STACK #216 October 2022

FEATURE GAMING

WHAT’S COMING IN NOVEMBER?

SKULL AND BONES Billed as the ultimate authentic pirate experience, Skull and Bones has been coming for quite a long time – sea travel isn’t the quickest you know – but finally Ubisoft’s mega pirate-’em-up is set to dock. The aim is to climb the cutthroat – literally – piracy food chain from outcast to pirate kingpin, and there’s set to be a huge multiplayer component, allowing you to form pirate gangs of up to three mates and go off a-plunderin’. Oh yes, we’re talking pirates, so naturally there’s going to be loot, too – and plenty of it!

SONIC FRONTIERS Poor Sonic. If he’s not been confined to various in-game zones and platforms, he’s been stuck on racetracks or inside pinball machines. But, in Sonic Frontiers , from legendary developers Sonic Team, he’ll finally be able to run free! Promising us a whole new experience, we’ll see the Blue Blur battling powerful enemies as per usual, but there’ll be freedom to roam the length and breadth of the Starfall Islands, featuring everything from arid deserts to dense forests and majestic waterfalls.

MULTIPLAYER?

MULTIPLAYER?

ACTION ADVENTURE

8/11/22

ACTION ADVENTURE

8/11/22

GOD OF WAR RAGNARÖK The sequel to Santa Monica Studio’s 2018 God of War is finally really close now. This one will see Kratos and his son Atreus three years on, journeying to each of the Nine Realms of Norse mythology on a quest for knowledge as they get ready for a battle that’s believed will see the end of days. Expect amazing visuals, from stunning, mythical landscapes to the array of fearsome Norse god and monster enemies that the pair will encounter. Oh, and an arsenal of formidable weaponry too, of course!

POKÉMON SCARLET/ POKÉMON VIOLET Two super-exciting new core variants are coming to the Pokémon canon, in what’s being billed as “a new evolutionary step” for the storied series. In an exciting development, players will be able to explore a rich open world environment freely and at their own pace, with each of the Scarlet and Violet variants offering up different Legendary Pokémon for the collection. There’ll also be brand new Pokémon to discover, and one of the coolest new features will be four-player online play.

MULTIPLAYER?

MULTIPLAYER?

ACTION ADVENTURE

9/11/22

RPG

18/11/22

1 What’s the first game that you remember playing? This is going back a way, but the first game that I remember playing was Pitfall! on my Atari 2600. 2 What was the last game that you finished?

Elden Ring . A tremendous effort by that development team! 3 What’s your favourite video game/series of all time? The Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior series. The universe created by Yuji Horii, Akira Toriyama, and Koichi Sugiyama is both breathtaking and magical.

Elden Ring

4 What do you think is the most underrated game of all time? I would say this is probably a little-known PC game from the late ‘90s called Subspace . It later got reverse engineered and re-released as Continuum . It is incredibly simple in graphics/design and offers a lifetime of learning curve. 5 What’s the game that you most wish you’d worked on? Growing up, I wanted to work on sports video games, and specifically, a basketball one. I am going to call this one a dream realised!

VP of NBA development on NBA 2K23 at 2K/Visual Concepts. ERICK BOENISCH

19