Rev Your Engines for a Crazy Taxi MMO?

Plus, Nintendo speaks on generative AI.

Author

Robert Scarpinito
July 05, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Hey, hey, hey! It’s time to make a… crazy open-world MMO? Honestly, a shared open world full of driving maniacs sounds like it could be a lot of fun. But like most live services, there’s a lot of risk involved here.

Without enough ongoing player interest, live service games can peter out. I’m sure there’s lots of examples I could point to, but just today, Capcom confirmed that the current season of Exoprimal will be the last.

Crazy Taxi is still a lot of fun playing solo, so hopefully that sort of experience won’t be hampered or sacrificed for the sake of the open world MMO, but we’ll have to wait and see.

At the very least, I’m holding out hope for an equally iconic soundtrack, but that’s a tall order; The Offspring’s “All I Want” and Crazy Taxi are share the same brain cell for me.

While Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa didn’t explicitly rule out the use of generative AI, he said Nintendo has no immediate plans to use it in its games, citing issues related to intellectual property rights.

If you know anything about how protective Nintendo is with its IP, the reasoning just makes sense. But beyond that, use of AI generally invites more controversy, which Nintendo generally likes to avoid.

In just a few months, Satisfactory will leave early access, with the 1.0 update bringing tweaks to recipe costs and resource nodes.

That’s not the only major factory management game in the news this week; Wube Software announced a release date for its upcoming expansion to Factorio. Factory sim fans will be eating well this fall.

In less than two weeks, Genshin Impact fans will be able to explore a new map full of seasonal events and roll for a new Dendro character, Emilie. That is, if Genshin fans aren’t too busy playing Zenless Zone Zero. (If you are, we’ll have guides hitting our site soon in case you need help with anything!)

The Game Manufacturer's Association has opened applications for its annual diversity drive called Horizons Fellowship, which will provide grants and support to tabletop publishers and retailers from marginalized groups.

Programmer Paul Ah-Thion took Cloud Imperium Games to tribunal, claiming he was discriminated against while it was instating a return-to-work policy. The company now owes him $35,000. Good thing it’s (somehow) making billions of dollars.

What’s New This Week?

Ahead of the next Dungeons & Dragons anthology, Quests from the Infinite Staircase, our resident D&D expert Andrew Stretch got a chance to preview one of the adventures in it. He also got a chance to see upcoming features coming to D&D Beyond’s map tool.

If you want to learn more about the anthology, Stretch also wrote a big tell-all about everything he learned during his time with Senior Game Designer Justice Arman.

SunnySide is a modern twist on the farming simulation games that players know and love. Combining the in-depth mechanics of Farming Simulators with cozy classics like Stardew Valley lets developers RainyGames create a unique, standout game. It’s got a few kinks to work out, but if you’re looking for a new cottagecore game to check out, this could be the one.

The new skirmish tabletop wargame from Free League Publishing is set in the Mutant Year Zero universe, and it’s approachable and full of personality. It doesn’t have the depth of a full-on wargame, but for something that sets up in less than 10 minutes, it’s an easy pick for a fun evening.

The Upcoming D&D Changes Are… Interesting

A table in the upcoming update for D&D shows the complexity level of every class according to Wizards of the Coast, and it left us wondering how Fighter and Rogue are both ranked as “low” complexity. Also, Sorcerer is more complex than Wizard, for some reason? Does that make sense to you?