Daily Briefing: Monday 29th November

There's a Marvel MMO incoming

The game looks to be in the works at Dimensional Ink Games, the Texas-based developer behind DC Universe Online. The still-untitled project was revealed during a recent earnings presentation for Dimensional Ink parent company Enad Global 7, with a slide in the presentation announcing that the stated unannounced MMORPG is set to be a "Marvel IP based massively multiplayer online game." Jack Emmert is in charge of the project, having former development lead on City of Heroes and current head of DC Universe Online.

• It feels like a Marvel MMO has been rumoured for years now in some shape or form. A whole stack of concept art leaked back in 2019 that showed off an earlier attempt at bringing the project together at Everquest developer Daybreak Game Company.  This official confirmation that a real MMO is finally coming is just another example of Marvel's renewed attention to dominating the gaming space. Spider-Man, Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy are all already out in the wild while we're still waiting on Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, Midnight Suns, and now this MMO. It's all Marvel, these days.

One Game Awards reveal is apparently two and a half years in the making

That's straight from the mouth (or should that be fingertips?) of Mr Game Awards himself Geoff Keighley who, writing on Twitter over the weekend, revealed that  the upcoming show will feature a world premiere that he has "been working on with a developer for 2.5 years." Keighley revealed that he last visited the development in summer 2019, which was also the last time he was able to travel to studios around the world.

• We'll find out soon enough what this mystery premiere actually is, as this year's iteration The Game Awards is set to air on December 9th. This year's show will return to a traditional in-person format after last year's all-digital offering, although there will be a big orchestral performance so maybe that's the wrong use of the word traditional.  The Game of the Year nominees are Deathloop, It Takes, Metroid Dread, Psychonauts 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Resident Evil Village.

Battlefield 2042 is officially the series' worst-rated mainline entry

Battlefield 2042's recent launch has been truly dreadful  with the game quickly climbing the ranks of the worst-rated games ever on Steam, having managed to amass nearly 40,000 negative reviews in the space of like three days. Battlefield games do tend to have pretty rough launches, but 2042 has been way worse than even Battlefield's embattled (emBattlefield?) fans are used to.

• All this adds up to a very poorly rated game. Battlefield 2042 is currently sitting at a 64-71 Metacritic score depending on platform: PC is the highest, Xbox Series X|S is the lowest. This is lower than the series' previous lowest-scoring entry Battlefield V and, even though we're talking about mainline games here, the often overlooked Battlefield: Hardline. Battlefield 2042's current scores actually put it closer to Battlefield Heroes and Battlefield Play4Free than any of the proper, real entries, which is grim.