Bethesda Increasing Game Output, CoD Crossovers Leaked

For better or for worse, Call of Duty has been a mainstay in the FPS genre for the past 20 years or so. I can remember playing Call of Duty 3 on Wii as a release title, and I can remember when CoD 4: Modern Warfare dropped and completely changed the landscape of console shooters.

Since then, the genre-defining gameplay has become stale and many people wonder why Activision keeps releasing these mediocre CoD reskins so frequently. The answer to that question is simple: 💲💲💲💲

As a proof point, take a look at this leak for what is coming up in the Season 4 DLC for CoD Modern Warfare 3 (no not the original MW3, the re-released MW3).

This little screenshot here says that there will be new skins added in season 4 for characters from Fallout, The Crow, and Gundam. Fallout and Gundam both make sense as new CoD skin packs, especially Fallout given that Activision owns Bethesda and the show is one of the biggest releases in Amazon Prime’s history, but The Crow just baffles me. Anyway, now CoD players can grab their Crow skin and spam this iconic line from the film into their mics.

More Bethesda talk! This week during an interview with Kinda Funny Games, Todd Howard mentioned that Bethesda is looking to increase the output of both Fallut and Elder Scrolls, and oddly, enough, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Of course, I would like to see a new Elder Scrolls game release more than once every 20 years, but how is that going to affect the quality of the games?

Even with the longest development cycle in the industry, Bethesda games are still kinda buggy in that weird and lovable Bethesda way, and bugs or not, the games that Bethesda releases are always Game of the Year contenders, with the exception of their 2 most recent releases Fallolut 76 and Starfield. So, my big question is: Is this actually Bethesda and Todd Howard’s idea or is this coming from Microsoft, their new parent company?

We have heard about Xbox’s struggles for the past couple of weeks. Lagging console sales, lackluster first-party games, and dead markets overseas, so is this push for more Bethesda games a way to help their struggles elsewhere? Between acquiring Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has spent over $75 BILLION on video game software acquisitions. That’s some Dr. Evil level money being thrown around. Xbox as a division is already struggling, and while the names of these companies are big and bright, they aren’t as shiny as they once were.

With the exception of the CoD franchise, neither Activision/Blizzard or Bethesda are high volume studios. Since 2022, Activision has released 5 games, 4 of those are CoD games. Blizzard has released 4 games in that same time window, but 2 are mobile games, Diablo Immortal (🤮) and Warcraft Rumble (❓). The other 2 games are Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV. Aside from Bethesda’s Starfield, they haven’t released a flagship franchise game since 2020’s Doom Eternal.

Five years ago, acquiring these 2 companies would have been a huge coup for Xbox, but now it doesn’t look as great as it should. It looks even worse when you add in the absolute PR horror that has been happening at Acti/Blizz for the past 3 years.

I hope everything works out for Xbox in the end, because regardless of your preference, the more players in the gaming market the better. Competition pushes innovation and creativity which makes the whole space better.

Game Recommendation

This week’s game recommendation is a new one both in terms of my time playing it and it’s availability, Smite 2! I know that Smite 2 is in its alpha period right now, so not that many people have been able to play it, but I was lucky enough to sneak into the alpha period that is happening now, May 2 - 4, and I had a really fun time playing the game.

I am coming into the game completely fresh. I’ve never played the original Smite, but I have some experience with MOBAs through Heroes of the Storm (RIP) and League of Legends (I know…). I was super interested to see if Smite 2 would be something fun for me to pick up given it’s more intimate gameplay view and a more action-oriented style, and I am happy to report that I had a good time with it. If you are looking for a fresh start in the MOBA space, Smite 2 might be a good game for you! You can pre-order the game now via Steam, through it will be fully Free to Play when it releases later this year. If you choose to pre-order you will get access to a ton of in game unlocks and access to alpha and beta tests when they occur.

Cheat Code

This week’s cheat code is for an old-school gaming classic, Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Genesis.

Enter the code below to unlock a secret level editor/God Mode:

• Up, C, Down, C, Left, C, Right, C, A + Start