APRIL FOOL ! Yes, it’s the beginning of the funniest month of the year (or not for that matter) and in terms of video games, the news has had a lot of fun. Best-of of the best valves of this April 1, 2023.
As every year on the first of April, you now know, you have to take everything that you find on the Internet with even bigger tweezers than usual. The jokes and fake news are legion and with the explosion of social networks, things are not going well. Nevertheless, some firms take the matter very seriously and do not hesitate to make clever or genuinely sought-after jokes. Needless to say, the info below is all April Fools.
Small selection of April Fools 2023
It sometimes even happens that the blagounette goes beyond simple April Fool’s Day, for example this year with Sega which, by trolling Sonic fans, has simply created a small free game. Or even Hyper X which did not hesitate to communicate on its “revolutionary” helmet as if it were a real accessory. We also had the right to new (or almost) new Ubisoft games and revolutionary technology that should transform the development of mobile games forever.
Hyper X H2O Helmet
You play whole hours, without any interruption and you don’t even think about drinking? So before consulting a doctor for your addiction to video games, test the new Hyper X headphones. With are New Cloud20 Hydration, Hyper X puts a big slap in the face to the gaming headset market. With its sleek design and very similar to the rest of the brand’s headphones, the Cloud 20 also offers a straw directly integrated into the microphone and transforms the fluffy ear cups into water reservoirs. Halfway between the beer helmet of student siblings, and the gaming helmet, the Hyper X Cloud 20 responds to this famous slogan: Stay Hydrated, often launched by players according to the firm. Moreover, the headset would be compatible with the Hyper X NGenuity software and it will even be possible to program the headset so that it sprays you with water when you scream too much into the microphone. It’s the future, ideal for gaming sessions in the heat. Immersion guaranteed by playing PowerWash Simulator.
Nintendo launches into AI on April 1st
What if Nintendo launched into AI? This is the question raised, not without humor, by our comrades at Nintendo Actu who have imagined an overpowered assistant for Nintendo Switch. According to the fake news, this AI would be able to chew the work for us in games by giving us solutions to puzzles on the fly and even going so far as to modify games in real time to make our lives easier. This is also called extreme accessibility.
If the industry is more and more interested in AI, we have not yet reached this stage. For the moment…
Sonic is dead OMG!
Sega told us that 2023 would be a big year for Sonic, but we weren’t ready for that either. To gently troll its fans, Sega has developed a small narrative investigation game paying homage to the entire universe of its mascot, but not only. Available for free on Steam, this game, entitled The Murder of Sonic, is a kind of point’n click with some mini-games. The player is asked to investigate the tragic death of the poor blue hedgehog, murdered during the birthday of one of his friends. It’s up to you to find out who is behind this heinous crime.
A mobile development studio revolutionizes its industry and more
Kwalee, a UK-based mobile game specialist, announces that it has created technology capable of revolutionizing game development. This innovation, called “Mind Games”, is based on a state-of-the-art device, the FOOL (Fast Organic Open Loop) and makes it possible to create games by simple force of the mind. Just that. After AI, and powerful tools like those of the Unreal Engine 5 which already help a lot in development, this new exclusive program from Kwalee would make things even easier since it would be enough to… think to create. But it’s still experimental. If the firm says it is very happy with this innovation, it unfortunately cannot guarantee that it is safe. In any case, the vice president of marketing hopes that all will be well. Isn’t that how The Evil Within begins anyway?
We are very excited about the potential of “Mind Games”. It is a truly revolutionary technology that has the power to impact the gaming industry and open up new possibilities for creativity and innovation. We see ‘Mind Games’ as something positive rather than a source of existential horror and we can’t wait to see how people react to the thousands of games Kwalee will be able to turn into reality every week when we introduce it to the mass market.
Harry Lang, Vice President Marketing of Kwalee before fleeing the studio (according to the sources familiar with the press release we received)
Ubisoft releases new games in April, only spin-offs!
Ubisoft also released the pressure a little for April 1 by announcing the imminent arrival of a slew of games in its catalog. The French publisher therefore presents Templar’s Creed, for those who are fed up with assassins, Walkers Republic, which should offer the same thing as Riders Republic, but to be done on foot, Rainbow Seven Siege, the long-awaited sequel to the famous FPS. And finally, The Intelligent Rabbits the little adventure. Well, it’s not the joke of the year, but it’s funny to mark the occasion. He could have driven the point home by announcing a release date for Beyond Good & Evil 2 and another postponement for Skull and Bones, but they didn’t dare.
Fallout London presents us with a unique gameplay sequence
The Fallout London fan game is long overdue and should offer something relatively solid to wait until Bethesda’s Fallout 5. In development for quite a while, this big Fallout 4 mod has fans salivating with its intriguing post-apocalyptic London. Still in production, the game showed itself with a gameplay sequence specially designed for April Fools’ Day. We can say that it moves quite a bit!
