What are Yooka playing?
It’s time to check out everyone’s gaming plans as we dive into another edition What Are You Playing!
This week in the world of Nintendo, we got the announcement of a suspicious new Joy-Con charging stand, we finally found out who Emio is (he’s the start of the new Famicom Detective Club game, no less), Crocs and Pokémon teamed up on a new range of clogs and we checked out brand new updates for No Man’s Sky and Splatoon 3.
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A Nintendo sponsored event.
As part of the Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition Switch launch this week, Nintendo has announced it’s sponsoring a special competition featuring a bunch of Hololive VTubers.
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How about it, Capcom?
Industry legend Hideki Kamiya, who left his job at PlatinumGames last year, has recently mentioned how he’s still interested in making new entries in the Okami and Viewtiful Joe series, as both stories remain incomplete.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Model making is a great hobby, but knowing how and where to start is another story. It can be overwhelming for novices: Injection-molded plastic models have been on the market for close to a century, and there are kits of everything from military vehicles to sports cars and anime robots to household objects. Looking at some of the incredible creations of seasoned model builders, it might seem like you need an entire workshop of tools and equipment, the steady hands of a brain surgeon, and years of practice to make something cool-looking, but that’s not the case.
To make getting into this delightful pastime a whole lot less daunting, I’ve put together a list of kits that are worth checking out. Quite a few of these recommendations are based on my own firsthand experience. Up top are kits that don’t require glue, paint, or much else in the way of supplies, but keep scrolling for some recommendations if you’re ready to get your hands dirty and possibly stuck together. Head all the way to the bottom for essential tools and supplies you’ll need for model kits and where to buy these excellent LEGO alternatives.
For a very long time, model kits needed to be glued together and painted. Nowadays that’s not always the case. Most model companies offer entry-level kits that come pre-colored and can be easily snapped together. Keep in mind that some kits that advertise themselves as “for beginners” or “entry level” are so simplified it’s hard to count them as traditional model kits. However, plenty still offer a satisfying challenge without requiring any messy stuff like paint and glue. Case in point: Gundam! If you’re looking for a beginner route to model kits, and you think giant robots are cool, then either of the following two kits is a good start.
Gundam kits are classified by grade, the two most common being High Grade (HG), which are usually $15-30 and about 6 inches tall when complete, and Master Grade (MG), which’ll run you around $30-50 and are a couple of inches taller, but usually a lot more detailed and complex. There’s also Real Grade, which is somewhere between HG and MG; Entry Grade, which is for absolute beginners; and Perfect Grade, which is for advanced builders.
Gundam modeling (or Gunpla, short for “Gundam plastic models”) has become so massively popular, it warrants its own list of recommended kits. But for anyone who doesn’t care for big anime robots (Why not? Who hurt you?) I’ve rounded up a bunch of kits that take the same no-fuss appeal of Gundam kits applied to other properties and subject matter.
Bandai has given the Gundam treatment to a number of other beloved pop-culture properties, most notably Star Wars. A good number of characters and vehicles have been turned into pre-colored snap-together kits. Some lend themselves to this treatment better than others; some of the less colorful subjects may look a little bland without a bit of paint or finishing touches. A basic wash or some dry-brushing will really make the details pop on the more monochromatic Original Trilogy machines.
Boba Fett is nice and colorful and looks great without a drop of paint, which speaks to the character’s inherently kitbashed aesthetic. The Stormtroopers looked a little too plain out of the box, so my esteemed colleague Brian Altano and I personalized them a bit:
If full-color injection-molded action figure model kits work for giant anime robots, why not anime people as well? Bandai’s Figure-Rise line has tackled Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Digimon, and even some of the human characters from Gundam.
Currently sitting at the top of my pile of shame is Kotobukiya’s 1:100 scale Metal Gear Rex. Part of my procrastination is because it’s a big beautiful model kit and I don’t want to mess it up, but also because I built the Metal Gear Sahelanthropus, which was an extremely frustrating build. This may have been because I got it partially from a friend and picked up where he left off, but I think the more intricate and top-heavy design of the Sahelanthropus doesn’t lend itself as well to a physical kit. From what I’ve read, Rex’s more squat form makes for a more straightforward build. Unsurprisingly, a mech designed for a PlayStation 1 game has less proverbial moving parts than one designed for the PS4.
Good Smile Company’s Moderoid line of kits come pre-painted, which is great if you just want to put something together and display it, but they’re also on the pricier side.
Like a lot of Bandai kits, these dinosaur skeletons snap together and are molded in all the right colors. However, since they’re a bunch of bones, they’re monochrome. That said, for anyone who doesn’t have much confidence in their painting abilities, but still wants to paint something, this might be for you. I tried out a bunch of weathering techniques on mine to make it look appropriately prehistoric, and then made a custom base.
Not quite the weirdest model kit I’ve built (that honor goes to a 1:24 scale urinating dog), but it’s definitely up there. This is basically a Gundam, but it’s soup. It’s completely snap together, though surprisingly, deceptively complex in how it’s assembled. The finished product, without a drop of paint, is impressively hard to differentiate from the real thing, which is funny but also raises some concerns about how closely instant ramen noodles resemble polystyrene.
As the name suggests, Aoshima’s The Snap Kit series of model cars are a *snap* to put together, literally and figuratively. Much like Gundam kits, no glue is required and the majority of the pieces come molded in the correct colors. (Stickers are included for the ones that aren’t.) They’re a great option for anyone who’s looking for a quick project that doesn’t require a lot of tools or materials. Without paint, the end result might look a bit more like a toy than a proper replica, but painting is still an option. If that’s the part of the hobby that appeals to you, these’ll get you off to the proverbial races faster.
I turned The Snapkit’s 2000GT-R Skyline into a beat-up junker, and kitbashed the Prius into a heavy metal post-apocalyptic monster truck. A “Judas Prius,” if you will. That one’s a work in progress; it looks too Halo, not Mad Max enough.
The beauty of tanks, aside from being a cross between a cannon and a bulldozer, is how forgiving they are of a messy paint job. The real, full-size ones are frequently painted just one color, but get caked with dirt, mud, grease and grime, which is immensely gratifying to recreate in miniature with dry brushing, washes, and pigments. If you screw up during constructing, just call it battle damage! Tamiya makes some excellent armor kits, along with just about any other type of military hardware and/or accoutrement you could ask for, including but not limited to 1:35 scale farm animals.
The scale of models can be a little confusing, but it’s just fractions. A 1:1 scale model is life size, 1:2 scale is 50% the size of the real thing, and so on. However, different subject matter is suited best to certain scales. Cars are usually 1:/24 or 1:32, and the standard for military ground vehicles, like tanks and trucks and infantry, is generally 1:35. Larger aircraft models are 1:48, but 1:72 isn’t uncommon, and when you get into larger naval vehicles it gets even more fractional. There’s plenty of overlap, so if you want a little truck to go next to your 1:48 helicopter, it probably exists somewhere out there. The scale of railroad models is the gauge of the miniature train tracks being used, which I’m not even going to go into here. The point is: You can get a big Harrier jet or little Harrier Jet, or you can buy two big ones and pretend it’s a mommy and a daddy and a baby jet.
I am admittedly not much of a car guy. My dad, on the other hand, is very much the opposite. As a Father’s Day gift one year, I tracked down Hasegawa’s 1:24 BMW 2002 Tii kit, and painted it to look like a real car he’s been tinkering with and repeatedly repairing for the last few decades. He loved the gift and I had a great time putting it together. The amount of detail and tiny parts in a kit like this might be overwhelming for a novice modeler, but it’ll certainly keep you busy.
Two companies called Revell make model kits: Revell USA and Revell of Germany. The general consensus among the model building community is that the ones from Germany are excellent and the American Revell kits leave a lot to be desired. I’ve only built the American ones, and I wasn’t impressed.
What’s your dream car? A Lamborghini? What about a kebab truck? Aoshima makes a range of great vehicles, from luxury supercars to civilian automobiles to a surprisingly broad selection of funny little food trucks.
This is a great little set of tools to get started. If you get serious, it’s worth investing in a nice pair of hobby shears, side-cutters or “nippers” for cutting the individual parts off the runners. The cleaner the cut, the less trimming, filing and sanding needed during assembly. I have a pair of Tamiya side-cutters that I swear by, but the God-tier option in this department is the “God Hand” line (not to be confused with the PlayStation 2 game IGN gave a controversially bad score to a million years ago).
A sturdy cutting mat is helpful for not ruining your dining room table and getting yelled at, and also for easily moving your entire project away from the dining room table because you have company coming over and you don’t want people to see the funny little things you make in your spare time.
Model cement is different from regular glue in that it’s actually a solvent that slightly melts the plastic where applied, letting you fuse parts together. This makes it effectively useless on other materials, but for plastic kits, it’s my favorite. A tiny brush is built into the lid, so you just hold two pieces of your model together and apply a drop where they touch. The cement is so thin it’ll usually flow into the crack on its own.
Without venturing into the messy, expensive, and frequently frustrating world of airbrush operation and maintenance, my preferred method of painting models is with a combination of “rattle cans” and water-based acrylics. Primer is key because it gives the surface a finish that paint will adhere to more easily than bare plastic. It’s possible to use regular spray paint from a hardware store, but it comes out thicker and can very easily ruin any fine details. Cans of hobby spray paint produce a fine mist, which is much easier to apply carefully.
Mr. Hobby’s Mr. Surfacer is an excellent primer that will even out the appearance of a kit prior to painting, covering up imperfections in the plastic while also providing a nice matte finish that paint will stick to really well.
Unlike lacquers or enamels, water-based acrylic paint doesn’t need any special thinners or solvents when it comes to mixing or cleanup. Vallejo’s Model Color line comes in every shade imaginable, and the dropper bottles make it easier to avoid spills.
Tamiya has a whole rainbow of hobby-grade spray lacquer, which is a great alternative to hand-painting large areas and worrying about brushstrokes. If the model is mostly one color, laying down a base coat and then doing the details by hand is a good system. It’s unlikely you’ll use an entire can of paint on one kit, so if you grab a color or two per kit, over time you’ll likely collect a nice variety.
Like any good hobby, model making is basically a bottomless pit of enjoyably wasted time (that’s not actually wasted if you enjoyed yourself). No matter how good you are at it, you’ll inevitably come across someone who’s so much better than you it makes you want to give up entirely. On the bright side, a lot of experts share their work online along with handy tips and tutorials for any skill level. On YouTube, a few accounts you may want to check out are SpruesNBrews, NightShift, and Jun’s Mini Garage. If you are looking for some inspiration for dioramas, or just to see some ridiculously cool stuff getting made, Laser Creation-World and Minibricks both put up some great work. Happy modeling!
Max Scoville is a senior writer, host and producer for IGN covering video games, movies, toys and collectibles. He has 15 years of experience in pop-culture media, previously writing for and/or appearing on Current TV, Destructoid, Revision3 and StarWars.com. He has been involved with several podcasts, including The Comedy Button, Weird Heat, Podtoid and you can currently find him hosting IGN’s weekly PlayStation show, Beyond.
His favorite video games/series include Metal Gear Solid, Yakuza, Bloodborne and Secret of Evermore. Some of his all-time favorite movies are Akira, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Royal Tenenbaums, Boogie Nights and My Neighbor Totoro. When he’s not looking at a screen for some reason, he loves to read, paint cartoon monsters and build model kits and miniature dioramas, but most of his free time these days is spent with his kid or being tired.
Bethesda Game Studios is officially the first Microsoft game developer to full unionize under the Communication Workers of America (CWA), forming a “wall-to-wall” union of developers including artists, engineers, programmers and designers. Microsoft has recognized the union.
The union was confirmed after 241 developers either signed a union authorization card or indicated that they wanted unionization via an online portal. It follows Bethesda Games Studios Montreal’s unionization in late June and the unionization of roughly 300 quality assurance workers within Zenimax, which is Bethesda’s parent company.
“We, a majority of developers at Bethesda Game Studios Dallas, Rockville, and Austin, are ecstatic to announce the formation of our union with @CWAUnion,” the group wrote on X/Twitter. “Together as #OneBGSUSA, we advocate for the betterment of every developer at BGS, setting the new standard for our industry.”
The new union will now negotiate a contract with Microsoft. IGN has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
“We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry,” senior system designer Mandi Parker said in a statement via press release. “It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job. We’re thrilled to get down to brass tacks and win a fair contract, proving that our unity is a source of real power to positively shape our working conditions, our lives, and the company as a whole.”
Unionization is a growing trend within the games industry as workers seek protection against mass layoffs. Sega of America’s union ratified a contract earlier this year, with Activision’s QA workers announcing a union of their own. Microsoft has previously said it would not block a potential Activision Blizzard union, which seemingly extends to Bethesda Game Studios as well.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
Overwatch 2’s 41st hero, Juno, is playable this weekend for a limited time, and fans have already unearthed a surprising bit of lore about the purple-haired space cadet healer and Mei.
Overwatch is filled with voice lines that flesh out lore from its myriad of maps as well as relationships between heroes and villains. It’s just not every character’s death throw voice line would reveal a possible familial tie. Apparently, eliminating Mei as Juno triggers a voice-over exchange in which the Martian hero says, “Sorry, Auntie!” in response to Mei’s dying gasp.
This tidbit of gameplay lore is significant not only in that it might confirm the hero shooter’s fourth familial tie among its heroes, but it also seems to debunk a key fan theory about Juno’s identity.
AUNTIE?! pic.twitter.com/LYlwwoVNCu
— Hazelet (@HazeletOW) July 19, 2024
Late last year, a r/Overwatch thread theorized that Juno—then known as Space Ranger—was a woman named Jiayi. According to the thread’s original poster, Mei had a new voice line that would trigger while at Lijiang Control Center, where she would reminisce over a friend named Jiaya, who she went to grad school with.
Seeing as how this voice line cropped up a month prior to Juno’s reveal at Blizzcon 2023, fans quickly began theorizing that Jiayi was the government name for Juno. At the time, the theory seemed solid, considering Lijiang is the location of Overwatch 2’s in-universe Chinese space station, and Juno’s whole gimmick is that she’s an astronaut hailing from Mars.
This theory took on new life a day before Juno’s limited-time release when X/Twitter user Pampurins posited that Jiayi could actually be the name of Juno’s mother. Pampurin’s revised theory sounds like it’s right on the money thanks to the newly discovered voice line interaction.
JUNO ELIM LINE ON MEI!
“(gasp) Sorry Auntie!” pic.twitter.com/UQz6656LiU
— Shroomiiee (@mushroomiiee) July 19, 2024
While the voice line appears to be considered hard proof that the two are aunt and niece, there’s also a high probability that it is also just a term of endearment, seeing as how the word aunt is commonly used to address older women. IGN has reached out to Blizzard for comment. Regardless, players will likely get an earful of the special voice line interaction during Juno’s weekend of play before her full release comes Season 12 on August 20.
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
60 drivers. Three rounds. One champion. Math was never my strong suit at school, but I think that calculates into a whole lot of fun… On behalf of Sumo Leamington, I’m excited to let you know that Stampede: Racing Royale (Game Preview) is available now on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC via Xbox Game Preview. Let’s pop the hood and let me show you what our free-to-play kart racing game is all about.
Our game is best described as the bright, fun, and exhilarating action of kart racing games, combined with the tension and competitive thrill of battle royales, sprinkled with some stardust, and you get the wildest racing event in existence: Stampede: Racing Royale! Completely free to play, you can take on the world in races, battles, and more as a whopping 60 drivers compete to be champion.
Unique for our game, as mentioned above, is that 60 karts will begin a Stampede event on track — at the same time. That’s far more than your usual racer, and no easy feat for our team to achieve. Behind the scenes in Stampede: Racing Royale, a plethora of networking know-how and coding wizardry is taking place to make the concept of 60-player racing even possible, let alone enjoyable. Accommodating the possibilities and requirements of every kart in a coherent way was one of the very first challenges we overcame in development, beginning almost three years ago.
With the background brilliance in place, it then falls on front-facing content designers to build a fun experience with 60 karts on track. A key consideration is not just the karts themselves, but the maps they race on. Every track and arena we create for Stampede is built with 60 drivers in mind, so aspects like track width, verticality, multiple routes, and more are implemented to ensure there’s the necessary space for exciting gameplay.
As for the behaviour of the karts, that’s been a process of improvement not just with our team, but with our ever-growing community. Feedback and data from players over the past 12 months have helped us understand how to find that balance of control and chaos, or speed and skill, and make our 60-player racing feel balanced and rewarding. After some early tests, we picked up feedback from players saying the start of a race could be overly chaotic and unpredictable, with every kart in a small space. So, we’ve since made karts intangible, just for the opening few seconds, to give you a moment to settle into the action.
We’ve had a blast developing Stampede in plain sight, and earlier this year we invited Xbox fans to take a work-in-progress version of the game for a spin in the Xbox Insider Program, where we gathered super useful insights. To show our thanks to Xbox Insiders, you’ll receive an exclusive customisation item (keep an eye on your Inbox for the reward)!
The collaboration with our community is just beginning. Launching into Xbox Game Preview is our “Season 0” for Stampede: Racing Royale and we’ll be serving up a seriously big slice of content, numerous ways to play, and lots of stuff to discover. And while we’ll be having fun right along side you in Season 0, listening and acting on your feedback to shape future updates. You can chat with our team on our official Discord server, and have your say via surveys, which we’ll roll out each Season.
Also, for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members, you can grab a Starter Pack via Game Pass Perks! This includes an exclusive kart skin in a familiar shade of green, an avatar that throws back to previous Xbox generations, and Coins to use in-game. Head to your usual destination for Game Pass Perks and you’ll find the pack there.
So, pull on your flashiest race suit, get those cheese wheels rolling (yep, that’s a thing), and see you on the start line in Stampede: Racing Royale (Game Preview)!
Secret Mode
Welcome to Stampede: Racing Royale – the wildest racing event in existence. Step on the gas in thrilling kart racing and battle events, with 60 participants all competing simultaneously. Harness your skills and a huge range of power-ups to steer your way to the front of the herd across in classic circuit racing, or fight the crowd head-on to score the most points in arena-based battles.
RACING ROYALE
Stampede: Racing Royale pits 60 players against one another across three-round eliminator events, culminating in a high-stakes finale to crown the winner. Rounds include Stampede Races, which offer classic karting action on outrageously inventive circuits against up to 59 other opponents, and Stampede Battles, where competitors are locked in power-up laden arenas to fight their way to victory.
COLLECT & CUSTOMISE
Keep racing to unlock new vehicles and endless customisation options. Find your favourite kart and make it your own with custom paints and stickers. Dress your character in the finest threads to make sure you and your wheels really stand apart from the herd.
LIVE 24/7
There’s always something to be part of in the world of Stampede. Seasons, Events, Challenges, and much more mean the ways you can race are constantly changing, with new rewards always up for grabs.
RACE WITH FRIENDS
Start or join a party to experience the chaotic action of Stampede: Racing Royale with friends and family.
The post Stampede: Racing Royale – How Sumo Digital Built a 60-Player Kart Racer appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Flyin’ high?
Bandai Namco’s Ace Combat 7 is finally out on Nintendo Switch, and by all accounts, it seems like it’s a pretty successful port. In our own review, we called it the “absolute pinnacle of the series” and the “most comprehensive portable experience”, awarding it a hefty score of 9/10. If you want to read more of our thoughts, check out the full review below.
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Hey y’all! This week the PlayStation Podcast crew sits down with Firewalk Studios Lead Gameplay Designer Claude Jerome and Lead Character Designer Jon Weisnewski to talk all things Concord. Plus, the team dives into their experiences with the Concord Early Access Beta and discusses Tekken’s 30th anniversary.
Stuff We Talked About
Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE
Brett Elston – Manager, Content Communications, SIE
O’Dell Harmon Jr. – Content Communications Specialist, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
Listen up chooms, Cyberpunk is back in analog form for a second run. I previously wrote about Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone, an excellent miniatures game where gangs of plastic figures meet in the streets to spill imaginary blood. The new hardware I’m shouting about is Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City. Yes, more gangs and more blood, but this time it’s a proper board game where factions vie for turf and street cred. It’s less about violence, although there is still some of that, and more about strategically spreading your forces to occupy territory, complete jobs, and establish dominance.
This new game comes from board game giant CMON Games, publisher of hit titles such as Zombicide (on our list of best board games for teens), Blood Rage, and Dune: War for Arrakis. While Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City appears shiny and new, its foundation is an iteration on the underrated 2017 title Godfather: Corleone’s Empire. While the biological tissue shares some DNA, the many additions and tweaks layered atop function as jacked-up cybernetics that give this bad-boy a whole new visage.
Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a very fast and sleek affair. On each player’s turn they perform up to two actions by moving a token on their playerboard from its state of ready to spent. These map directly to specific actions, so if you want to build another hideout on the map or upgrade your combat deck with new weapon tech, you need to spend the appropriate token. In addition to futzing around with infrastructure, you will mostly be activating your units and moving them about to secure territory. The three unit types all perform different functions and support alternate strategic paths. Solos push people out of important spaces and start fights. Techies purchase Edgerunner mercenaries to supplement your forces, as well as complete Opportunities–elicit jobs–for points. Lastly, Netrunners jack into the network which is a straightforward mini-game where moving down a track comes with risk and escalating rewards.
The juice in the action system is in when you decide to recall and reset your action discs. This effectively passes your turn, but it’s the primary way you exploit territory and recruit new figures. This step is necessary, however, as if you’ve already performed a particular action that you want to perform again–such as activating Solos or upgrading your combat deck–you will not be able to again until you reclaim your action tokens. The tempo control here is important, as players dictate the pace and aggression of play depending on how often they reset. It’s a fascinating strategic decision that pulls in several directions and offers various tactical considerations.
While anyone with even a minor amount of experience with strategy board games will readily understand this game’s processes, there is a somewhat tricky learning curve. This is due to the difficulty in parsing the unit types and their associated behavior. Each figure type is denoted by the shape of its base. This isn’t difficult, but it can be confusing to pair the unit types with the action discs and the connected Points of Interest on the map. These POIs are special sub-spaces within each district on the board. Gangs will control these positions with a figure, and they function as either a requirement to purchase an Edgerunner and complete an Opportunity, or they provide bonus resources when you netrun. This confounds new players as they struggle to keep these details straight. After a play or two these quirks will be internalized, but this idiosyncratic triangulation of symbology feels a little inelegant in an otherwise smooth design.
Everything else feels well polished. Most systems are simple yet unrestrained. Upgrading your combat cards for instance has you plucking two from the deck and choosing one to keep. When you add to your deck you remove an existing card, permanently keeping your hand of combat cards at four. This results in upgrades feeling potent as they cycle relatively quickly and see continual use.
Combat likewise is fast and brutal. Each player in the area selects one card secretly and then everyone reveals simultaneously. The player with the highest strength card wins the combat, with every other player forced to lose a figure from the area. More importantly, cards trigger scoring benefits, even for the losers. This combination of simple efficiency management with a brutal and uncaring edge is the design philosophy at large. The game, much like Night City itself, is unflinching and uncaring. A bad roll netrunning and your hackers short out and end up cold on the slab. A miscalculation in combat and you lose a key space. Combat itself is almost entirely dependent on your technology and not on the meatbags present in the space. It’s a hard world and you can’t afford to be soft.
Almost everything present is concise and not overwrought. While this is an advantage to keeping the pace of play lively even at a max player count, it’s a detriment when it comes to the fiction. It does feel as though you are commanding gangers and sowing some chaos, but the narrative threads are relatively thin. Those expecting an adventure comparable to the Cyberpunk 2077 video game will be disappointed.
The setting here mostly functions as graphic design and a background presence. Opportunities suffer the most, as these jobs of stealing contraband and performing sanctioned hits are described with vibrant titles and brief story snippets, but the fiction is irrelevant and everyone quickly learns to bypass those surface elements and just worry about the mechanical implications. It never feels as though you’re pulling off heists or wild contracts, rather, you’re just grabbing another card in a simple game of set collection.
To the design team’s credit, they sought to address this failing. One of the most interesting aspects of Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is the story system. These are narrative scenarios that lay atop the existing game, providing new rules and entire sub-systems to engage. Often, they provide additional ways to earn victory points or unique rewards. They also feature branching story elements, allowing the scenario to veer off in one of two directions.
The story system injects a much needed element of fiction into the game and frames the action around a prescribed narrative. Like the other mechanisms, they’re not intensely detailed, so you’re not reading lengthy paragraphs. Instead, cards offer a couple sentences of context. The achievement here is in how they connect surprise and drama into the mechanical framework of the game. This system is fantastic, marred perhaps slightly by the fact that they often present situations that randomly favor certain gangs. Each gang possesses an asymmetric ability which typically pushes them towards one or two strategic pathways in the game, and sometimes these story events can inhibit or outright neuter one of those pursuits. It can be frustrating, but the unpredictability of the narrative and how it influences the game is well worth the cost.
There is also a nagging concern that some may hop into this game and then become dissuaded when they realize there is a truckload of additional content, with the majority being exclusive to the previous crowdfunding campaign and unavailable at retail. The base game is substantial and a compelling strategy game that feels complete, but there’s no shaking the agony that afflicts some consumers when they realize they can’t get all of the extra expansions that were previously available.
Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City isn’t quite the augmented behemoth that several of CMON’s best titles are, but it is a very interesting game with several qualities that are stimulating. Its greatest assets will be teased out by those familiar with the intellectual property, but the sturdy mechanical foundation certainly doesn’t hurt. There is a solid chance this ends up as one of the publisher’s most underrated titles, not garnering the respect it deserves, and that would be a shame.
