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Thumbstix Top News of the Week – September 20th 2019

Welcome to the first of our (hopefully) regular weekly news round-ups, covering our most relevant five stories of the week! This week saw the arrival of Apple Arcade, details of the new Apex Legend and the launch of a long awaited game on the Nintendo Switch – Links Awakening Untitled Goose Game!

Apple Arcade

Apple Arcade released on September 19th, initially onto iPhones with the iOS13 update, and will follow later onto the iPad and Mac devices. Early feedback has been very positive, with the game library totalling 71 games (as of Friday 20th), and including games featuring well known characters such as Sonic and Rayman, which will do wonders to attract the more casual gamer. Some well known and respected game developers and publishers are supporting the service, with Devolver and Konami both having some of these launch games, which should appeal to the more clued-up of us! At £4.99 per month, with no ads or micro-transactions, it seems like the subscription service has a bright future ahead. Don’t forget that you can also connect your Xbox and PS4 controllers to the devices as well, which is a great feature for console gamers.

Personal highlights so far look like Sayonara Wild Heights (AnnPurna) and Where Cards Fall (Snowman). More details of all games currently available can be found on the official Apple Arcade website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frLeePH8W9Y

 

Apex Legends

Respawn have officially announced that Season 3 of Apex Legends will launch on October 1st, and with it comes a brand new legend! Crypto has been teased on multiple occasions previously, and was deemed to be the hacker responsible for the destruction of the Repulsor which led to the map changes at the start of season 2. Last weekend Crypto was found by some eagle-eyed players hacking terminals in the Labs area of Kings Canyon, fuelling the speculation that he would be the next character.

This was then all confirmed by Respawn on September 19th, with the news that Apex Legends Season 3: Meltdown would drop on October 1st, with Crypto, a new Battle Pass, a new weapon in the Charge Rifle and Ranked Season 3. More information followed with a Crypto episode of the Apex Legends Stories from the Outlands animated video series (see below).

Crypto’s special ability is rumoured to be “specialised surveillance drones to stay in the fight and out of the spotlight” leading us to believe that he may have the ability to disappear or manually place his own cameras to see where the opposition are on the map. Whatever the skill is, expect the Thumbstix team to continue playing a whole heap of Apex Legends over the coming months! If you are into your Apex lore then it’s also worthwhile to check out the subreddit of r/ApexLore.

 

Xbox Game Pass additions

Another bunch of new games were announced for Xbox Game Pass earlier this week. Already released on September 19th were Jump Force and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, both 2019 full-price releases that are now free with the subscription services. Jump Force looked like it was going to be a fantastic triple-A fighting game but came out to middling reviews, whilst Bloodstained looked to be a Castlevania inspired side-scrolling RPG that was taken to the hearts of fans of the genre.

Then, coming later in the month are Bad North, Dirt Rally 2.0 and Lego Worlds. More details of the service, including the free to play weekends, can be found on Xbox Wire.

 

Sony’s State of the Nation

Not actually news for this week, but this will definitely be at the top of the list for next week! Sony have announced a State Of Play event for Tuesday 24th September, and The Last Of Us 2 will be covered off, which hopefully points to a release date announcement. This event falls on the exact same day as the planned Last Of Us 2 media event which is being held in LA, so I am certain that we will know so much more about the game come this time next week.

The official Naughty Dog twitter account has confirmed the games attendance at the State of Play event with a beautiful post quoting a line from the first ever trailer – “I’m gonna find…and I’m gonna kill…every last one of them.”

Squeals of excitement all round!

 

Batman comes to Fortnite

The Fortnite behemoth rolls on, this time with a crossover with Batman! Starting on Saturday 21st September and running through to the 6th October, Fortnite x Batman has turned Tilted Town into Gotham City, a “Caped Crusader Pack” of cosmetics and weapons will be available to purchase, and the game will include the usual challenges and rewards based around our favourite hero.

Check out the official website for full details and patch notes.

 

Releases

As previously mentioned we have had two huge games hitting the Nintendo Switch, with both Untitled Goose Game and The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening arriving on Friday 20th September. Next week brings The Surge 2 on the 24th September and Code Vein and FIFA 20 on the 27th September.

Adrian Garlike
Ady has been gaming for more years than he can remember, from a Commodore Vic 20 to the Xbox One X and multiple consoles and computers in-between. He loves the gaming community and culture, but hates the toxicity that it brings. Please gamers, lets be excellent to each other!

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