“Early Access” was once a novel, quirky thing, giving a select set of Steam PC games a way to involve enthusiastic fans in pre-alpha-level play-testing and feedback. Now loads of games launch in various forms of Early Access, in a wide variety of readiness. It’s been a boon for games like Baldur’s Gate 3, which came a long way across years of Early Access.
Early Access, and the “Advanced Access” provided for complete games by major publishers for “Deluxe Editions” and the like, has also been a boon to freeloaders. Craven types could play a game for hours and hours, then demand a refund within the standard two hours of play, 14 days after the purchase window of the game’s “official” release. Steam-maker Valve has noticed and, as of Tuesday night, updated its refund policy.
“Playtime acquired during the Advanced Access period will now count towards the Steam refund period,” reads the update. In other words: Playtime is playtime now, so if you’ve played more than two hours of a game in any state, you don’t get a refund. That closes at least one way that people could, with time-crunched effort, play and enjoy games for free in either Early or Advanced access.
Not that it’s a complete win for either developers or cautious buyers. Steam refunds are a tricky matter for developers, especially those smaller in size. The two-hour playtime window can give people a decent idea of how a game runs, what it’s like, and whether it’s clicking with a certain player. But some games enter Early Access in very rough shape or have features that later get dropped. Some games pack their most appealing elements into the early game. And some indie games are intended to provide an experience that’s much closer to two hours than 40 or 80, still giving players a faceless way to grab back some cash.
Steam’s approach to refunds remains an imperfect science, full of quirky stories and examples of why it exists. But it has moved toward a more unified and at least understandable policy now.
Enlarge/ The nukes went off in 2077 in Fallout’s universe. The show tells us more about this event than we’ve learned from the games before.
Amazon
It’s been just over a week since the Fallout TV series premiered on Amazon Prime, and one thing’s for sure: It’s a huge hit. You can hardly open a social media app without seeing content about it, the reviews are positive, and the active players for the Fallout games have doubled over the past week.
A few days ago, I shared some spoiler-free impressions of the first three episodes. I loved what I’d seen up to that point—the show seemed faithful to the games, but it was also a great TV show. A specific cocktail of tongue-in-cheek humor, sci-fi campiness, strong themes, great characters, and visceral violence really came together into a fantastic show.
Still, I had some questions at that point: Would the franchise’s penchant for satire and its distinct political and social viewpoint come through? Where was all this headed?
Like a lot of us, I’ve now finished the series. So if you have, too (or if you haven’t but just don’t care about spoilers), it’s time to dive into all eight episodes of season one together.
I’m a long-time Fallout fan, so I’ll focus on how the show ties in with the games, but like the show itself, I aim to make this interesting even for the newbies.
Heavy spoilers for Fallout season one start here, as well as a few spoilers about Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4.
Something for everybody
So was the show as good after eight episodes as it was after three? Absolutely. If anything, the show only got better as it progressed. The more inducted into the world, lore, and characters new viewers became, the more effective the show could be.
There was a lot to set up, after all. Some of us have been playing the games for years, so we knew all about Vault-Tec, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, the New California Republic, Pip-Boys, gulpers, and ghouls. But if you’re coming into the world fresh, that’s a lot to take on.
I was worried while watching that despite the show’s efforts to introduce new viewers, it might not be good enough, but I’ve been told by multiple people who haven’t played the games that they didn’t have trouble keeping up.
Once the various elements were established, the show was able to hit its stride and start bringing in the aspects of Fallout that weren’t prominent in the opening stretch.
Further, it expertly walked the line to give established fans something to chew on at the same time. The timeline of Fallout lore and stories spans hundreds of years, but the TV show is actually set after all of the games.
Event
Year
Bombs Drop
2077
Fallout 76 (2018)
2102
Fallout (1997)
2161
Fallout 2 (1998)
2241
Fallout 3 (2008)
2277
Fallout New Vegas (2010)
2281
Fallout 4 (2015)
2287
Fallout Season 1 (2024)
2296
That meant the show revealed some things about what happened to certain factions and places that previously appeared in the games. Most notably, Shady Sands is a crater, and the New California Republic—one of the most important factions and one of the strongest governments from the games—no longer exists as we knew it.
That led some fans to speculate that TV series executive producer and game creative director Todd Howard was trying to make the popular New Vegas game (which was not made by his team) non-canon, but in a recent interview, he clarified that both the show and New Vegas are very much canon, noting that the bomb fell on Shady Shands very shortly after the events of that game. The timeline on the show is cutting it close, but a generous interpretation allows it all to line up.
Of course, the show expanded on some elements from the games in ways that could be seen as breaching canon. You could write most of them away as things the games never addressed—like the vials ghouls must consume to avoid going feral or the origin story of gulpers. The games at times implied different things about both of those aspects, but they didn’t necessarily contradict them.
The series also canonized some specific choices that players could make in some prior games. For example, it’s confirmed that the Brotherhood of Steel airship seen in the show is the same one seen in Fallout 4, meaning that the canon outcome for Fallout 4 is obviously not one where that airship was destroyed. (Players of that game had the option of pursuing paths that led to its destruction or not.)
Shady Sands as it’s seen in the show.
Amazon
New Vegas is teased as the next destination.
Amazon
The last moments had a brief tease with what appears to be a Deathclaw skull, too.
Amazon
With minimal exceptions, previous games in the series avoided canonizing outcomes like that by being set decades or even centuries (as well as hundreds or even thousands of miles) apart—such that it wasn’t necessary to reveal what happened in those cases. Since this show is set in a region that is well-documented in prior Fallout titles, that’s not the case here.
The tease that we’re going to New Vegas next season probably means that several multiple-choice outcomes from that game will have to be canonized, too. Is Mr. House still running the show? What happened to Caesar’s Legion? Why does New Vegas look so bombed out compared to how it appeared in the game? We’ll probably find out.
All told, new fans got to explore the world of Fallout for the first time, even as longtime fans got to see where the story has gone since they last played the games. The story hadn’t been moved forward in nine years, since 2018’s Fallout 76 was actually a prequel that took place long before any of the other games in the series.
It took some skillful work to serve both of those audiences without compromising the experience of the other, so kudos to the show’s writers.
Enlarge/ Like the Beach Properties DLC itself, this property looks a bit unfinished and in need of some focus.
Paradox Interactive
Perhaps the first clue that something was not quite right about Beach Properties, the first $10 DLC “expansion” for the already off-kilter city-building sim Cities: Skylines 2, was that it did not contain a real beach house, which one might consider a key beach property. The oversight seemed indicative of a content pack that lacked for content.
C:S2‘s developers and publisher now agree and have published a letter to Cities fans, in which they offer apologies, updates, and refunds. Beach Properties is now a free add-on, individual buyers will be refunded (with details at a FAQ page), and Ultimate Edition owners will receive additional Creator Packs and Radio Stations, since partial refunds are tricky across different game stores.
“We thought we could make up for the shortcomings of the game in a timeframe that was unrealistic, and rushed out a DLC that should not have been published in its current form. For all this, we are truly sorry,” reads the letter, signed by the CEOs of developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive. “When we’ve made statements like this one before, it’s included a pledge to keep making improvements, and while we are working on these updates, they haven’t happened at a speed or magnitude that is acceptable, and it pains us that we’ve now lost the trust of many of you. We want to do better.”
What will happen next, according to the letter, are changes in how the game is improved and how those improvements are communicated. To wit:
A “complete focus on improving the base game and modding tools”
Better community involvement in choosing priorities
Focusing on free patches and updates ahead of paid content
Relatedly pushing “Bridges and Ports” expansion to 2025
Shifting Creator Packs work to independent developers
An “advisory meeting” between a small group of player representatives with significant followings and developer and publisher heads
For those eager to see the game on consoles, despite all this signaling of how far the base PC game might have to go, the letter offers an update. An “upcoming build delivery in April” should show sufficient optimization progress to move ahead, with “a release build targeted for October.” Yet until they can see the real results, no firm release date can be made. The console team will operate separately from the PC team, however, so it should move ahead “without splitting our focus or time.”
Put together, the C:S2 team’s actions, and plan for the way forward, seem like reasonable ways to make sure their work meets with fans’ expectations. There’s a fair amount of positive feedback to the forum post, however self-selecting “Paradox Forum members” may be. I do wonder if there’s a danger of some owners and fans never considering the game to be “good enough” to not react negatively to paid add-ons showing up in the store. It’s a tricky thing, releasing a game that almost inherently demands a swath of future add-ons, packs, and expansions—the original Cities: Skylines had more than 60 add-ons.
In an interview with Ars, Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen said that “working on new content for the game” was the thing she most looked forward to, “after, of course, we have sorted outstanding issues.” There are seemingly many more months of sorting to go before the fun new stuff arrives.
One mod in this storied genre that caught our eye this week is the “Short Stack,” a scale model of the Nintendo Wii that packs the 2006 console’s internal hardware into a 3D-printed enclosure roughly the size of a deck of playing cards.
“You could fit 13.5 of these inside an original Wii,” writes James Smith (aka loopj), the person behind the project. All the design details, custom boards, and other information about recreating the mod are available on GitHub.
Like many space-saving console mods, the Short Stack requires a cut-down version of the original Wii’s PCB, retaining (and occasionally relocating) the original console’s CPU, GPU, RAM, and NAND flash chip. Power delivery, USB, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips, and GameCube controller ports were all relocated to separate custom PCBs, which also allowed Smith to add HDMI output and a microSD card slot (the original Wii used a full-size SD card and didn’t support digital video output).
The Short Stack cleverly hides its GameCube controller ports behind a sliding panel on the side.
A headphone jack-to-GameCube dongle preserves GameCube controller compatibility while saving space in the console itself.
The cut-down Wii PCB, featuring the original console’s CPU, GPU, RAM, and NAND flash.
The Short Stack next to a deck of cards.
Some sacrifices were made in the name of miniaturization. The console’s disc drive is gone, so any games will need to be loaded from a microSD card instead. And the four GameCube controller ports are actually headphone jacks that work over a special adapter. Smith made these headphone-to-GameCube dongles pin-compatible with an earlier mod called the GC Nano, a project that did for the GameCube what the Short Stack does for the Wii.
Smith also designed custom front and rear PCBs for the console to handle things like the power button and the glowing blue light around the Short Stack’s (aesthetic, non-functional) DVD slot. A custom heatsink (Smith uses aluminum, though it can also be made with copper to improve heat transfer at the expense of weight) and a tiny fan keep the console cool.
Nintendo released its own Wii Mini toward the end of the Wii’s life in 2012, but it came with significant compromises: no online connectivity, no GameCube controller ports or game compatibility, and no SD card slot. The Short Stack loses the optical drive for space-saving reasons but otherwise retains all of the features of the original Wii.
Smith says that the Short Stack could probably be as much as 20 to 30 percent smaller without giving up features. But one of the goals of the Short Stack project was to make a scale model of the original Wii, and further shrinkage would make the project “tricky to assemble.”
Enlarge/ For just $199, you could be having as much fun as this paid model.
Meta has announced it’s permanently lowering the price of its aging Quest 2 headset to $199 for a 128GB base model, representing the company’s lowest price yet for a full-featured untethered VR headset.
And the Quest 2 is far from the company’s state-of-the-art headset at this point. Meta launched the surprisingly expensive Quest Pro in late 2022 before dropping that headset’s price from $1,499 to $999 less than five months later. And last year’s launch of the Quest 3 at a $499 starting price brought some significant improvements in resolution, processing power, thickness, and full-color passthrough images over the Quest 2.
But for how long?
Those looking to get the Quest 2 at its new bargain MSRP should keep in mind that Meta may not be planning to support the aging headset for the long haul. Meta is currently winding down support for the original Quest headset, which launched in 2019 and no longer has access to important online features, security updates, and even new apps. The Quest 2 is just 18 months younger than the original Quest, and the new price might represent an effort to clear out defunct stock in favor of newer, more powerful Quest options.
Enlarge/ The Quest 2 (left) has a 40 percent thicker profile than the pancake-optics on the Quest 3 (right).
The Quest 2’s new price is the first time Meta has offered a headset below the “$250 and 250 grams” target former Meta CTO John Carmack once envisioned for a “super cheap, super lightweight headset” that could bring in the mass market (the Quest 2 weighs in at 503 grams). The new price is also stunningly cheap when you consider that, just six or seven years ago, VR-curious consumers could easily end up paying $1,500 or more (in 2024 dollars) for a high-end tethered headset and the “VR-ready” computer needed to power it.
If you’ve waited this long to see what virtual reality gaming is all about, this price drop is the perfect opportunity to indulge your curiosity for a relative pittance. Heck, it might be worth it even if your headset ends up, like mine, a Beat Saber machine most of the time.
In a recent interview with Ars Technica, Wonder producer Takashi Tezuka said it wasn’t that tough to get that kind of creative continuity at Nintendo. “The secret to having a long-tenured staff is that people don’t quit,” he said. “For folks who have been there together for such a long time, it’s easy for us to talk to each other.”
That said, Tezuka added that just getting a bunch of industry veterans together to make a game runs the risk of not “keeping up with the times. Really, for me, I have a great interest in how our newer staff members play, what they play, what they think, and what is appealing to them. I think it’s very interesting the things we can come up with when these two disparate groups influence each other to create something.”
Young and old
For Super Mario Bros. Wonder, the development team solicited literally thousands of ideas for potential game-changing Wonder Effects and badges from across Nintendo. In doing so, the game was able to incorporate the viewpoints of people with a wide variety of histories and memories of the series, Tezuka told Ars.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder Producer Takashi Tezuka.
Nintendo
Super Mario Bros. Wonder Director Shiro Mouri.
Nintendo
“Among our staff, there are folks who actually maybe haven’t played some of the [older] game titles we’re talking about,” he said. “So I think there was some familiarization for those folks with some of those titles. And maybe there was some inspiration drawn from those titles that I’m not aware of.”
For a series as long-running as Mario, though, even some of the relatively “younger” development cohort can have a deep history with the series. Super Mario Bros. Wonder Director Shiro Mouri, who joined Nintendo in 1997, recalled playing the original Super Mario Bros. back in elementary school, and being “so moved and awed by the secrets and mysteries I discovered in that game.” The Wonder Effects in Wonder were an explicit attempt to recapture that feeling of being young and discovering new things for the first time, which can be difficult in such an established series.
Mouri also drew some parallels between Yoshi’s Island—where Yoshi could sometimes turn into a vehicle—and Wonder transformation effects that could turn the player into slime or a spiky ball, for instance. “That’s not to say that we drew [direct] inspiration from [Yoshi’s Island] or anything, but I think… providing surprises has always been a theme throughout our philosophy,” he said.
Enlarge/ Photos of iGBA that appeared on the App Store before the app was taken down.
Over the weekend, developer Mattia La Spina launched iGBA as one of the first retro game emulators legitimately available on the iOS App Store following Apple’s rules change regarding such emulators earlier this month. As of Monday morning, though, iGBA has been pulled from the App Store following controversy over the unauthorized reuse of source code from a different emulator project.
Shortly after iGBA’s launch, some people on social media began noticing that the project appeared to be based on the code for GBA4iOS, a nearly decade-old emulator that developer Riley Testut and a partner developed as high-schoolers (and distributed via a temporary security hole in the iOS App Store). Testut took to social media Sunday morning to call iGBA a “knock-off” of GBA4iOS. “I did not give anyone permission to do this, yet it’s now sitting at the top of the charts (despite being filled with ads + tracking),” he wrote.
GBA4iOS is an open source program released under the GNU GPLv2 license, with licensing terms that let anyone “use, modify, and distribute my original code for this project without fear of legal consequences.” But those expansive licensing terms only apply “unless you plan to submit your app to Apple’s App Store, in which case written permission from me is explicitly required.”
Images from the original, circa 2014 version of GBA4iOS.
“To be clear, I’m not pissed at the developer [of iGBA],” Testut added on social media. “I’m pissed that Apple took the time to change the App Store rules to allow emulators and then approved a knock-off of my own app.”
Hurry up and wait
MacRumors reports that Apple cited two sections of its App Store guidelines in removing iGBA: one related to spam (Section 4.3) and one related to copyright (section 5.2). Right now, it’s a bit ambiguous whether the copyright violation refers to the copyright on the emulator source code itself or the emulator’s ability to easily play copyrighted games from Nintendo and others.
As we discussed earlier this month, the wording of Apple’s recent App Store guidelines update makes it unclear if developers can release general-purpose emulators with the ability to play ROMs they don’t control the rights to. Aside from iGBA, a Commodore 64 emulator named Emu64 XL and built off of the open source VICE project was recently launched on the iOS App Store.
Apple has yet to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica. But Testut wrote early Monday morning that “to Apple’s credit, though, once they were aware of the issue, they did take it seriously. So I really don’t believe this was malicious at all — just an unfortunate situation for everyone involved.” Testut added that iGBA maker La Spina “reached out to me via email to personally apologize for the mess. So no hard feelings there.”
But Testut did have some hard feelings regarding Apple’s treatment of AltStore, an alternative marketplace for sideloading iOS apps that he’s trying to launch under the EU’s new regulations. That would provide Testut with a legitimate way to distribute Delta, a “sequel” to GBA4iOS that emulates many classic Nintendo consoles on Apple devices.
“My frustration stemmed entirely from the fact we’ve been ready to launch Delta since last month,” Tetstut wrote on social media. “This whole situation could’ve been avoided if Apple hadn’t delayed approving us until after changing their rules to allow emulators.”
Enlarge/ Is a name like “Suyu” ironic enough to avoid facing a lawsuit?
Suyu
Nintendo continues to use DMCA requests to halt projects it says aid in the piracy of Switch content. Discord has shut down the discussion servers associated with two prominent Yuzu forks—Suyu and Sudachi—while GitHub has removed a couple of projects related to the decryption of Switch software for use with emulators or hacked consoles.
That settlement includes a section prohibiting the makers of Yuzu from “acting in active concert and participation” with third parties in the distribution or promotion of Yuzu or any clones that make use of its code. But there’s no evidence that anyone enjoined by that settlement is actively working with Suyu or Sudachi on their projects.
“Discord responds to and complies with all legal and valid Digital Millennium Copyright Act requests,” a company spokesperson told The Verge. “In this instance, there was also a court-ordered injunction for the takedown of these materials, and we took action in a manner consistent with the court order.”
On GitHub, Nintendo’s latest DMCA requests focus on two tools: Sigpatch Updater, which the company says “allow[s] users to bypass the signature verification” in Switch games, and Lockpick, which allows “unauthorized access to, extraction of, and decryption of all the cryptographic keys, including product keys, contained in the Nintendo Switch” on modded consoles, Nintendo says.
You can run…
Last month, one of the moderators behind the Suyu project told Ars Technica that Suyu had taken pains to avoid the legal pitfalls that tripped up Yuzu before it. That includes Discord server rules that strictly prohibited any discussion of piracy, including “asking for system files, ROMs, encryption keys, shader caches, and discussion of leaked games etc.”
Discord’s “Copyright & IP policy” requires complaints to include “a description of where the material you think is infringing is located on our services.” Both Suyu and Sudachi host their core emulation files on services separate from Discord.
The Discord server for Ryujinx—a separate Switch emulator that doesn’t share any code with Yuzu—remains active as of press time. “Nothing is happening to Ryujinx,” reads an automated message on that server. “We know nothing more than you do. No dooming.”
In a deckbuilding game, you start out with a basic set of cards, then upgrade it over time, seeking synergies and compounding effects. Roguelikes are games where death happens quite often, but each randomized “run” unlocks options for the future. In both genres, and when they’re fused together, the key is staying lean, trimming your deck and refining your strategy so that every card and upgrade works toward unstoppable momentum.
“Lean” does not describe the current scene for roguelike deckbuilder games, but they certainly have momentum. As of this writing, Steam has 2,599 titles tagged by users with “deckbuilding” and 861 with “roguelike deckbuilder” in all languages, more than enough to feed a recent Deckbuilders Fest. The glut has left some friends and co-workers grousing that every indie game these days seems to be either a cozy farming sim or a roguelike deckbuilder.
I, an absolute sucker for deckbuilders for nearly five years, wanted to know why this was happening.
In Slay the Spire, and most roguelike deckbuilders, you battle enemies by drawing cards and playing a limited number of them: attack, defend, buff, debuff, etc. Crucially, enemies show you what they are going to do next, so you can triage and strategize.
MegaCrit
Winning battles nets you random new card choices, which may or may not fit your strategy.
MegaCrit
You choose which path to take, full of battles, stores, random “encounters,” rest stops, and “Elite” battles that are more rewarding.
MegaCrit
Stores and encounters will often let you buy cards or artifacts, and sometimes remove them, too.
MegaCrit
Roguelike deckbuilder bosses are often designed to challenge build strategies and force adaptability.
MegaCrit
Or, as often happens, you just die and start over with more cards and upgrades unlocked for next time.
MegaCrit
What is so appealing to developers and players about single-player card games made for screens? How do developers differentiate their deckbuilders? And how do you promote a title in a niche but crowded field?
Seeking these answers, I spoke with a bunch of roguelike deckbuilder developers, and I read interviews and watched conference talks from others. Some common themes and trends revealed themselves. Like a well-honed deck, each element fed into and bolstered the others.
But let’s first go back to the beginning, to perhaps the most powerful single element of roguelike deckbuilders’ success: two college friends in their 20s, tired of working QA jobs.
Slay the Spire’s starting point
Slay the Spire marked what was arguably the start of modern, single-player roguelike deckbuilder video games. Some games may technically have combined combat-oriented deckbuilding with the procedural generation and die/improve/repeat nature of roguelikes, but the 2019 game was the first to crack the formula and build a big audience around it. Slay the Spire also broadly boosted enthusiasm for single-player card games on computers in general—games other than Windows’ Solitaire, at least.
In a video interview with Ars Technica, and at Game Developer Conference (GDC) talks in 2019 on marketing and balancing, developers Anthony Giovannetti and Casey Yano told the game’s story. Giovannetti and Yano had met in college and made some one-off games, then graduated and got jobs. Giovannetti was a card game and tabletop enthusiast, even briefly managing a game store. He was certainly familiar with deckbuilding pioneer Dominion, but his main game was Netrunner—he still maintains the community site StimHack. Yano worked at Amazon, where he said he picked up the company’s “customer obsession” mentality.
In mid-2015, the two reconnected and went all-in on making their genre-melding concept, initially named “Card Crawl.” Starting with stick-figure drawings, a procedurally generated progression scheme cribbed from FTL, and input from some advanced Netrunner playtesters, they worked until the game was ready for early access on Steam. Chief among their in-development discovery was broadcasting enemy intents to the player and simplifying visuals and indicators until they were readable at a glance, even in a foreign language.
Slay the Spire launched in Steam’s Early Access after more than two years of development in November 2017. It sold 200 copies on day one, 300 on day two, and 150 on day three, declining from then on. The developers had made trailers, sent more than 600 emails to press and other outlets, and in the critical first two weeks of release, they had only sold 2,000 copies.
Things looked grim, but eventually, some of the 200 keys they sent to streamers led to some live play. An influential Chinese streamer’s Slay session garnered more than 1 million views, which nudged the game up the top seller list, leading to further sales, which sparked more streams, and so on. Grateful for their second wind, the team released new patches every week and used statistical feedback from early sessions to further tune the game. They took care not to remove “overpowered” strategy discoveries because they understood the joy of “a well-powered Rube Goldberg machine.”
Despite critical raves, a 99 percent positive Steam review rating, and more than 1.5 million sales by September 2019, Yano told the GDC crowd that “we never really improved how to, like, sell the game. I would say it’s still really word-of-mouth. But it’s been doing well that way, so I think we’re gonna keep going that way.”
Multiple developers I spoke with cited Slay the Spire as inspiration; one had more than 1,000 hours in it. The game’s design and success have compounded a few times over, creating new starting points. Balatro‘s developer claimed to have not played deckbuilders before making his own, but he was fascinated by streams of Luck Be a Landlord. That slot machine roguelike was, per its developer’s blog, heavily influenced by Slay the Spire. Even if you don’t know it, you probably know it.
Epic is suggesting that competition on the Android mobile platform would be opened up if the court orders Google to allow third-party app stores to be distributed for six years in the Google Play Store and blocks Google from entering any agreements with device makers that would stop them from pre-loading third-party app stores. This would benefit both mobile developers and users, Epic argued in a wide-sweeping proposal that would greatly limit Google’s control over the Android app ecosystem.
US District Court Judge James Donato will ultimately decide the terms of the injunction. Google has until May 3 to respond to Epic’s filing.
“Epic’s filing to the US Federal Court shows again that it simply wants the benefits of Google Play without having to pay for it,” Google’s spokesperson said. “We’ll continue to challenge the verdict, as Android is an open mobile platform that faces fierce competition from the Apple App Store, as well as app stores on Android devices, PCs, and gaming consoles.”
If Donato accepts Epic’s proposal, Google would be required to grant equal access to the Android operating system and platform features to all developers, not just developers distributing apps through Google Play. This would allow third-party app stores to become the app update owner, updating any apps downloaded from their stores as seamlessly as Google Play updates apps.
Under Epic’s terms, any app downloaded from anywhere would operate identically to apps downloaded from Google Play, without Google imposing any unnecessary distribution fees. Similarly, developers would be able to provide their own in-app purchasing options and inform users of out-of-app purchasing options, without having to use Google’s APIs or paying Google additional fees.
Notably, Epic filed its lawsuit after Google removed the Epic game Fortnite from the Google Play Store because Epic tried to offer an “Epic Direct Payment” option for in-game purchases.
“Google must also allow developers to communicate directly with their consumers, including linking from their app to a website to make purchases and get deals,” Epic said in a blog post. “Google would be blocked from using sham compliance programs like User Choice Billing to prevent competing payment options inside an app or on a developer’s website.”
Unsurprisingly, Epic’s proposed injunction includes an “anti-retaliation” section specifically aimed at protecting Epic from any further retaliation. If Donato accepts the terms, Google would be violating the injunction order if the tech giant fails to prove that it is not “treating Epic differently than other developers” by making it “disproportionately difficult or costly” for Epic to develop, update, and market its apps on Android.
That part of the injunction would seem important since, last month, Epic announced that an Epic Games Store was “coming to iOS and Android” later this year. According to Inc, Epic told Game Developers Conference attendees that its app-distribution platform will be the “first ever game-focused, multiplatform store,” working across “Android, iOS, PC and macOS.”
Like the games, the show depicts a Vault Dweller making her way out into the Wasteland.
Amazon
This Brotherhood of Steel Initiate is another central character.
Amazon
And there’s The Ghoul, one of the show’s standout characters.
Amazon
Lost‘s Michael Emerson plays a compelling supporting character.
Amazon
Some scenes take place inside the games’ famous Vaults.
Amazon
And, of course, there’s power armor.
Amazon
Amazon has had a rocky history with big, geeky properties making their way onto Prime Video. The Wheel of Time wasn’t for everyone, and I have almost nothing good to say about The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Fallout, the first season of which premiered this week, seems to break that bad streak. All the episodes are online now, but I’ve watched three episodes so far. I love it.
I’ve spent hundreds of hours playing the games that inspired it, so I can only speak to that experience; I don’t know how well it will work for people who never played the games. But as a video game adaptation, it’s up there with The Last of Us.
In my view, Fallout is about three things: action, comedy, and satire. In this spoiler-free review of the first three episodes, I’ll go over each of these touchstones and discuss how the show hit them or didn’t.
I hope to find the time to revisit the show with another, much more spoiler-y article sometime next week after I’ve seen the rest of the episodes, and we’ll save discussions about the story for then.
Fallout as an action spectacle
To say Fallout is about high-octane action might be a controversial statement, given the divide between fans of the first two games (turn-based tactical RPGs) and most of the newer games (open-world action RPGs).
Hyperviolence was being depicted and simulated in those original titles even if they weren’t part of the action genre, so I hope you’ll agree that one would expect some action and gore in a TV adaptation regardless of which Fallout games you liked.
Boy, does this show deliver. While there is some dispute over which genre the Fallout games are supposed to be, there’s no such confusion about Fallout the TV series. If it were at Blockbuster in the ’80s or ’90s, its box would be in the “Action” section.
All three episodes have at least one big-screen-worthy action set piece. They’re not expertly choreographed like a John Wick movie, but they’re thrilling regardless—mostly because of how extreme and darkly funny the violence can be.
The first big action sequence in the first episode reminded me that this show is coming to us by way of Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, producers of HBO’s Westworld series. As in that show, Fallout‘s violence can be sudden, brutal, and casual. Heads explode from shotgun blasts like popped bubbles in Cronenbergian splatters. Someone’s face gets ripped right off, and another person gets a fork plunged into their eyeball.
Fallout‘s gore goes beyond Westworld’s shock factor into the territory of humor, and that’s clearly intentional. Homages to the Bethesda games’ slow-motion VATS kills are aplenty, with gratuitous shots of bullets tearing through bodies and painting the walls red.
It’s so over the top it that doesn’t bother me; it’s cartoon violence, ultimately. Most of the time, I enjoy it, though a couple of instances of dog-related violence didn’t feel too great. But if you’re squeamish, you’re going to want to steer clear. Of course, the games were like this, too. It just hits a little differently when it’s live action.
Fallout as a comedy
There are numerous executive producers attached to this show, including Nolan, Joy, and Bethesda Game Studios’ Todd Howard, among others. But the two people most creatively responsible for what we’re seeing here are the writers Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Tomb Raider, Captain Marvel) and Graham Wagner (Portlandia,Silicon Valley, The Office).
That makes sense—you have one showrunner with action and video game adaptation chops and another known for comedy.
The Fallout games are hilarious—goofy, even, and that tracks right into the show. It’s not always as laugh-out-loud funny as I expected (though it sometimes is), but it’s definitely fun, and there are some strong jokes.
It’s hard to discuss them without spoiling some punchlines, but a lot of the humor comes from the fact that one of the show’s three central characters grew up deeply sheltered, both literally and figuratively. “Okey-dokey,” she says in the face of the most horrific situations imaginable. The contrast really works.
There’s humor in other places in the show, too, especially if you like dark humor. As I said a moment ago, the violence is hilarious if you have the stomach for it. Like the games, the show has many winks and nods.
I’d like to see a little more of this in the future than there is now, but it’s enough for it to feel like, well, Fallout.
Enlarge/Norland is a game that communicates its intent well through screenshots.
Hooded Horse
The Triple-i initiative is a gaming showcase that gets it, and is also in on the joke.
The thing Triple-i gets is that most gaming “showcases” are full of corporate fluff, go on way too long, and are often anchored around a couple huge titles. Triple-i’s first event on Wednesday delivered 30-plus game trailers and teases within 45 minutes, and there was a consistent intrigue to all of them. There were some big names with some bigger studios loosely attached, and the definition of what is “triple-i” is quite vague, maybe intentionally. But there were a lot of games worth noting, especially on PC.
What kind of games? Triple-i’s website notes the announcement “may contain traces of rogue-lites.” At a breakpoint in the showcase, the omniscient text narrator notes there are “Only a few more rogue-lites (promise).” Triple-i was stuffed full of rogue-lites, roguelikes, survival, city-builders, deckbuilders, Hades-likes, 16-bit-esque platformers, VampireSurvivors and its progeny, turn-based tacticals, and then a car that sometimes has legs. There are strong trends in indie and indie-adjacent gaming, but also some real surprises.
The inaugural Triple-I Initiative showcase.
If you want a whole bunch of Steam wishlist ideas, go ahead and watch the whole thing. But here is a cheat sheet of the newest titles and notable updates I found most intriguing.
Slay the Spire 2, the sequel to the 2019 game that launched hundreds of roguelike deckbuilders, announced its existence with a trailer that featured no cards. But look at the Steam page and you’ll see that the Ironclad and Silent characters from the original will return, along with The Necrobinder, a skeleton wielding a scythe and glowing with undead flame. The game is rewritten entirely from the original, with all-new visuals and “modern features,” according to the devs. The only bad news is the timing: It’s launching in early access in 2025.
Dinolords (trailer) has you building up a village in medieval England, fortifying it and training your troops to resist Viking invaders. Which is a game that’s been made before, except these marauding Danes have dinosaurs. They will ram right through the walls and eat your stupid villagers. A Stegosaurus will spin its spiky tail in a circle and knock a dozen of them over.
Vampire Survivors: Operation Guns DLC trailer.
Vampire Survivors: Operation Guns DLC feat. Contra tells you most of what you need to know if you’re familiar with the original. The “bullet heaven” auto-shooter will get 11 new characters, 22 new weapons, new stages (some of them with very side-scrolling perspectives), and lots of music remixes inspired by the “bullet hell” classic, Contra. It’s downloadable content that arrives on May 9.
The Rogue Prince of Persia trailer.
The Rogue Prince of Persia is from publisher Ubisoft, which doesn’t typically evoke “indie,” even at the “iii” level. But developer Evil Empire, one of the two teams behind rogue-lite action classic Dead Cells, is the one taking the Prince of Persia license into rogue-y directions. As you might expect, you will jump, you will fight with impossible elegance, and you will die a whole bunch. The art style is eye-catching, and the run-by-run changes should open up more approaches. The expected release date is May 24.
Norland release date trailer.
Norland, due out May 16, calls out its inspirations of Rimworld and Crusader Kings right upfront on its Steam page, and I believe it. The game looks like a fun mix of goofy, grim, tactical, and oh-God-it’s-all-falling-apart chaos, with some ruling-class concerns, too. Nasty, brutish, short, but also pretty fun?
In no particular order, a few other highlights of Triple-i:
Risk of Rain 2 is getting some free content, a “Devotion Update,” which includes some Dead Cells skins.
Kill Knight is a brutal, dark, grim isometric game, but your demonic knight has guns.
Laysara: Summit Kingdom takes city builders and civ games to new heights, literally, on mountains, where you deal with avalanches and sky bridges.
Cataclismo, from the Moonlighter folks, is a brick-by-brick castle builder and defense game.
What the Car? has you play a car with legs. Sometimes you race, sometimes you cook. It’s silly time on Sept. 5.
Palworld is getting an arena mode, sometime in 2024.
Mouse, the “some kinds of Mickey Mouse are public domain now” first-person shooter, actually looks a lot more interesting than my snarky intro clause suggests.
V Rising, the open-world vampire game, will launch out of early access on May 8, along with a Legacy of Castlevania crossover. Finally, you can bring down the (literally) holier-than-thou Simon Belmont.
