Written By: Max Mitchelson
Edited By: Mary Joaquin
Huge mergers and exciting announcements hit the headlines this week. The Monster Hunter digital event announced new information, a demo, and a release, Microsoft has officially acquired ZeniMax, and fires devastated Rust’s EU servers.
Roblox achieved a market cap of $38.26 billion, and Sony took LittleBigPlanet’s servers offline due to prolonged DDOS attacks.
Monday, March 8
Capcom hosted a Monster Hunter-focused digital event and announced a July 9 release date for Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin alongside an expanded Monster Hunter Rise demo.
Originally a 3DS and mobile game from 2017, Monster Hunter Stories fused pokemon-Esque monster-catching and turn-based combat with the world of Monster Hunter. In the new release, players will control a descendant of a legendary monster rider to discover the truth behind the disappearance of Rathalos monsters.
“Hatch, raise, and live alongside monsters as a Monster Rider in this fun-filled RPG set in the Monster Hunter universe,” stated Capacom’s official website.
Unlike the Nintendo Switch timed exclusive Monster Hunter Rise, Monster Hunter Stories 2 is releasing simultaneously on Switch and PC.
Tuesday, March 9
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the European Union approved Microsoft’s acquisition of ZeniMax, and Microsoft plans for some new titles by the publisher to be exclusive to PC and Xbox.
The acquisition was announced back in September of last year to increase the number of first-party studios for the Xbox brand. Existing games announced for other platforms, like Deathloop and GhostWire: Tokyo, will remain PS5 console exclusives. But after that, ports will be approved on from game-to-game basis.
Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, ended the announcement by promising more information soon and announced that Bethesda titles are coming to Xbox Game Pass later this week.
Wednesday, March 10
Last night a fire destroyed an OVHcloud data center, which hosted the survival game smash-hit Rust.
Facepunch Studios, the developer, confirmed on Twitter that there was “a total loss of the affected EU servers.” But, in series of tweets, Facepunch announced that servers were slowly coming back online, and within 10 hours of the initial announcement, all EU servers are now back online.
Though Facepunch wipes servers monthly, private servers with different rules might have also been affected though this remains to be seen.
According to OVHcloud’s founder Octave Klaba, no one was injured in the fire.
Thursday, March 11
On Roblox’s first day on the New York Stock Exchange, it closed at $69.50 a share, ending the day with a $38.26 billion market cap.
Roblox has seen rapid growth since the beginning of the pandemic, increasing monthly and daily users by 75 and 85 percent, respectively. The sandbox browser-based multiplayer game first looked to go public last year with an estimated market valuation of $8 billion.
“We are deeply humbled by the overwhelming support for Roblox and our public offering today. To all those who helped us get one step closer to fulfilling our vision of the Metaverse—thank you,” tweeted CEO of Roblox, David Baszucki.
Though the valuation of the company is almost 4 times as high as it was in September, Roblox’s rapid growth is expected to wane as its young player-base returns to school and as lockdowns end.
Friday, March 12
LittleBigPlanet’s servers have been taken offline by Sony after fans complained about features being continually disrupted by DDOS attacks.
Fans contacted Eurogamer about the issue, then informed PlayStation of the issues yesterday. Now XDEV, Sony’s external development studio, tweeted that they took down the servers to investigate “some technical issues.” Fans told Eurogamer that an individual unhappy with Sony’s treatment of the series organized a campaign DDOS attacks to target LittleBigPlanet servers.
The attacks have affected community-created content for several LittleBigPlanet games, although not the game published on Vita.
EGD’s Weekly Gaming Round-Up gives a quick look into the newest news in the games industry. From blockbuster triple-A games and indie startups and mods, the Weekly Gaming Round-Up covers it all.
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