This week in gaming we’re coming up on some new and interesting things across the community. Major things on the topic this week are the Rainbow Six Siege Six Invitational and other tidbits along with the debate of DOOM Eternal or Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and finally the up and up on some things in Nintendo land.

First off. Hi, been a minute. One of my new years resolutions was to start doing more content either on stream or here in blog format. My other is to keep up the work on my homebrew tabletop Star Wars D&D titled Galaxies and Gundarks. So here we are and I want to open back up with a game that was once quite near and dear to my heart. Rainbow Six Siege. Anyone who watched a number of my early streams knows that me and my friends played this game all the time. Sometimes I miss it but it became so competitive and I quickly fell off on the skill level I was playing at so it was no longer fun for me. Regardless of my current feelings though, the player base is absolutely BOOMING. Right now we’re approaching the next Six Invitational which, if you’re unfamiliar is a Pro League event for Ubisoft. It’s also a big time for players because they add the “Road To SI” playlist for their players to experience that Pro League style of play. I played myself during the Road to SI last year and had an absolute blast. This time though there’s even more content to be had. After Ubisoft moved to take the game in a slightly more lore defined direction in the middle to late of 2019 they also announced an eventual battle pass. This battle pass has a number of cosmetics relevant to the new modes characters and brand new map Stadium all working to bring a new flavor to the growing tactical shooter. All the new hype has me even considering going back and trying my lot in the new look and feel. The Six Invitational begins next Friday on Feb. 7th and brings in 16 of the top regional teams to compete for a substantial prize pool of 3 million dollars.

Next up, there have been a number of great memes rolling around (some at the speed of sound) with the up and coming Sonic movie on Valentine’s Day but becoming ever more prominent is the comedy feud running between two groups of gamers. In one corner, we have battle hardened, long time grind-fest veterans who know perseverance and a strong will will always see them to the end, and then we have all the people excited for DOOM: Eternal. All jokes aside both games look phenomenal and after a statement from ID Software‘s Creative Director Hugo Martin confirming the new DOOM title will not have micro-transactions fans have become ecstatic. As for the other side fans have been awaiting a full release of a new Animal Crossing title since the 2012 release of Animal Crossing: New Leaf and after the tease of the first fun spin off Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp that launched on mobile in 2017 fans demanded the announcement of a new full game for Nintendo’s newest console at the time the Nintendo Switch. The fans waited just under a whole year from then to get the New Horizons announcement at Nintendo Direct in Sep. 2018. As of right now both games are slated to release March 20th 2020, which one will you be playing first? I’m still on the fence but slaughtering demons sure does sound like a good time.

Finally before getting to closing I wanted to talk a bit more about the Nintendo Switch. The console has a number of games having a ported release in the coming months and on top of that they just hit a major milestone. Nintendo Switch sales officially passed that of the SNES as they cross over 52 million units. On top of that they are getting DMC 3: Special Edition, Metro Redux, and The Outer Worlds on Feb.20th, Feb. 28th, and March 6th respectively. Unfortunately they wont see the release of Zombie Army 4: Dead War on Feb. 4th, but they are getting Railway Empire on Valentine’s Day. Treat your Nintendo Switch this Valentine’s Day and take it to see it’s age old Frienemy Sonic and then play some Railway Empire.

Other notable mentions for the week in news are the major issues and fan uproar following the launch of Warcraft III: Reforged. It launched as a buggy mess and Blizzard being Blizzard seems to be claiming rights to Custom Games via their EULA. I didn’t have time to verify the story but if you were at all interested in the game and are yet to look back into it, it may be worth taking a glance at before continuing. The other mention is the change in tonality of Destiny 2 content creators. Going from loving videos of new content to some more videos of a somber nature on the direction the game has taken. I personally love the Destiny games, but am currently also on a break after moving back to Warframe that has consumed a majority of my time preparing for the new quest The New War.

I was going to say what I’ve been playing here but I think I mentioned it enough above that my recent game of choice has been Warframe when I’m not working on schoolwork or development of my tabletop. What have you been playing lately? Do you have any up and coming games that you’re looking forward to? I’d love to hear! Let me know here, on Twitter @SurelyNotNoah, or by email at SurelyNotNoah24@gmail.com. Here’s to hoping I write up another one of these for next Friday too!

Until next time, May the Road Rise to Meet You.
SurelyNotNoah