Lights out

Good Morning. Do you remember that one summer night in the early 2000s where it seemed like everyone lost power? Yeah, that was exactly 20 years ago today.

Known as the Northeast Blackout of 2003, it is still the largest blackout in North American history. Where were you when the lights went out? Did you touch grass or did you empty all your remotes for AAs to power your Game Boy?

Cause of the power outage? Downed trees and a software bug.

— Jason Liu, Tim Rhyne, Derek Neville

HEADLINES

VFX unionization at Marvel. Over 50 VFX employees at Marvel are pursuing unionization at Marvel, citing poor working conditions, including consistent weekend work. The AI revolution may also be a contributing factor.

Rockstar acquires role-playing specialists. Rockstar announced on Friday that they had acquired Cfx.re, the creators of FiveM and RedM — popular roleplaying mods for GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption. FiveM currently has over 170,000 players on their servers. They’ve come along way since being banned by Rockstar in 2015. While Rockstar focuses on GTA 6, the acquisition could be a boost to the longevity of Red Dead Online and GTA Online.

THQ Nordic announces AAA TMNT title. On Friday, TMNT: The Last Ronin’s official trailer was dropped on YouTube. The comments section is plastered with fans requesting an “M” rating for this to-be-rated game, which would enable the studio to explore the dark tone of the original TMNT comics.

HUD

• 🏢 Roblox launched Career Center, where candidates can participate in screening assessments and conduct interviews in-game.

• 💰Redditors discuss willingness to pay for AAA titles. $70 seems to be a popular ceiling.

• 💇‍♀️ Nearly 10% of Baldur’s Gate 3 Players spent >1 hour on the character creation screen. Talk about indecision.

• 🏎️ Fortnite Season 5 leaks suggest new racing mode and ‘garage’ tab.

• 🕵️ A leaked video shows what could be the case of the “PS5 Slim”.

THIS DAY IN GAMING HISTORY

• 👾 Sega Genesis released in New York City and Los Angeles with TV commercial tagline “Sega Genesis Does What Nintendon't” (1989).

• 🏆 The Last Story Released for Wii (2012) — It was number 7 on Time’s Top 10 games list for 2012 beating out other notable titles like Halo 4 and Torchlight II.

PATCH NOTES

• 🏳 Riot is making changes to surrender mechanics for LoL. Players are concerned that a surrender vote may now be even harder to pass.

• 🔥 Baldur’s Gate 3 Hotfix #3 fixed over 200 items, gave everyone the Blue Behir Dice permanently and gave thanks to the community for their part in high-quality support tickets.

INDIE CORNER

To celebrate the 10-year anniversary of Geometry Dash, RobTop games showed a special video on YouTube, which premiered yesterday. Within hours of sharing the link to the video via Twitter, RobTop Games YouTube channel had thousands of people in the waiting room — over 40 hours prior to the premiere.

HIVE MIND

Relevant

• Roger Ebert: video game can never be art.

• TED Talk: video game artistry.

MAJOR W

• 🏁 Independent developer ports wipE’out to browser and calls out Sony to let it be (or start the remaster).

• 🚀 Starfield will be available day one on Xbox Game Pass (September 6th).

• 👩‍🚀 Hayden Christensen reprises old role as Anakin in latest Ashoka trailer.

F IN THE CHAT

• 📉 Overwatch 2 becomes worst reviewed game in Steam history.

• 🤦 Diablo 4 devs getting heat for releasing playthrough video where designers seemingly don’t understand their own game.

• 🔨 Many players disqualified at Pokemon tournament for use of ‘hacked’ teams.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Just over one year since BlueTwelve Studio’s award winning Stray released on PC and PlayStation, the adventure game has made its way to Xbox, now available for the Series S/X. While it is unclear if Stray will end up on Game Pass in the future, it is currently 20% off on the Microsoft Store.

CREATOR SPOTLIGHT

MrDapperSam — The World’s Best Dressed Gamer

Are you used to throwing on some dirty sweatpants and a t-shirt for your gaming sessions? MrDapperSam is a Warzone and Call of Duty creator bringing some class to Twitch as the self-proclaimed best dressed gamer — who are we to disagree? Check out MrDapperSam’s stream to see fresh threads and fresher clips.

— Derek

Was this email forwarded to you?

Subscribe to Loading Screen today and turn your gaming knowledge up to 11!