The weirdest gaming stories of 2018
Some of this is your fault, a lot of it is ours.
Video games are inherently weird. Some coder types out a load of symbols and letters that might as well be hieroglyphics, and that allows us to shoot virtual Nazis directly in the nutsack. What?
It’s no surprise that everything surrounding games is weird, really. The gaming community is weird. Some developers (hey Notch) are weird. Games media is weird. You reading this - you’re weird. I’m weird. It’s all weird! Weird doesn’t even look like a real word anymore! Weird!
Because our industry is so strange, and because it’s almost the end of another trip around the sun - one year closer to eternal sleep - we thought it’d be nice to look back on some of the most bizarre stories of 2018 on VG247.
Strap the f**k in.
Puddlegate
Remember when Marvel’s Spider-Man came out and it was really good, but everyone just kicked off about there not being as many puddles in the game as there were in the reveal trailer? Good times.
Still, at least one good thing came out of it - I got to write this article and interview people on how and why video game ‘downgrades’ happen.
Weird stories from game development
Because of the amount of weirdness going around, I took to Twitter to ask game developers, PR, and other industry folk to tell me their most bizarre stories. Some of them did so anonymously, but here are the results: includes anecdotes on cocaine, ghosts, fistfights, and poop.
Luigi’s dick
One of my first stories on the site was a news post about the length of Luigi’s dick, and it’s been downhill ever since.
Battalion 1944 dick gun
In more dick news, one Battalion 1944 player threatened to shoot the game’s developers, so they put a penis on his gun. A penis. On his gun.
It’s a small punishment for threatening a mass shooting in 2018, to be honest.
YouPorn traffic suffers heavy blow
Listen, I just wanted to share this because I’m responsible for this headline and I think I should have retired straight afterwards.
Soulcalibur 6 lizard knob
What? We like dicks. Players in Soulcalibur 6 also like dicks - that’s why people got straight to the character creator and made lizardmen with giant, f**k off knobs.
Final Fantasy 15 DLC cancelled
Square Enix hosted a livestream this year. It was pretty hyped up. People were ready for some big Final Fantasy-themed announcements.
So, what was the livestream all about? The developer was cancelling all the DLC it had planned for Final Fantasy 15 and was sacking a prominent developer. Oh.
When BioWare said the thing then said it didn’t say the thing
Our Matt went to PAX West this year - a big gaming event owned by our parent company - and sat in on some panels. He recorded the panels, then transcribed those words and turned them into stories based on what was said. So far, so standard.
The BioWare panel was anything but standard, though. In the panel, BioWare said it wanted to utilise storytelling techniques used in Anthem in its other series, notably Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Ok, that’s a story, yeah?
According to BioWare GM Casey Hudson, it’s a weird story.
OK then!
Those awful, expensive PUBG skins
PUBG Corp wants you to spend $24.99 on a terrible Harley Quinn skin. Hahahahaha. That’s it. That’s the post.
The Walking Dead alternate ending
Telltale’s closure was the most depressing story of 2018, especially for the developers who lost their jobs. One small positive was that the closure allowed the developers to speak openly - within reason - about their time there.
Creative director Sean Ainsworth even took to Twitter to post a pet project he made: a bizarre alternate ending to The Walking Dead, created when gripped by the madness of crunch.
People mad about women
There have been a few points this year where gamers have lost their collective s**t because a game dared have women in it. First it was Total War: Rome 2 and its female generals. Next was Battlefield 5 and its women soldiers.
It’s really sad, but we can all agree to have a laugh at the dudes frothing at the mouth over it all, right?
How Argonians f**k
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of going to QuakeCon. It was really good! I had loads of people to interview, loads of games to cover. Heaven. Then I got into a gameplay demo of TES Online and had the chance to ask one of its developers some questions.
The new DLC was about the Argonians, and I was admittedly winging this one a bit, having not played much of the MMO. So I asked him how Argonians f**k. Cheers.
The Culling 2 pulled from sale, replaced with the vanilla first game
The Culling 2 was a disaster so bad that the developer pulled it from sale and replaced it with the original game. Not only that, the original game was rolled back to its vanilla state because the updates had been so badly received.
An esports personality did a good thing
Dominique “SonicFox” McLean won big at an Injustice 2 tournament and donated $10k of his winnings to a competitor who has a parent with stage 3 cancer. What a guy. It's nice to see some uplifting news out of the scene for a change.