What’s up, guys? Welcome back to Newsweek. While we’re here, it’s to start today with the Switch 2 specifically as part of the unboxing experience, if you will, when you get a chance to open the system up, of course, and see the well, open the box, see the system. There is something Nintendo wanted to make sure you are aware of, which we can see this is posted up. This is over on my Nintendo news and Nintendo of Europe shared a post and a message about this saying the screen is covered with a film layer designed to prevent fragments scattering in the event of damage. Do not peel it off. Now, if you have a Switch OLED right now, you you actually have already experienced this, although you may not have noticed. If you look very closely at the edge around your screen, you’ll notice something that looks like almost the end of a like the edge of a screen protector. that that’s very purposeful. That’s there so that if it does shatter and rather than fragments of glass or what have you, material coming out and cutting you, it’ll just sort of be caught against this film and that’s sort of it. Now, the the original switch didn’t have that and that’s because the front was like a plastic material. So, in this case, if you say take off the there’s an initial plastic peel, of course, that you do. From there, you don’t have to remove what looks almost like a a a welded on screen protector. Okay? It’s um it’s it is merged to the screen and it’s not something that you’re necessarily going to notice unless you really look for it. But in case you do, don’t remove it. It is there for a reason. Also, there have been a lot of rumors and discussions around a remake for Assassin’s Creed for Black Flag. And once again, we have another hint at this. Now, this was posted up in in a message over on X, and this was from Pure Arts as they were going over some of these Assassin’s Creed statues and and different accessories, and they had kept they kept hinting towards Black Flag and what could be going on there as they saw articles online. And they went on to say there will be something going on with Edward, that being Edward Kenway from Black Flag, and our PVC 1/8 scale statue will reflect that accordingly. Now, it makes sense that Pure Arts, who’s making these statues, that take quite a while to to figure out, of course, logistically, would have knowledge that, hey, we should probably have a Black Flag statue of some kind ready to go because there is indeed a remake that is coming. And we’ve kind of known about it for a while now, mostly from the different reports. So, yeah, you’re probably going to see something with a Black Flag remake here pretty soon. And we’re trying to figure out there’s going to be a Ubisoft forward here coming up because there’s another game we got to get to as well. Oh, and People Can Fly just can’t seem to to catch a break as they did have to announce that more layoffs were ensuing as well as canceled projects. This we can see over on BGC where they say People Can Fly has canceled two unannounced games and signal there will be layoffs at the studio as a result of publisher disagreements. We have Project Gemini, that’s an unannounced game which was going to be published by Square Enix along with a separate unannounced VR game that was referred to as Project Bifrost. These have both been cancelled and naturally when you cancel large projects like this you typically have to cut costs or well people who were working on that don’t have anything else to work on now so they end up getting laid off. Now at this time people can fly are working on two games. We know Gears of War Eday as well as some unannounced PlayStation IP and they made that announcement very loudly here recently. So, they at least do have some stuff that they’re working on, but it just seems like people can fly keep having projects canceled on them or they’re not collecting royalties for past projects is hasn’t been a great uh several years now actually for them. So, here’s hoping something like Gears War eay or this PlayStation IP can kind of turn things around. And guys, with some of the quick news out of the way, let’s get into the bigger stuff. Let’s start right away with Switch 2, of course, launching this week. Wednesday night or Thursday morning if you’re going by the store to pick it up or you’re waiting outside your house or inside looking out the window, waiting for the driver to drop it off, say, from Walmart, which was at the center of discussion over the weekend as people were taking to social media saying that their orders were just being cancelled. Specifically, Walmart was coming up a lot. I saw a few other retailers, but Walmart was like the big one. And so like as an example over on Reddit here, this post says that anyone else has switched to pre-order get cancelled out of nowhere and people started to come together and realize, oh wow, Walmart, it seems to be the the main culprit here. And some were even just posted up on Walmart’s subreddit in general. Now, some were saying that there may have been a glitch in their system that caused this. Some were wondering if they just overordered, like they had just way more orders than they had in terms of like switch two systems that they could actually ship out to people. and others were saying that there was some kind of payment processing issue. And look, this was going to happen either way because they charge as we get into the Switch to launch. So, if it’s tied to a card that was that was expired maybe or didn’t have enough funds behind it, then yes, the the order is not going to go through and it would be cancelled. Now, the thing that’s interesting about Walmart, why I don’t necessarily believe that it’s all about they don’t have enough stock, is because I keep seeing pictures, not only pop up online, but being sent to to me, like personally through like DMs of just a bunch of Switch Twos showing up at different retail stores and Walmart seems to be one of the main one that I keep getting sent. And you can kind of tell because one, the backdrop or background, it’s like, oh, well, there’s like there’s Walmart tags on that thing, so obviously this is at Walmart. But then there’s just identifying information on some of these boxes. So many of these would get posted up even on on places like Reddit or on X or different forums and then they get deleted because it’s identifying information and you’re not supposed to be posting images of course of stuff that’s coming in that is street dated like the Switch 2. But from what I can tell many of these different retailers are going to have quite a bit of Day One stock. So I was going around and looking. I know Jake Randle, great source for this. I’m sure he’ll have updates as we get into probably the day before because I think a lot of stuff will really be happening June 3rd when many of these different stores have received their shipments for the week and have an idea as to how many they’ll have available. So, going down the list here, if you did have your pre-order cancelled at say Walmart or any of the others, uh we have Best Buy, Walmart, Target, GameStop, and Costco. They’ll all have stock on day one, June 5th. Okay? So, GameStop, they’ll be taking pre-orders June 4th, 300 p.m. at your local time, okay? And that’ll be set up even for the midnight release. So, I mean, it’s it’s not a bad idea to get there the a bit early and kind of scope things out, see how many people are maybe waiting in line for that 300 p.m. uh top of the hour to tick over to start doing these pre-orders. But, I I think GameStop is a good one just because the midnight release option is available. The other one, Best Buy. Apparently, they’re just going to have extra consoles at midnight. As in, if you get there early, yes, you may have to wait in line, but you’ll be able to to go apparently at midnight. Pick the system up, even if you didn’t pre-order it, say, online when they were doing all that, and you’ll be good to go. Target, they will have stock at open June 5th, but it’s not a midnight release thing. So, you’ll want to get there earlier before they open again, just to see what the line is like there. However, you’ll be able to at least get stuff day one, June 5th, when the system releases. So, I do think many of these places will get crushed in general be a mad house on release, but also midnight release timing. And I will say this, just based on a lot of the the stock that seems to be flowing right now for the system, I think it will be mostly available, although it’s still going to sell out and I’m sure it will still be a difficult item to get in like the short term. Maybe as we go along and Nintendo’s able to stock more and more systems for that eventual holiday rush, there’ll be that in between period like September or something where there’ll just be some Switch twos that are allocated to a Walmart and you just happen to see it and be there right time, right place. But for the most part, I think here in the next couple of weeks, very difficult to get. So, uh, definitely worth checking out if you had your pre-order cancelled any of these places either for the midnight release or at launch. and definitely tune in to people like Jake Randall who should have updates as we go through the next 48 hours. Next up, let’s talk about Ubisoft who has the potential to show off a really cool game or just disappoint everyone completely again actually. So, let’s talk about this post that definitely made the rounds online because as you can see here, it’s just Sam Fischer. They Okay, hashtag Splintercell, an image of Sam Fischer, couple eyes, the mouth. No real explanation for this. However, it still garnered 1.5 million views. It was like one of their most liked tweets in in quite some time now. And everyone’s trying to figure out, okay, what’s going on here? Well, we do know that there is a Splinter Cell remake that is in the works right now. Uh Tom Henderson mentioned that it’s it’s it it’s looking very impressive from what he’s seen. So, that I assume is what this is referencing. However, they did pick an image and I I looked at this said, “Hold on. This this looks this does look familiar obviously from that like PS2 Xbox era where they had those you know those cut scenes that were like early 2000s CG CGI kind of stuff. That’s what we had here. And after looking this appears to be from Pandora Tomorrow. So I’m not sure why they picked that. But you feel like they would pick one from the first Splinter Cell. They just get something from that. Whether it’s concept art or or or in-game screenshot that looks really really good maybe on an upresed image. But okay, whatever. it. Look, it’s a profile shot of Sam Fischer. So, this is what I mean about there being a Ubisoft forward. Okay, so we’re hearing about Black Flag remake. We’re hearing that uh that that on top of Splinter Cell here that uh Prince of Persia Sands of Time remake has or is supposed to be releasing before the end of this fiscal year for Ubisoft, which would be like the end of March next year. So, all this kind of adding up to me as they should have stuff to show for for Ubisoft Forward. There has not been one announced at this time, but it’s all kind of kind of lining up for that to happen, especially since Summer Gamefest, I noticed in their partners list, didn’t have Ubisoft. So, to me that it it all makes sense. And I would like to see the Splinter Cell remake because that’s a franchise that Ubisoft sheld and only really got interested in when they needed to drop something into a cell phone game or or a random collaboration with Ghost Recon, never to be seen again. So, this should be a really cool reveal. Should be a really cool reveal. Ubisoft recently hasn’t exactly been on the ball. So, there is a level of skepticism that should be present here, but I’m hoping this is the time where they can really pull it off and sort of bring back Sam Fischer and Splinterell in a big way because if this remake works, look, I know we’re talking about like, oh, let’s do remake after remake after remake. Look, Pandora Tomorrow, great game. Chaos Theory, great game. The recent track of Ubisoft, I wouldn’t mind them leaning into that more so than trying to do some original stuff. Let’s just get let’s just get the the the franchise off and running again and use some of the older material we have that uh still holds up actually. Just some tweaks here and there when it comes to visuals and some modernized controls. But let me just think of the idea of maybe Splinter Cell making an appearance here sometime in June, Summer Gamefest, Xbox show, maybe a Ubisoft forward. Next up, let’s talk about some backlash that Activision and in turn Microsoft would be seeing. And that has to do with Call of Duty War Zone and Black Ops 6 and continuous monetization practices of course that we are coming to expect from these big budget games. with Call of Duty being at the forefront of this, especially when it comes to even in-game advertisements or weird celebrity collaborations that make no sense in the world of Call of Duty. That game has uh taken many left turns at this point, and who knows where they are at this at this time. But something people noticed is, yeah, you’re getting advertisements even on your weapon loadout screen. Now, we can see this posted up. This is over on IGN. They have several examples of this with different images as well as reactions from parts of the community, but it says following the launch of season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts. You can see it at the top. And I mean, the advertisements are for kind of preconfigured loadouts you can buy. So, okay. And skins. I mean, they they’re they’re selling to their targeted audience. Here’s the thing with this. Okay, I get it. in War Zone. War Zone is a free game. It’s a freeto play. At that point, you should expect every trick in the book to hit you in the face like right away when it comes to them trying to get money out of you. My hang-up is with the premiumbric Black Ops 6. All right? Because that you’re paying full price for that. We believe at the end of this year, we’ll probably paying $80 for it. Microsoft’s already told us that some of their games are going to 80. Call of Duty is the most expensive game they make at this point. So, yeah, that obviously that’s going to $80. So, when you hear that and you’re like, “Okay, now there’s also an advertisement to then put more money in in your weapon loadout, which is like gosh, you can’t escape it anywhere at that point, right?” It’s like you’re trying to put your weapon together through different customized parts that you earn as you level up your weapons or your account or go through that battle pass you just spent 10 bucks on and they want to, of course, try to sell you on more stuff. Again, I get it for War Zone. It’s the premium price stuff that just doesn’t really sit right with me. And it seems like that’s kind of a shared sentiment with uh well most of the community here. So I really do hope that Battlefield is able to provide some kind of competition here because it’s just been Call of Duty for years now at this point kind of unabated at all in in sort of that that shooter space. I know there are other live service games like Fortnite or Apex Legends and stuff like that, but when it comes to that military more realistic kind of arcade shooter, it’s it’s just it nothing’s really standing up to Call of Duty anymore. So, yes, I do hope Battlefield’s good, but then also it’s like, oh yeah, that’s EA, so they’ll probably have adverts in their loadouts at some point, too. And in our last bit of news, let’s double back to that story around Cliffhanger Games shutting down and the Black Panther game that was in development being cancelled at EA. Now, Jason Shrier did follow up on this story at Bloomberg and got some more details around exactly what was going on here, which we can see this post up over on his social media account where he says, “In the cancelled game, the player would have taken control of heroes like Tchala, Killilmonger, and Shuri, vying for the Black Panther Mantle while fighting off scrolls. It was an evolution of the Nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor by the leads who made that game. And it’s interesting the way it’s described here to where yes, enemies that you’ve had previous encounters with will remember you and in some cases kind of change up their style or even equipment based on exactly how that fight went. Goes on to say EA executives grew frustrated with Black Panther’s lack of progress, but Cliffhanger had just passed a milestone in March and was scaling up. Many of the people laid off this week had been hired in the last few weeks or months. Now, it seemed that this game had had been four years in and was just about ready to leave pre-production. Four years in pre-production is wild. That’s I get why they would then be uh kind of annoyed at the lack of progress if you’ve been in pre-production that long. However, the thing that I’m sure many people are noticing by now, the Nemesis system isn’t exactly something that’s quick when it comes to development. And in this case, it seems like they were trying to emulate it probably close enough without getting themselves into legal trouble because we know it is a patent that is held up by uh by WB and everything. So you can’t just like one to one that or even a little too close one to one or you could find yourself in some hot water in the courtroom. So, it’s possible that they were trying to figure out ways around some of that because if you’re going to build a game around or if you’re going to build a Nemesis system and use it, the entire game basically has to be built around it. So, they’re trying to build their new age or new version of the Nemesis system. And I feel like that’s probably what was taken the majority of their time. Although, I do like the idea of you having these different characters sort of in that universe vying for the Black Panther mantle. And I I guess just kind of there’s this this openw world action adventure style game with scrolls and running into different enemy encounters that are going to be different each time you play through the game. So there was a lot of potential there. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a lot of wasted time as well. And that’s just kind of how it goes with a lot of these big AAA games. And it seemed that okay, it took four years of pre-production. It’s going to take another four years for this game to come out. This is an eight-year dev cycle because then they’re thinking, you know what, might as well cut our losses while we’re here then. And before we go to the comment of the day, we’ll take a look at the poll that I posted up yesterday where I ask, “Switch to launch week is here. Are you picking one up?” 51% say yes. 49% say no. So, okay. Yeah, basically 50/50 here. And look, there’s there’s a bunch of different reasons why you may not be getting a Switch to now. Some said in the comments, uh, money, some say, you know what, I’m waiting for say the next big mainline Zelda game. I think I’ll be ready to go for that. Some are saying, hey, I still have a lot of Switch games I’m playing right now. and rather than try to uh fight off the early adopters and the big rush, maybe I’ll wait till the holidays and see where we are then. And yeah, it makes a lot of sense because Mario Kart is a fun game. It’s it’s a game that appeals to many people. I I said this over the weekender in the podcast. I don’t think it has the pull that a big 3D Zelda like Breath of the Wild. I feel like if you put Mario Kart and Breath of the Wild up against each other, it’s like which one would be the better launch game to have if you want to pull in like the uh the hardcore gamers and the big Switch gamers. Now, I think most people would not only pick Breath of the Wild to buy themselves, but I’ll say, you know, it’s probably the one. Mario Kart, though, cast such a wide net. It’s it’s the obvious one to go with if you want to sell the most systems right away. So, I understand why that that was kind of the move, but I get it when people say, “All right, the next big 3D Mario game, the next big new generation Pokemon launch, the next big 3D Zelda game.” I’m there. Until then, I can hang back away a little bit, wait and see. We are maybe after this apparent direct that’ll even be happening at some point this month. And we’ll finish up with the comment of the day as you’re seeing here. This is from Rash, who says, “You should buy a giant magnet and do the magnet test with those key cards as well as with regular cartridges to see what happens.” I mean, that’d be quite interesting. Someone actually brought this up to me already. It’s like, “Hey, you should get the get a key card, game key card, and just see what its tolerance is to different types of magnets.” Like, put it up against the magnet on the side of the the Joy-Con rail, right? And see if if that’s enough to scramble it and mess it up, and then eventually get to the point where I have a very strong magnet and just see if you can erase the thing and make it uh not function anymore. And technically then, yes, I would be destroying a game key card on camera, but it would be for science. Uh the the magnet shouldn’t really do much of anything to the like the standard game card, but I could test that, too. Let me know if that’s something you’d at least just be curious to see happen. And uh I guess see if we can destroy a game key card with a a more standard magnet or if you got to go like super heavy duty and find one that most people probably don’t have around their house. And ladies and gentlemen, that’s going to do it here for Newswe.