Phew! It barely feels like seven days have passed since last time, but here we are again with another Weekly Digest – i…
Phew! It barely feels like seven days have passed since last time, but here we are again with another Weekly Digest – in which we recap some of the highlights you might have missed over this past week on Eurogamer. And what a busy one it’s been! Connor’s been over in Paris for Evo France, reporting from the long-running fighting tournament’s inaugural European event; Jim on the video team has been delving into the decade-long (and counting) development of the promising Elder Scrolls total conversion mod Skyblivion; Tom has had his hands all over the ROG Xbox Ally X, and we’ve had a load of reviews, from the surprisingly peppy Pokémon Legends: Z-A to Double Fine’s sublime Keeper. For this week’s full recap, read on!
What would a new week be without a fresh Big Question to ponder? And this time Eurogamer editor-in-chief Tom Orry donned his battle helmet to wade into the ever-waging war between the two major military shooters, Call of Duty and Battlefield. The latter’s off to a strong start – much to the undoubted relief of EA’s executive team following the disastrous Battlefield 2042 – while Black Ops 7’s recent closed multiplayer beta received a rather more mixed reception. And amid all this, Tom cheekily revived the eternal question: Call of Duty or Battlefield – or, perhaps, this time there’s a third contender looming? And then as ever, it was over to you.
« The shooter scene has felt stale for some time now », Tom opined, « with apathy rampant amongst its core playerbase. It’s been a while since something to the tune of PUBG, Fortnite or Apex Legends came along and properly shook up the genre, and extraction shooters, while popular, have never really made the step up from ‘big niche’ to ‘properly mainstream’. [But] Arc Raiders might be the one to do it. A fun twist to all this is that Escape from Tarkov, the biggest extraction shooter out there, is finally leaving its early access period next month too. »
Eurogamer’s Connor Makar this week cast his eye toward the recent Evo France fighting tournament, reporting on the new generation of talent making a name for themselves on the competitive fighting scene. 16-year-old Parisian player Neia, for instance, tore through the Tekken 8 bracket at Evo France, ultimately placing 17th out of 1,169 players – a notable achievement for her second-ever major tournament – while 15-year-old Chilean Ryu player Blaz took second place at Evo.
« Evo France was, among many other things, a battleground where young talent was able to strut its stuff on a global stage », Connor wrote. « It was a testament to not only the importance of offering opportunity to under-represented parts of the world, but also a reminder that the Bison player I’m losing to online isn’t necessarily a 35-year-old with kids and a mortgage. »
When you’ve been attempting to remake The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion in Skyrim for over a decade, probably the last thing you want to hear is that an official makeover is on the way too. But that’s the position the Skyblivion modding team found itself in earlier this year, when Bethesda unveiled Oblivion Remastered. Happily, both projects proved distinct enough that early panic soon dissipated, but you can get a glimpse of that emotional rollercoaster – and a deeper look at Skyblivion’s development – in the video team’s new mini-documentary.
« It may seem fanciful to think that a hobbyist project can rival or even surpass the scope and quality of an official release », Jim Trinca wrote in his introduction to the video, « but if Skyblivion pulls off what it is promising, then it will genuinely represent a much more comprehensive overhaul of Oblivion than the official Remaster, which is literally the original game with an Unreal 5 derived graphical overlay – a product of « engine blending ». Meaning it looks fresh and modern, but it is still the same game with all of the same foibles underneath. »
Nearly three decades on, Pokémon continues to be one of the most successful – and lucrative – franchises around. But it’s not without its detractors, particularly where its games are concerned. There’s been increasingly vocal criticism of the series’ tired foundations and technical shortcomings in recent years, so many were braced for disappointment when Pokémon Legends: Z-A was announced. But unexpectedly, this goofy, tightly focused sequel to 2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus serves as a promising proof-of-concept for future games. But, as Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell put it in his review, don’t call it a comeback just yet.
« Like the last three main series games before it », Chris wrote, « Z-A comes with hefty caveats. It gets repetitive after a while. It’s still visually limited, despite the huge improvements on the last pair. It’s still missing dungeons, deep mysteries, a sense of big challenge to build up to, prepare for and overcome. But then it has charm in spades, from that humour right through to its soundtrack (a smooth, jazzy, wistful, accordion-based treat). There’s even an homage to a dungeon that feels like a fantastic proof of concept for one day bringing them back in 3D. »
If Microsoft’s marketing bods are to be believed, pretty much everything is an Xbox these days.
