Welcome to the Nano Gaming News Weekly Rewind for January 25, 2020.
This past week gamers were treated with news of a console classic being revived with a Kickstarter for the Jim Powers franchise. A new unique brick breaker, Drawkanoid, hit Steam while Super Chicken Catchers and Mechanic Miner are both digging out of early access soon. Also, Hayfever sneezed out a release date for February.
Like last weeks Weekly Rewind, nano Gaming News is continuing with a new format and covering things we missed over the past week in addition to important stories we covered over the week. This week three big stories we missed include two titles looking for beta players for the survival MMO Last Oasis and the multiplayer RTS Circle Empires Rivals. However, the biggest surprise came on Friday with Activision Blizzard and Google announcing a multi-year deal to make their esports a YouTube exclusive.
Last Oasis Closed Beta Details
After being delayed and undergoing improvements to deliver their vision of a stand out survival MMO experience, Donkey Crew, is doing their final call for closed beta testers.
The game is set on Earth thousands of years in the future. A cataclysmic event destroyed the moon and halted the rotation of Earth. Now two harsh environments, desert and ice, stradle a narrow habitable strip of land that slowly moves as the planet rotates around the sun. Survival means to keep moving.
This week the developers released a Devlog that presents their vision of PvP. In addition there is an entire series of Devlogs to give players a better idea of the game and a peak of how things are done.
To signup for the final beta call for Last Oasis, players need to visit the game’s official Discord. In the discord players can visit the #closed_beta channel to find the rest of the instructions in order to apply to be in the closed beta.
Last Oasis is planned for a Q1 2020 early access on Steam. Players can add the game to their wishlist now. For more information follow @OasisNomad on Twitter or join the Last Oasis Discord.
Circle Empires Rivals Open Beta Details
Estonian indie game developer Luminous along with Iceberg Interactive are inviting players to participate in the open-beta for their upcoming multiplayer RTS, Circle Empires Rivals. The open-beta week started on January 23, and runs until January 29, 2020.
As a stand-alone follow up sequel to the RTS Circle Empires, players take control of their own tiny kingdoms and conquer a world made up of circles. Each circle is overflowing with enemies to fight, monsters to hunt, and loot to be claimed. Key features includes fast-paced action, six game modes, 10 new biomes, over 25 different faction leaders, 40 boss monsters, procedurally generated worlds, and a large range of difficulty options.
To join in on the open-beta fun, players must first join the Iceberg Interactive Discord. From there they will to find the #circle-empires-rivals channel and then type .key to receive a key. From there they need to activate the key on Steam, download the game, and join in on the fun.
Circle Empires Rivals is planned for an early 2020 release. Players can add the game now to their wishlist on Steam. For more information follow @CircleEmpiresG on Twitter or join the Iceberg Interactive Discord.
Activision Blizzard and Google Esports Deal
Activision Blizzard along with Google for YouTube Gaming announced a major multi-year deal that will no doubt impact the esports world. In this strategic partnership Google Cloud will serve as the preferred provider for Activision Blizzard’s game hosting infrastructure. In addition, YouTube is now the exclusive streaming partner for live broadcasts of its esports leagues for the world, excluding China.
What does this mean for the average person? Well from now on the popular esports leagues for Activision Blizzard which includes Overwatch League, Call of Duty League, Hearthstone Esports, and many more will be on YouTube. Previously the three big leagues were mainly seen on the Twitch streaming platform. In 2018, Twitch signed and had held the exclusive streaming rights to Overwatch League where it was reported to have had signed a $90 million deal.
All of this news was dropped right before the Call of Duty League’s 2020 Season Launch Weekend that runs January 24 to January 26. Going forward viewers and fans of the various Activision Blizzard esports leagues will now have use YouTube to view future streamed events and games.
Thank you for checking out the Nano Gaming News Weekly Rewind for January 25, 2020. Be sure to check back next Saturday for the latest edition of Nano Gaming News Weekly Rewind.