meshes nicely with the DIY spirit of the device. With any luck we’ll see more unique, quality projects of this sort as the Deck settles into the wider landscape of gaming hardware.
The best video games are imaginary. Often they exist completely in our heads, or in the dreamy space between their initial announcement and what we finally end up playing. This is where “Arkham World” exists. Born from a 2011 Video Game Awards gag, the completely fictitious entry in the massively popular Batman Arkham series is now all some fans can talk about.
Earlier this month, posts about a supposed Arkham World began taking over the Batman Arkham subreddit. Despite being dedicated to an aging single-player series, this particular internet watering hole remains surprisingly active. It has over 150,000 members, with hundreds or more active at any given time. “This subreddit is dedicated to the discussion of all Batman Arkham Lore,” reads the subscription. “Including the Rocksteady Trilogy, Arkham Origins and all tie-in games and comics, including the Newest Edition Arkham World.”
Arkham World isn’t real, but that didn’t stop the subreddit from celebrating the one-year anniversary of its launch on August 2. “I loved the open world in this game the most because it was a literal world,” Reddit user FrozeninIce248 wrote. “A world full of criminals and insane people and the updated gameplay from Arkham Knight makes this game the best superhero game of all time.”
Dozens of other commenters responded with their own critical takes, sharing their favorite moments and biggest surprises. “Dude I am currently high at a Rob zombie concert and I’m 90% sure that this game isn’t real and I’m scared to know if it is,” read one comment buried deep among the critical praise.
The one-year anniversary was just the start of Arkham World’s weeks-long tribute. The lore around it has since expanded to include a special mission where you play as Alfred, a crossover with Spider-Man, and even a Darth Vader boss fight. Players from the Spider-Man community have even joined in, treating the crossover as canon. Reddit is full of shitposting, but it’s still rare to see fans rally so aggressively around a bit and maintain it for weeks. So why go to all the trouble to manifest a game that never existed?
FrozeninIce248 told Kotaku in a Reddit chat that they stole the idea from the Titanfall community, where pretending that Titanfall 3 already exists is an ongoing part of the subculture. The name Arkham World, meanwhile, was an obvious choice since it was a codename teased by The Joker in a cutscene created by Rocksteady for him to claim the best character award at the 2011 VGAs. The eventual game that was released was Arkham Knight, leaving “Arkham World” free to fill the void in players’ imagination when they had no actual Batman game to look forward to in the near future.
In the forthcoming game Gotham Knights, made by Warner Bros. Montreal, the studio behind Arkham Origins, Batman is already dead. It’s also not technically part of the Arkham-verse. Rocksteady’s next project, Suicide Squad, is set in the same world as the Arkham games, but Batman hasn’t been revealed to be part of it, and it’s a shooter rather than a stealth brawler.
“Suicide Squad is set in the same universe but is not centered around Batman at all, we don’t even know if he’s going to appear at all,” Reddit user BigSexy17 told Kotaku. “r/ArkhamGames and Arkham Fans in General gravitated towards the series because of Batman, Batman fans all around the world praise and worship these games as the true Batman Experience.”
Now unleashed, Arkham World has taken on a life of its own. “You have this entire group of people claiming that we’re all talking about a game that ‘doesn’t exist,’” Unhappyworker77 said.
Reddit user LukeDBZ2 compared it to the fascination with the Morbius meme “it’s Morbin’ time” from earlier this summer. It was dumb, wonderful, and became so popular it may or may not have convinced Sony to set millions of dollars on fire bringing Morbius back to theaters so it could bomb a second time. “Morbius never said ‘it’s Morbin’ time’ and there is not a sequel to Arkham Knight…or is there?” they said. “One thing is confirmed tho, after years of no new content, the sub has became the Arkham Asylum itself.”
There’s also precedent for Arkham World in other fandoms. When Elden Ring went years during development with no new details, some fans feared the worst. As with Titanfall, The Elden Ring subreddit at one point started pretending the game had already been released, making up famous boss battles and more. “It exists because the fans starve [for] content and enjoyed the time when they anticipated the release of the next Arkham title,” TheXpender told Kotaku.
The shitposting is still going, and even resulted in some Reddit users trying to spin Arkham World off into its own subreddit. Some fans want to offload the memes there. “If we are going to flood the sub with more Arkham World and less actual posts about the real games, then it should all be moved to its own sub r/Arkhamworld,” wrote Fanboyxxx. “We do need to take a step back and think about what we are doing, and honestly, if it’s clever and amusing it’s good with me, just leave it on its own sub now.”
But that doesn’t seem likely. Arkham World was birthed on r/BatmanArkham and that’s where it will likely stay. At least until Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad, or an actual Batman Arkham sequel launches. “Arkham World means the world to me,” Redditor Nadongus told Kotaku. “Nothing brings a community together quite like a collective fever dream fueled by incoherent shitposts. I’m out here having the time of my life.”
Two months ago, Sony reimagined PS Plus, its longtime membership program for PlayStation owners. Now, it looks a whole lot like Microsoft’s Game Pass: For roughly the same amount of money, both offer access to a Netflix-style games-on-demand library. Obviously, we had to stack the two services up against each other.
Price
Game Pass is available as a subscription for console, PC, or both. The two separated tiers cost $10 a month. Xbox Live Ultimate, which joins the two and provides access to the EA Play Library (a similar games-on-demand service) and Xbox Live Gold, costs $15 a month. There is no way to pay for multiple months or a year up front at a tiered markdown (at least officially).
PS Plus is also available for a subscription, but it gets very complicated very fast. There are two new tiers. The Extra is $15 a month, or $100 for the year, and offers free monthly games, online play, and a catalog of on-demand games including some of Ubisoft’s library. Premium is $18 a month, or $120 a year, and adds access to classic games, game trials, and cloud streaming for most of the games in the library. That’s a huge price difference, and while PS Plus Premium is more expensive month-to-month, it’s actually almost 50 percent cheaper if you commit to the whole year.
Winner: PS Plus
Streaming
Game Pass allows for cloud-streaming, provided you pay for the pricier Ultimate tier. The streaming functionality is technically still “in beta,” but it is for all intents and purposes up and running. Microsoft recommends internet speeds of at least 10mbps for mobile devices and 20mbps for consoles and PCs. Based on Kotaku’s testing, it’s…fine? Despite cloud gaming’s huge advancements recently, streaming still can’t compete with downloaded games. The latency, however minor, is unignorable. As such, cloud gaming is best used for puzzlers, chill RPGs, light platformers, and other games that don’t demand split-second reflexes.
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Microsoft says “more than 100” games are currently streamable via cloud gaming on Xbox Game Pass, but more games are added every few weeks. Right now, the Game Pass library currently lists 381 games as capable of streaming.
Stray.Screenshot: Annapurna / Kotaku
To unlock streaming on PS Plus you need to buy the $18 a month tier. And even then, the streaming quality is nothing to write home about. At best, it’s as good as Xbox Cloud Gaming. Sometimes it’s worse. Roughly 320 games from the Premium library can be streamed on console or PC, and a good chunk of those are PS3 games and classics rather than the full PlayStation 4 library. For example, Marvel’s Avengers and Stray are available on console but not in the streaming library.
Most notably, you can’t stream PS Plus games to your phone. For now, the service relies on Remote Play, meaning you need a console to play on mobile and you must be on the same WiFi network.
Winner: Game Pass
Game Library
Of course, a games-on-demand service is only as good as the one thing it’s supposed to provide: games.
Right now, the Xbox Game Pass library has about 475 games, but that tally comprises the library across both tiers, including the 92 games currently part of EA Play. The main draw, of course, is that Microsoft puts its entire first-party portfolio on the platform. That also includes the major tent poles—like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5, alongside forthcoming blockbusters like Starfield and Redfall—which become available the day they came out. Third-party games tend to stick around for a year at most, though some, like Rockstar’s open-world Hold ‘Em simulator Red Dead Redemption 2, become unavailable after a matter of months. It’s unpredictable.
Halo Infinite.Screenshot: 343 Industries
The library also regularly cycles in third-party games and often serves as a launch pad for indie gems. This year alone, the twee Zelda-like Tunic, the snowboarding sim Shredders, and the puzzler-cum-dungeon-crawler Loot River all launched on Game Pass. (Here’s Kotaku’s list of the best under-the-radar games currently available.) Developers have acknowledged to Kotaku that debuting on Game Pass cuts into initial sales but is ultimately worth it for the tradeoff in publicity.
PS Plus Extra currently includes around 430 PS4 and PS5 games, while Premium adds another 395 from PS1, PS2, PS3 (streaming only), and PSP. While the classics are a nice bonus, the biggest draw by far are the PlayStation exclusives like Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Bloodborne. Unlike Microsoft, Sony has committed to not putting its newest releases on the service day-and-date, and if Returnal arriving a year after release is any indication, it seems like a good bet that players will have to wait at least a year to 18 months before newer stuff appears.
There are plenty of strong contenders in the third-party department though. Games like Final Fantasy VII Remake, Prey, Control, Doom, and Tetris Effect are all present, as are indies like Celeste, Outer Wilds, Dead Cells, and Virginia. The library has plenty of diversity and was bolstered most recently from the same-day addition of Stray, which is already a 2022 GOTY contender. The Ubisoft component, led by Assassin’s Creed Valhalla is also a strong compliment. At the same time, Sony hasn’t yet demonstrated it is, or will be, as aggressive as Microsoft in courting a steady stream of third party day-and-date additions. There’s also no PC-exclusive portion of the library.
Winner: PS Plus
Ari: Going into this exercise, I totally imagined it’d paint a clear picture of Game Pass superiority, but these two services seem fundamentally identical to me—right down to the UI—with Sony’s new version of PS Plus marginally better in the few aspects that matter. The prices are mostly the same, but the option to pay for a year of PS Plus at a “discount” edges out Game Pass in that regard. Sure, Game Pass’ big draw is that it puts Microsoft’s first-party games on the service at launch, but…Microsoft barely has any first-party games out this year! Right now, that perk seems like little more than a marketing line.
Ethan: I also thought Game Pass would be the clear winner coming out of this, but now I’m conflicted as well. Not everyone can afford to pay for a full year up front, but it really changes the calculus in this matchup. There are some other key differences as well, and while I don’t think they make one a clear winner over the other, I do think it makes it easier to decide which you want to pay for. Want immediate access to a meaty back catalog of some of the biggest and best games from the last generation? PS Plus wins. Want to stay current on some of the best new games coming out every month and play them at any time on your phone? Then it’s Game Pass all the way.
Sony and Marvel’s Morbiushas become an internet meme over the last few weeks, and for the most part, they’re hilarious. Seeing this, Sony came to the conclusion of re-releasing the Jared Leto film this weekend in the hopes that all the internet goofs would translate to a bigger box office haul. And if you were among those wondering if the joke had gone too far and we’d irony’d ourselves into a Morbius 2, somehow, let this serve as good news to allay your fears.
To be quite blunt about it: the movie bombed hard on its first day back at the cinemas. According to Forbes’ Scott Mendelson, Morbius’ Friday returns only came to a meager $85,000, leading to an overall $73.6 million domestic take home. Saturday’s earnings have yet to be revealed at time of writing, but the odds aren’t exactly in its favor. All those jokes were merely about the idea of Morbius rather than the film itself, something that Sony learned the hard way. Their attempt to get in on the joke didn’t just backfire, it exploded in such a way that even Michael Bay found himself impressed by the sheer, stupid spectacle of it all.
The thing about Morbius and its rise to a meme is that it all took off because no one had much faith in the film to begin with. We’re all actively aware that Sony’s basically throwing darts at a wall to figure out what people want to see with Spider-Man’s supporting cast, a roster that’s basically kneecapped from the jump because they inevitably have to brush shoulders or acknowledge the teenage webhead in question. Tom Hardy’s Venom movies have enough going on to make you temporarily forget he could ever try to devour Tom Holland’s Spidey, but that’s only because the comics have spent years giving the character his own weird, gooey mythology in the hopes of giving future films enough material to avoid having to strike a deal with Holland’s agent. Meanwhile, other characters such as Morbius, Kraven, and Madame Web have yet to be afforded a real, consistent opportunity to distance themselves from the amazing arachnid in the source material.
Yes, Sony lucked out extremely well with Venom and Miles Morales’ Spider-Versefilms, but both of those characters already had strong, built-in fanbases to begin with, to say nothing of what each of their respective films set out to accomplish. The Spider-Verse movies have a unique animation style and a genuine earnestness that puts just about all other superhero content to shame, and Venom has Tom Hardy talking to himself and getting beaten around by a passive aggressive goo monster. Morbius has neither, and it couldn’t even make the most of its lead actor being a musician. Say whatever you want about Venom, at least it managed to summon a cheesy song to play over the end titles that later winds up on you Spotify for longer than you’d care to admit.
RIP in Morbius, Morbius. You died as you lived, as a joke who realized too late that you yourself were the punchline.
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Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.