This week TheGamer's top stories for August 13 through August 20, 2021, include comments from Sledgehammer Games' studio head Aaron Halon as he acknowledges the ongoing lawsuit filed against Call of Duty: Vanguard publisher Activision Blizzard. Halon's comments come weeks after more stories of alleged abuse began surfacing from current and former Activision Blizzard employees.
Other stories included in our weekly round-up include news from Skyrim and Genshin Impact, Pokemon Unite community stories, and more confusion from xQc's fans as the streamer faces his fifth ban from Twitch last weekend.
Related: Women's Stories Being Told By Men Is One Of Gaming's Biggest Problems
Sledgehammer Games Addresses Activision Blizzard Allegations
During a virtual preview for the latest Call of Duty, developer Sledgehammer Games took a moment to address the state of California DFEH's lawsuit against Vanguard publisher Activision Blizzard. Studio head Aaron Halon started the event by saying, "The stories and the pain people have shared are simply devastating."
Halon continued further by stating, "on behalf of Sledgehammer Games, and all of the teams supporting Call of Duty Vanguard, harassment of any kind goes against everything we stand for as a studio. Everyone, regardless of title, role, gender, orientation, ethnicity, should be treated always with dignity, respect, and equality."
Unable to comment further, Halon admitted the transition to gameplay was awkward for how heavy the subject is. His comments come nearly a month after the California DFEH's lawsuit began. Following the filing, more current and former employees have detailed horrific accounts of alleged abuse that include instances of deadnaming and transphobic comments directed at transgender QA testers, details on the "Cosby Suite" named in the lawsuit, and sexual harassment from Blizzard recruiters.
xQc Banned From Twitch (Again)
Popular streamer xQc received another ban last weekend. Enduring a short suspension for the fifth time, Twitch didn't inform xQc exactly what he had been banned for. Viewers assume it has to do with DMCA notices as xQc routinely reacts to videos on his stream.
Twitch recently stated it would be more transparent with why it bans certain personalities, but xQc's suspension still remains a mystery. xQc did later state the ban was from "misreporting," but didn't elaborate further out of fear of the story getting twisted. Only time will tell if that's the entire truth.
Pokemon Unite Players Accuse Master Cup Players Of Trolling
Pokemon Unite has been something of a miracle for the MOBA genre. While far from being niche, a massive amount of people are picking up this esoteric multiplayer genre for the first time thanks to the popularity of Nintendo's brand. With a large influx of players comes griefers, and that seems to be negatively affecting the top end of Unite.
In a thread on Reddit, many users are complaining that players in the "Master" rank are using their status to troll games. For whatever reason, players that hit Master rank can no longer be demoted for losing games, meaning they can sandbag their teammates with little consequence. As such, getting paired with Master players is leading to instances where lower-ranked players are struggling to win as they are effectively down one teammate.
User games_moriarty wrote, "I swear the amount of Master ranked players not calling a lane and then running towards my lane where we already have two people who called it and refusing to go the other way…" It's a troubling predicament, especially considering that fighting games have had this figured out for at least a decade now.
Genshin Impact Glitch Removes Fog, Revealing Its Entire Map
Mihoyo's gacha-hit Genshin Impact is massive in both popularity and scale. Similar to The Elder Scrolls and The Legend of Zelda, Genshin Impact's world was built with the promise of developing into a massive continent. What's there is large, but not 100% complete. A layer of fog obscures your view so as to keep up the mystique of there being vast, endless plains. Oddly, though, a glitch can remove that fog and let you peer out into the wilderness with no limitations, revealing all three of Teyvat's current continents.
Over on Reddit, user Able_Importance1964 somehow got the fog to lift in their game and captured a video of the vast countryside in Genshin Impact. Even without knowing anything about this game, the sight is very impressive. The size of modern games can be astounding, especially when compared to titles from only the last generation. Genshin Impact is only going to get bigger, too.
Skyrim Intro Took "Forever" To Make Because Of An Immovable Bee
It seems there are no bounds to the number of stories that come from Skyrim. Likely Bethesda's most well-known title, one former Bethesda employee took to social media to share their struggles with programming the intro to the massive open-world game. After reading it, you'll wonder how Skyrim works at all let alone with as few issues as it does have.
Nate Purkeypile explained that creating the infamous intro cart ride wasn't as simple as writing a script and letting the engine go. Since Skyrim doesn't feature pre-rendered cutscenes, all of the cinematics are done with the full physics system in place. As such, the cart ride during the introduction sequence isn't an on-rails affair, but one with simulated physics. For some enigmatic reason, halfway through the speech, the cart would start to fly into the air.
After doing some digging into what was causing this issue, it turns out that the bees of Skyrim weren't too happy about a cart getting in their way. In Skyrim, bees can be used as an ingredient for potions, so they need to have collision detection to let players pick them up. The problem was that the collision implemented made them an immovable force of nature, so they would launch the cart into the air when coming in contact with it. It’s certainly a humorous story now but was likely the cause of many a headache in the run-up to launch.