Kaser Focus: What's Up, Witches?

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Anyone who even casually knows me knows what excites me the most this week. Bayonetta 3 finally comes out in October. Just a few days before Halloween, in fact. For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, Bayonetta is my favorite game, and I'm looking forward to what feels like a lifetime for the third installment. So my downfall is going to include Bayonetta 3, Slime Rancher 2, A Plague Tale: Requiem – I won't be bored. I better not.

I've seen users on Twitter speculating as to why Nintendo didn't reveal this news in a Direct. I can answer this: first, Bayonetta doesn't need to share space with nobody; and second, its gameplay doesn't need to be explained or told. Bayonetta's style speaks for itself, thank you very much. I could speculate for days (without exaggeration) about the potential story implications of multiple Bayonettas, who the heck Viola is, and whether the game is intended to be a crossover with Astral Chain… but I'll save that for my personal blog.

A few things happened this week that I thought I'd touch on briefly. For starters, the Assassin's Creed: Liberation debacle. In case you haven't heard, Ubisoft is removing multiplayer features and some DLC on a few older titles, including Liberation. Then, for a while, a notice on Steam hinted that the game itself would no longer be playable after September 1st. No one can seem to get a straight answer from anyone as to whether or not it's true. I hope it's not - Liberation is a lovely entry in the series and deserves more attention than it gets. Also, taking a game out of the mouths of people who paid for it is just a bad look.

In other news, PlayStation is launching a rewards program, called PlayStation Stars. Players can earn rewards for completing challenges or "campaigns" in various games. They can get digital collectibles - "definitely not" NFTs, according to the Washington Post - as well as loyalty points that can be used to buy PlayStation Store games and wallet funds. Leaving aside all the other implications of this initiative, my first thought was that these campaigns could be a way to draw attention to games that PlayStation considers underplayed, for whatever reason. Well, at least it will be free when it launches later this year.

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