Daily Briefing: Friday 6th August

The Overwatch League is really losing sponsors

A new report published by the Washington Post has revealed that State Farm and Coca-Cola are taking a step back from the ongoing sponsorship of the Overwatch League. The two companies, which have been active sponsors of OWL since 2019, will be "reassessing" their relationship with the League going forward. State Farm have confirmed they will not be running advertisements during this weekend's events, though both they and Coca-Cola ran advertisements last week.

• This freezing of relations comes amid fallout from the ongoing Activision Blizzard sexual harassment lawsuit, with T-Mobile actually being the first sponsor to seemingly distance itself from Activision Blizzard. The cell company are the leading non-gaming sponsor for both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League, but their branding disappeared from broadcasts last week - their logo even being taped up on players' jerseys. State Farm and Coca-Cola appear to be more tentative about making a definite decision, with both companies still currently listed as active sponsors on the OWL website. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is on the board of directors for Coca-Cola, so he may have to do some damage control.

Metroid celebrates 35th Anniversary

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the universe's favourite bounty hunter: Samus Aran. Her first outing came on August 6th, 1986 when the original Metroid title was released on the Famicom Disk System in Japan. That first adventure spawned a line of 13 mainline releases (alongside a number of spin-offs and remakes) and laid the foundations for one whole half of the Metroidvania genre.

• As for what Nintendo are doing to celebrate this momentous occasion, well, there isn't much to report. Metroid is probably the least neglected of Nintendo's famously overlooked franchises, but Metroid Dread is set to release on Nintendo Switch in October. There is also a Metroid Prime 4 coming at some stage before the end of time. Nintendo have been funny about anniversaries lately - the Legend of Zelda franchise celebrates its 35th anniversary this year as well and Nintendo barely acknowledged it. Only Mario got a proper birthday party last year.

The Dead Space remake should release toward the end of 2022

That's according to VentureBeat who, citing the usual sources "familiar" with goings on, believe that EA are planning to release the game during the fiscal year ending March 31st 2023. Those same sources also say that EA will be showing off more of the game later this year, following the last month's teaser trailer that confirmed the much-rumoured project's existence.

• The topic of the Dead Space remake actually cropped up during EA's quarterly earnings call earlier this week, but CEO Andrew Wilson wasn't able to say much beyond confirming that "it's a little way out yet, but [EA Motive] have taken it on." Wilson did go on to confirm that a Dead Space remake was "one of the most demanded titles for [EA], maybe just after Skate." So there you go.