Sometimes you have to “go where the work leads.”
IN THE NEWS
It’s 2017, and politicians are now using video games to reach voters. Sweden’s Rickard Nordin streams Hearthstone matches, and South Korean presidential candidate Moon Jae-in is using StarCraft maps to campaign.
Nordin, 33, fires up Hearthstone every Tuesday at 2 p.m. EST after meetings in Stockholm are over, reports Engadget’s David Lumb. He has been in office since 2011, and streams his matches on Twitch as a way to rally “his peers to embrace the financial and cultural benefits [of] eSports,” Lumb explains.
Moon Jae-in could be South Korea’s next president, after former President Park Geun-hye was impeached by the National Assembly. The election is May 9, and Moon Jae-in is hoping to reach voters with two free StarCraft maps, reports Engadget’s Mat Smith.
New is old, and old is new with a 2D version of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and an in-progress browser version of the first five Tomb Raider games.
There’s a free 2D Breath of the Wild available to play online, thanks to a fan who took the original prototype and resurrected it. “Breath of the NES is a free game for Windows PC that draws inspiration from that 2D prototype, which Nintendo showed off at this year’s Game Developers Conference,” Polygon’s Allegra Frank writes.
OpenTomb is the Tomb Raider project’s name, and its goal is “to allow people online [to] play through the five original Tomb Raider games,” according to Julia Alexander at Polygon. Interested? Alexander writes that “the team is pretty active in the Tomb Raider forums,” which can be found here.
LEAGUE LAND
Mid-Season Invitational 2017 went live on the League of Legends website Monday, one day after TSM defeated C9 in the NA LCS finals epic 5-game series.
Along with MSI 2017 comes Conqueror Karma. The skin is available April 24 – May 24 for 975 RP. If you’re willing to fork over an extra 641 RP you can get the Conqueror Karma Bundle for 1616 RP. Here’s what the bundle gets you:
- CONQUEROR KARMA
- KARMA (50% OFF)
- CONQUEROR WARD
- CONQUEROR KARMA ICON (1RP)
And here’s the schedule for MSI 2017:
- START OF PLAY-IN STAGE, APRIL 28, 2017
- START OF GROUP STAGE, MAY 3, 2017
- START OF KNOCKOUT STAGE, MAY 10, 2017
- START OF THE FINALS, MAY 19, 2017
Stay tuned for a Reddit AMA with Immortals Support Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung at 6 p.m. PST (9 p.m. EST).
OVER/UNDER WATCH
Do you like maps? Because we like maps, and Jeff Kaplan just promised a bunch more. Here’s his Monday post on the Overwatch forums:
“We currently have 3 maps in development, all past the initial playtesting phase that are “standard” maps (QP/Comp). While something could always change, all 3 of those are looking likely for a release this year. We also have 3 non-standard maps in development (these won’t go in QP/Comp). We also have a few other experiments going on. Hopefully this will satisfy some of what you’re looking for. We want to play on these maps as badly as you guys do. We’ll work as fast as we can!”
It was bound to happen sooner or later, and now it has. ESPN’s Young Jae Jeon reports that “one of the first reported cases of Overwatch match-fixing” has occurred in South Korea.
“A large amount of circumstantial evidence pointed to Luminous Solar’s player-manager Jin Seok-hoon and coach Baek Min-jeh offering sponsorship for UnLimited in return for forfeiting the match.”
Both the manager and coach have been hit with criminal charges and are banned for life from OGN events, as has the Luminous Solar organization.
“Oh my,” is probably what a lot of people watching Matt “Dellor” Vaughn’s Twitch stream this weekend said when he unleashed a nearly 30-second n-word tirade during an Overwatch match.
https://twitter.com/dellorlol/status/856243501482352640
One viewer uploaded the screed, according to Eric Van Allen at Kotaku, and Dellor’s team, Toronto Esports, immediately let him go. You can read the team’s statement below:
Lunatic-Hai can’t catch a break. The team may now hold the fastest hire-and-fire record to date. It brought Lee “Claris” Keon-Ho on to be an alternate mere days ago, and then turned around and axed Claris for, Nicole Carpenter at Dot Esports writes, “unsavory behavior in the past, including boosting, using cheating software, and poor sportsmanship.”
Lunatic-Hai previously lost two players in February who were being a little too friendly with female fans.
DOTA-THON
Kiev Major 2017’s group stage is off and running. Check out GosuGamers and Reddit for updates on winners and losers.
Congratulations to Johan “N0tail” Sundstein, who completed his 1,400th Dota 2 professional match and became the first player to do so.
Cristy “Pandoradota2” Ramadani at GosuGamers has a good write-up for anyone itching for the Kiev Major 2017 nitty-grittys. Matches resume today “at 08:00 CEST with the two sets of Round 3 high and two sets of Round 3 mid,” Ramadani writes.
SECRET UNLOCKED
Today is the Entertainment Software Association’s (ESA) Nintendo Switch launch party in Washington, D.C.
Stay tuned for interviews and pictures from the event in Wednesday’s newsletter.
UPCOMING RELEASES
A massive Call of Duty: WWII poster in France appears to confirm the rumors of a Nov. 3, 2017 release date. The picture was originally uploaded to Imgur Monday.
Welcome to virtual reality Star Trek. Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat reports that the simulator “comes out on May 30 for Oculus Rift with Touch, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR (PSVR).” You partner with three other people to command a ship using voice communication. Missions range from “either to explore or fight, and sometimes a bit of both.”
And yes, you’re able to command the Enterprise.
Destiny 2, out Sept. 8, 2017, will most likely come with a new ship class. An image for the upcoming game shows a previously-unavailable ship model arcing over the word “Beta,” Michael Harradence at PlayStation Universe notes.
“This echoes what Bungie did with the original Destiny beta, which teased the Phaeton ship class in during various promotional material,” Harradence writes.
Frontier Developments announced a firm release date for Planet Coaster and a general release date for Elite: Dangerous Legendary Edition. “Planet Coaster, for PC only, will go on shelves May 23 and the Elite: Dangerous Legendary Edition, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, arrives later in the year,” writes Owen S. Good at Polygon.
UPCOMING EVENTS
GamesBeat Summit 2017 starts in Berkeley, Calif., May 1-2. You can still grab a ticket if you’re willing to pay $1,995 for the basic option or $2,355 for a ticket plus hotel room and waived resort fee.
Fifty-four speakers will talk about an array of topics from tech to eSports to gaming platforms. Featured speakers include “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” screenwriter Gary Whitta, Oblong Industries CEO John Underkoffler and Roberts Space Industries CEO Chris Roberts.
HavenCon 2017 kicks off Friday, April 28, in Austin, Texas.
PlayStation DevCon 2017 starts May 2 in Coronado, Calif.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Prey, which comes out May 5, released a trailer over the weekend showing off the game’s Recycler machine. PCGamer’s Tom Sykes has the trailer and explains a little more about the gadget, and all the fun things it can do.
If that trailer wasn’t enough, you can always re-watch the hour of Prey game play from earlier in the month.
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