It’s that time of year again. September and October, the prime time developers come out with their new video games. What are you going to be playing this fall and winter?
“I’m most excited for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate,” Leiland Barnes, ‘24, said. From the new sports games to the annual Call of Duty, there are many options to choose from.
This year the Call of Duty developers have been working hard on the latest addition to the franchise, Call of Duty Black Ops 4, set to release Oct. 12. This game will be a little different from its predecessors in the franchise because unlike any other Call of Duty game, Black Ops 4 will feature a Battle Royale mode called Blackout. Recently, the Battle Royale feature has exploded in popularity due to games such as Fortnite and PUBG that have it as their main attraction.
Most Call of Duty games have three different modes: Zombies, Multiplayer and Campaign. This year Black Ops four has gotten rid of Campaign mode to add Blackout.
“I loved the campaign [mode], it was my favorite aspect of the game. I love stories… I think they should add battle royale as just a game mode in multiplayer; it shouldn’t be a main part of the game,” Oscar Franklin, ‘24, said.
Another highly rated first person shooter, Destiny Two, was released on Sept. 6, 2017. A new expansion for this game called Forsaken was just released Sept. 4. Forsaken is the third expansion to Destiny Two with the first expansion Curse of Osiris released Dec. 2017 and Warmind released May 2018. The Forsaken expansion will include an addition to the original campaign where players will have to hunt down the murderers of beloved character from Destiny One and Destiny Two, Cayde 6. The expansion also includes new weapons, upgrades and side missions for players to go through.
An action and adventure game called Just Cause 4 is set to release later in the year on Dec. 4. This is the fourth installment of the Just Cause series; Just Cause 3 was released in 2015 and did fairly well in stores, receiving a review of 8 out of 10 from IGN. Will Just Cause 4 top this?
The most successful game this September seems to be the new Spider-Man game on PS4. The game sold 1 million copies by pre-order prior to its Sept. 7 release date. The game sold 3.3 million copies in the first three days of the games release, which is roughly 198 million dollars. This surpasses the 117 million dollars the newest Spiderman movie, Spider-man: Homecoming, made opening weekend in the box office. Many Spider-man games have been released in the past, but many say this one is the best ever made. The game is already one of the most successful games ever released in the first weekend and is predicted to continue to break records as time goes on.
Stepping away from the more futuristic active shooter games, let’s go into the past with two highly anticipated games, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Red Dead Redemption 2. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is the annual game developed by Ubisoft in the long-running Assassin’s Creed franchise. In this game, the players goes back to the times of the Peloponnesian War. Players will have the option to be either a mercenary for Athens or Sparta. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a western themed action and adventure game set in 1899. The player is a bandit who must rob, steal and fight his or her way across America.
One game that many students at WHHS are looking forward to is Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
“I’m a big fan of the Smash Bros. series and it seems like a lot of fun,” Gavin King, ‘23, said.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is set to release Dec. 7 and will be available only on Nintendo Switch. In the game, players can choose from many different characters from many different Nintendo games as they are put in an arena against other fighters to battle it out
One of the largest genres in video games is the world of sports. There are many large sports game franchises like Madden and 2K that come out with new games every year at the time of the new season of that sport beginning.
Madden NFL 19 was released Aug. 10. Madden is a football game with many different game modes like Franchise where players control a team and have the ability to make all the team’s trades, coaching decisions, budget, market sales and play in-game with the squad they have built.
Another highly rated game mode in Madden is Ultimate Team, where the player starts with a low level squad and has the ability to earn money off wins in a season in order to buy other players from other users playing the mode for the squad in a community market.
The newest addition to Madden is the Longshot mode, which was a new mode in Madden 18. Longshot is a story mode where players work their way to being a star in the NFL after starting as a low draft pick.
There are two new basketball games out, NBA 2K19 and NBA Live 19. Both of these games feature very similar game modes to Madden with a Franchise, an Ultimate Team and a story mode. In NBA Live, however, you can create a female player and go against other WNBA players. This feature is unique to the game.
Another game that has come out with its annual release is FIFA 19, which is a soccer based game with the common game modes featured throughout the other games.
All of these games come out with a new addition every year and rarely have new game modes. Most of the time, the only changes to the game are new rookies and roster updates, as well as better graphics and gameplay. With minimal changes to these games every year, many find it hard to believe it is worth buying the new game every year.
If someone has grown tired of their usual rotation of games, by the end of the season, they may just find a new one to satisfy their gaming appetite.