Final Fantasy, Twitch, and a new Avatar Game: Weekly Roundup
In a summer of tentpole franchise entries and video game blockbusters, it feels like the hits just keep coming.
This Thursday sees the release of the highly anticipated Final Fantasy XVI, coming to PS5 as a timed exclusive for at least six months. While reviews are not out yet, pre-reviews for XVI dropped some weeks ago and were largely positive. Critics have called Final Fantasy XVI a must-buy for PlayStation owners – with a few small quirks, of course. Apparently, the genre of the game has shifted from turn-based JRPG to hardcore action in the style of Devil May Cry or the recent God of War: Ragnarok. This is an interesting change of pace for gaming’s longest running RPG series, though not an unsurprising one. Final Fantasy XV was already dipping its toes in the water of action, so shirking the turn-based format may be a welcome shake-up of the established formula.
In much larger news, livestream platform Twitch may be gaining strong competition in the form of up-and-coming service Kick. Kick made Twitter headlines this past weekend for signing established streamer xQc to the platform for $100 million dollars, New York Times reporter Kellen Browning writes. Furthermore, Kick has also signed famous (if not infamous) streamer Amouranth to the platform as well for a similar deal, cementing already impressive talent to the burgeoning service. If this sort of headhunting keeps up from Kick, Twitch could be facing serious competition in a market that they’ve been champions of for years.
With the advent of Battle Royales like Fortnite or PUBG, and the shut-in, binge-welcoming nature of the pandemic, Twitch became kings of streaming content in the gaming space. The highest value streamers make millions of dollars gaming, creating lifestyle content, or, in the stranger of cases, sitting in a kiddie pool doing ASMR. However the sausage gets made, there’s no doubt Twitch has been rolling in the dough for years now. Whether Kick’s impressive coverage and poached talent will have anything to say about that? Only time will tell.
Lastly, with the end of Summer Game Fest, Ubisoft’s showcase of their upcoming games held one crown jewel in particular that blew away the internet: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. While a game set in the world of Pandora has been a known entity for some time now, the fact that it’s a massive open-world game set to come out this December is a much more enticing offer. An impressive three minute trailer with smatterings of gameplay throughout only further cemented the blockbuster nature of the game. Whether it’s actually good will be anyone’s guess, but James Cameron took 13 years to release a sequel to the original Avatar, so its unlikely he’d allow Ubisoft to rush a half-baked product to market.
