The Week That Was: 01/18 - 01/21/2022

Hey everyone! Hope you're having yourselves a nice, relaxing weekend after what was most certainly a VERY eventful week in video games. I've been working in or around video games for going on 20 years now, and I'm not sure anything quite as earth-shattering as Microsoft announcing its intention to buy Activision Blizzard has happened in video games business during that period. Stuff on this scale just doesn't happen very often in video games for the most part, except for the last couple of years, where it's happened like three separate times (Bethesda, Take Two just recently buying Zynga, and now THIS). I have my own deep reservations about this level of consolidation taking place in this industry, but it's not like that hasn't been the trend in the greater media landscape over the last decade or so. 

All I know is I've got way more questions than answers at this point, and we do our best to get some of those questions out there over the course of this past week's content (segue!). So without further ado, here's everything we put out this past week!

Nextlander Encounters Hellish Quart! 

I woke up on Tuesday morning and the very first thing I saw was the news of the Microsoft buyout of Activision, which is certainly a way to kick off a week. I think the first fifteen minutes before this morning stream was just Vinny and I making dumbfounded sounds at one another before finally getting it together and launching into Hellish Quart, a Polish early access sword fighting game that lets your behead people and also do horrible things to spinal columns.

Weekly Ramblecast 032: Welcome to Fish Facts! 

We did our best to reserve all our Activision/Microsoft chatter for the main show, but we kick off this week's Ramblecast with a bit of discussion on that subject before launching into diatribes about canned fish, the concept of haggling, and the construction of a perfect hamburger.

The Nextlander Podcast 033: Behind the Green Curtain 

Understandably, a big chunk of this week's podcast is all about Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard, what it means for the workers fighting for better conditions at the publisher, what it means for the industry at large, and also what old games might return under the Microsoft banner, but that's not all! We also somehow work in discussion of the alcohol consumption habits of hamsters, a truly haunted Chuck E. Cheese, stores that are probably mob fronts, and even a couple of hot new video games in Nobody Saves the World and OlliOlli World!

Nextlander's Release Day with Windjammers 2 and Rainbow Six Extraction 

We split time on our Thursday between two of the month's bigger releases, and I only very slightly mean that as a dig at a dry release month. Windjammers 2! It really happened, despite all assurances that it would not! And guess what? It sure does play like some good old fashioned Windjammers. Also, Rainbow Six Extraction is here, and it seems...fine? OK? We manage to have some fun with it, at least.

Rock and Stone and Nextlander with Deep Rock Galactic 

We've been threatening to get back into Deep Rock Galactic for a while now, and now we finally made good on those threats! It's been a long time since any of us partook of the game's various mining adventures, and Brad hadn't touched it since the early access period, even! So sit back, pull up a barrel, pour yourself some space beer, and let's get to the task at hand: mining rocks while trying to not die horribly.

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And that was the week! We'll be back with another slate of streams and podcasts next week. Thank you as always for your continued support of this project. We're probably not going to get bought by Microsoft any time soon, so the support of our community is incredibly important to us. We couldn't do this without you. Thanks again, and have a great rest of your weekend!

--A