Will global warming kill your Switch 2? Is EA really never going to make a sequel to The Sims 4? Why is Dynasty Warriors 3 objectively the best one in the series? These and more questions might get answered as we at Kotaku experiment with reviving our old Morning Checkpoint roundup series that used to run on the weekends. The idea is to briefly round up all the news and conversations that we might not otherwise have a chance to hit as individual breakout news stories but are otherwise worth knowing or fun to talk about, like the first Call of Duty developer union winning its first collective bargaining agreement. Here we go!
The Sims 5 wouldn’t be ‘player friendly’
That’s what EA entertainment president Laura Miele (she’s been at the company almost 30 years) told Variety when explaining why the hit life sim franchise has gone more than a decade without a direct sequel. “What I wouldn’t want to have happen is you to have to start from day zero and start from scratch and give up all of the things that you have created, give up all of the content that you’ve purchased over the years,” she said. “We put out over 85 content packs over the last 10 years on The Sims 4, and so resetting that is not player friendly and not a good idea for our community.” What fans are getting is a Sims movie with help from Barbie‘s Margot Robbie. Which other EA franchises might get in on the current Hollywood gaming goldrush next? Miele currently has her eyes set on Apex Legends.
One sequel we are getting is Darksiders 4
Call of Duty testers win second Microsoft gaming union contract
Quality assurance devs at Call of Duty support studio Raven Software were the first Activision Blizzard staff to organize a union amid the 2021 workplace fallout, but then saw negotiations drag on for years as they accused the publisher of bad-faith bargaining tactics. Shannon Liao at Updater now reports that the Game Workers Alliance has finally ratified its contract, which among things “guarantees a 10 percent wage increase over two years.” It’s the second team at a Microsoft-owned studio to do so, with ZeniMax staff ratifying a contract in June just weeks before they were hit with mass layoffs. “If our unit of 19 people can do this, anybody can, as long as you’re committed to actually just doing the work and seeing it through to the end,” Erin Hall told Liao.
Global warming will make it harder to play Switch 2 outside
Tomorrow it’s going to basically be 100 degrees in Kyoto, Japan, where Nintendo is headquartered. After a July that was the hottest month on record ever for Japan, the country is continuing to blaze through temperature records. Nintendo recently took the opportunity to remind fans that playing the Switch 2 in temperatures above 95 degrees is, uh, not great. “When using a Nintendo Switch or Nintendo Switch 2 in a high-temperature environment, the device’s temperature may rise,” the company posted. “This could potentially cause malfunctions, so please use it in a location between 5–35°C.” This isn’t the first time the company has had to issue a warning like this. It did a summertime PSA for the original Switch back in 2022. Everything is going great, folks.
Dynasty Warriors is getting a super, secret remaster
Koei Tecmo indicated that a game in the Dynasty Warriors series is getting remastered (but not which game) in a new trailer celebrating the series’ 25th anniversary. Dynasty Warriors Origins, the entry that came out earlier this year, is also getting more DLC, the company revealed. But longtime fans are more interested in which games from the franchise’s past will get modern updates. Dynasty Warriors 3, 4, and 5 are all top of mind for most, though a compilation of all three would probably be ideal. Hell, why not do the whole first six games?
Fight censorship, get free games
Over 1 million people claimed the FreedomToBuy bundle from GOG in its 48 hours of being available, the storefront reports. It included Postal 2, Agony, Fetish Locator Week One, and a bunch of even weirder stuff, “because if a game is legal, you should be free to buy it.” The bundle was in response to the recent crackdown on NSFW games on Steam and itch.io due to payment processors.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond isn’t getting delayed
The year is more than half over and we still don’t know when Metroid Prime 4 is coming out. Some fans feared the game could slip to 2026 after it was a no-show during a recent Nintendo Partner Direct. But the company recently announced it will be playable at the Fan Expo Canada near the end of August. A November release date is feeling more and more likely.
Happy 40th Birthday Rare
Someone on Reddit found a leaked Amazon listing for an 8bitdo Xbox controller commemorating the 40th anniversary of Rare, the studio best known for Donkey Kong Country, Banjo-Kazooie, and Sea of Thieves, among other iconic classics. It’s $90 and looks very nice. There’s also a vinyl soundtrack collection and Evercade cartridges for old Rare games.
