Welcome to, The RoundUp! This is our news post summarising the past month in PC gaming, PC tech and new Thermaltake products. On today’s RoundUp for May: more conferences cancelled due to COVID-19, a bunch of new games announced, and 5 Australians charged with Match fixing. All that and more, in this month’s RoundUp for May!
GAMES RELEASED
May saw a few new releases in the PC gaming world. Another expansion for the growing Elder Scrolls Online released on the 26th titled Greymoor. Minecraft released a spin off MMO type game titled Minecraft: Dungeons. The remaster of Mafia 2 and 3, Definitive Editions, both released on May 19. Also, the free to play online RPG, Phantasy Star Online 2, released on the 27th of May. Finally, the eerie thriller Those Who Remain released on May 28, and a DLC for Mortal Kombat 11, titled Aftermath released on May 26.
GAME NEWS
COVID-19 Updates
Sadly, more events have been cancelled. This includes: EGX, The Fortnite World Cup, Paris Games Week, Blizzcon and the Melbourne Esports open.
New digital events have been announced replacing physical conferences. Ubisoft will be holding their showcase on July 12, showing off new games as well as some impressive updates to existing franchises. GCD will be going fully digital for GDC Summer. Scheduled for August 4th, they will be holding a number of virtual talks from different companies.
The head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, thinks that the games of 2021 will be most affected by the current pandemic. While some games of 2020 have already been delayed, Spencer reckons a lot of games next year will be more affected due to things that can’t be worked on at home. This includes things like motion capture.
Game Announcements
One of the biggest games announced this past May was the newest in the Assassins Creed series, titled Assassins Creed Valhalla. The game releases Holiday 2020.
The slow return of the Halo series to PC continued this May, with the release of Halo 2. The game was added to the Master Chief Collection on the May 12th but is also available to buy separately.
Spooky games time! Layers of Fear studio Bloober Team, announced their new creepy game titled Medium. The game looks incredibly eerie from the trailer, and is due for release Holiday 2020. On top of this, studio Ebb Software released their trailer for Scorn. This game is an ode to the art of H.R Giger who designed the terrifying Xenomorph. There is no confirmed release date yet.
The popular Riot Games FPS Valorant is coming out of beta on June 2. Additionally, Frogware announced a new Sherlock Holmes game for 2021. Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One centres around a younger, cockier Sherlock Holmes.
Lastly, some remakes/remasters of older games were announced in May. First, both instalments in the classic Tony Hawk Pro Skater series are getting the remaster treatment. They will release on September 4, through the Epic Games Store. Additionally, all three Mafia games are also getting remastered. Both Mafia 2 and 3 re-released in stunning remastered glory on May 19. The first game is going to take a little longer though, releasing in August 2020.
General Games News
Cyberpunk 2077 has received the R18+ rating in Australia. Many were worried it might not get it due to Australia’s strict rules on drug use in games. On top of this, CD Project have teased a Cyberpunk 2077 event coming up in June. The “Night Wire City” event will be held on June 11, but very little else has been revealed about it.
In Overwatch news, hero pools have been removed from competitive play for some ranks. If you are below masters, the hero pools will no longer tap out certain heroes each week.
EA have teased a remastered title releasing soon. The general consensus is that it might be a remaster of the first Mass Effect game. The trilogy finished just under a decade ago, so it does seem like not a bad idea for an update.
Despite many hopeful fans, it seems that The Elder Scrolls 6 is a long way off. Pete Hines has firmly stated that the game is years away, reinforcing on Twitter that it’s due after Starfield, which itself is a long way off too. Sorry Elder Scrolls fans!
Minecraft continues to dominate the gaming world. On it’s 11th anniversary, Mojang announced that they have sold more than 200 million copies of their block building game.
The publishers of Grand Theft Auto have revealed that over the next 5 years they have 93 games lined up for release. But sadly… no new GTA on the horizon. Around half of the games though are from existing properties.
The popular COD: Warzone has finally added a duos mode! So, now you and your buddy don’t have to slog it through two-man trios anymore!
CONTROVERSIAL NEWS
As I called it last month, Warzone caved… again. Last month we covered how the changes to the contract missions in the popular Battle Royale were not well received. Well, angry fans got their way and the contracts were returned to how they were before. It is nice to see developers listening to feedback.
5 Australians have been charged for match fixing. The CS: Go players allegedly threw games that they had bet on to get the winnings for the loss. They could face up to ten years in prison.
Sadly, earlier in May the saga between Doom and composer Nick Gordon continued. Gordan was reportedly a perfectionist, taking too long to finish the OST for Doom: Eternal. This led to ID software having to hire an additional producer to finish it in time. Fans weren’t too happy about the soundtrack being released without Gordon’s seal of approval. Hopefully the feud can be resolved for the sake of future epic Doom soundtracks.
Finally, the winner of Fortnite’s Asia Invitational is a cheater. The winner named ‘Sekosama’ allegedly teamed up with another player in the solos match, in order to win. The player was stripped of their $15,000 prize money and banned from the game for 14 days.
TECH NEWS
First, AMD news. The companies’ upcoming affordable CPU chip seems very impressive. The Ryzen 3 3100 is a quad core CPU based on latest gen Zen 2. It looks like it is a great entry point CPU and boasts quite an impressive range considering its price. Additionally, AMD announced FidelityFX tech. These 4 new technologies aim to improve the AMD Radeon gaming experience.
Jumping over to Intel news now. Their much-hyped Intel Core I9 10900K hit reviewers last month too. The flagship CPU for the Comet Lake series boasted some amazing gaming performance and peak overlocking abilities. That being said, it seems like a bit of a hefty boy power wise, and the price point is also a bit of a drawback. Definitely seems like an enthusiast CPU. On top of this, Intel has acquired ‘Rivet Networks’. This is the company who produced the ‘Killer’ network interface card, which promises to lower ping and lag in games.
The robots are coming! A company has created a text-to-speech AI that not only reads, but add emotion to the reading also. The AI is able to simulate the human emotion expressed when acting. Looks like even actors might be replaceable in the world of the machines afterall!
Microsoft has officially stopped distributing 32-bit Windows. Support for 32-bit Windows will soon be phased out, so it’s time to upgrade if you haven’t already.
Good news for those of you who have been waiting for them, Oculus Quests are finally available to order again. They sadly won’t start shipping until July, but get in quick! Considering how fast these bad boys went when last restock happened, they might not be around for long.
With all the worries still over COVID-19, keep an eye out for phishing scams! Sadly, some people have starting sending emails with attachments claiming to be providing stats for COVID-19. So, keep an eye out for these malicious emails!
THERMALTAKE NEWS
Sadly, this month was a quiet one here for us at Thermaltake, with no big new products to announce. But there is some amazing stuff coming up, so keep an eye out!
Here on the blog though, we posted a range of different articles. We wrote some awesome posts about our recently released S100. This includes a post about running it as a VR Machine and a budget Micro-Tower build. We also wrote an article about Mechanical Keyboard switches and which one is best for you. Lastly, we posted a longer form article about Game Remakes and Remasters and whether they are just good fun, or cash grabs?
Over on the Thermaltake ANZ YouTube channel we released a First Look of our S100, as well as a behind the scenes build video building in the case too. We also created a How-To video on motherboards. Lastly, we made two more First Looks for our AH T600 and Level 20 RS.
Finally, Thermal Talk is still kicking! This past month we had some great episodes, including one featuring the wonderful Nick from Gear Seekers! Check out that episode and many others on your podcast platform of choice: Spotify, SoundCloud or Apple Podcasts.
