April 16, 2023

By Dove Larson

More Star Wars Jedi: Survivor news. Is Disney taking Knights of the Old Republic into cannon? Crystal Dynamics pulls the plug on Marvel’s Avengers, Microsoft bullies itself into monopoly that no judge seems to understand.

It is obvious her at Two Hats and a Beard that I am a nerd, a dork, a bit of a poindexter at times. Clearly the love of Star Wars and Star Trek runs as deep as the love for video games. With less than two weeks away from release, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has premiered the final trailer for the game (trailer here).

There are hints that Cal, the main protagonist, will visit the planet of Coruscant. Fans of Star Wars should recognize the galactic capitol of the series. With the reports of the gigantic file size of the PC version, it could mean a lot deeper game than the Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which is one of this reviewers favorite Star Wars games. At the very least, the stunning visuals already displayed from the first game and the initial trailers, will make exploring a planet like Coruscant an absolute dream for Star Wars Fans.

More nerd news from the Star Wars Universe: Disney is looking into developing Knights of the Old Republic media. At this point, it is not clear how or when the KOTOR mythos will get some attention by Disney, but at the recent 2023 Star Wars Celebration, President of LucasFilm Studio showed the new direction of Star Wars and KOTOR was among the focus. The books and games have been cannon before, but were removed from cannon when Disney purchased LucasFilm Studio. The multiple games and books look at the forming of both the Jedi Order and the Brotherhood of Sith.

Marvel’s Avengers received the final update and support for the game is winding down at the end of September 2023. This game got a lot of hate early on, and a lot of that hate was rightly deserved due to the micro-transactional mechanics the multiplayer version of the game implemented.

The core game was a solid experience overall, and after a year of support, the online version added some quality content. But gamers abandoned Avengers early on when updates were only given every few months, and early online content was extremely repetitive. The eventual updates addressed those issues, but it was much too little and way too late. The game will still be playable on and offline following the end of support, but the game will be taken off the Xbox and Playstation digital stores at that point. If you are an Avengers fan, I would grab this game on discount before it is gone for good.

More news for the old time gamers, creators of Final Fantasy 16, Square Enix, has released 20 minutes of 4k play on YouTube. The gameplay controls look a lot like the reboot of Final Fantasy 7, but seems to have a bit more going on during combat. The actual gameplay looks crisp and what you would expect from Square Enix following the recent golden revival of FF7. The action looks intense and beautiful at the same time all of which will play at 4K for those lucky enough to have a setup that can utilize those settings. FF16 is set to release on June 22, 2023 on the PS5. (Trailer)

Finally, Microsoft continues to work towards pushing through the Activision deal. The European Commission flip-flopped rather quickly on their initial conclusion that the deal would hurt the gaming market and now feel like it would not negatively affect the market. US lawmakers and judges also do not see a problem with a mega-monoply forming in the gaming industry. Not surprising that in countries where companies can literally pay lawmakers on the books to do what they want, that a company as big as Microsoft gets exactly what they want.