The best and worst (June 26 to July 2): Weekly video game news including Nintendo, Fall Guys, and Diablo Immortal

This past week of video game news had some serious highs and lows. With the ongoing Steam Summer Sale, Nintendo decided they weren’t going to be outdone, and revealed a brief but powerful Nintendo Direct focused on third-party developers. Furthermore, with Gundam Evolution’s console test ending, Sportskeeda has released a series of interviews with Sony Music Entertainment Japan’s Project VEE.

Some of it has been negative, unfortunately. Many fans are still concerned about God of War’s release date, and the toxicity within the fanbase has become worse, even leading to a response from Sony Santa Monica.

Perhaps most interesting of all, it’s being said that Diablo Immortal was banned in China. The discussion points below are just a sampling of video game news covered by Sportskeeda, but it’s not everything that has gone on this week.

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Good video game news from June 26 through July 2

A new Nintendo Direct dropped this week, revealing information on several upcoming games

There were rumors throughout June 2022 that a Nintendo Direct was on the way, said to be focused on third-party developers. Fortunately, this turned out to be true. It was an exciting series of announcements, with games like NieR: Automata finally coming to the console.

Dragon Quest Treasures received a December release date, and the Megaman Battle Network Legacy collection was also revealed. Interestingly, all ten Mega Man Battle Network games will be accessible in one location for the first time.

PAC-MAN WORLD Re-PAC was announced as a remake of the classic game, for an August release, and so much more. There were a wealth of exciting announcements and video game reveals at the event for devoted Nintendo fans.

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Fall Guys hits 20 million players in just 48 hours after going free-to-play

Once Fall Guys went free-to-play, it wasn’t a shock to assume there would be a major shift in players, but few people could have predicted this much of a jump. In this week’s video game news, it was revealed that Fall Guys broke 20 million players within 48 hours of its free-to-play relaunch, which was first mentioned by Fall Guys’ official Twitter handle.

Originally a premium, buy-to-play game, the company later revealed that it would be free-to-play on all platforms, and has also had some potentially interesting news leaks about an upcoming Sonic stage.

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Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin reveals its first expansion, Trials of the Dragon King

There is massive news for Stranger of Paradise fans, as Square Enix revealed it has an expansion on the way. The first of three expansions, Trials of the Dragon King, will debut on July 20, 2022, so fans clearly won't have to wait much longer for it.

While no major details have been revealed just yet, fans can see two of the major fights in the trailer, Bahamut himself and the Warrior of Light. There’s no word on if Jack Garland will have to fight the entire Warriors of Light team, but the main hero will definitely be a foe.

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Negative video game news coming out of the past week

Santa Monica Studio calls out toxic fans over social media

God of War: Ragnarok has had fans up in arms on social media over the last few months, with the most vocal of them demanding more information on a release date. In fact, some of these fans have gone as far as to harass a female game developer by sending unwarranted explicit photos and demanding a release date from her.

The studio made a statement about fans harassing members of the game development community and reiterated that their team is working very hard on the game. The passion that fans have for the game is no excuse to be toxic and rude to the developers, and other developers and companies have spoken out as well, such as Phil Spencer of Xbox.

Not every fan has been rude to the game's developers, but a very vocal group of people have openly harassed developers and put the blame for a lack of a release date on a variety of people. Hopefully, Santa Monica Studios’ tweet calms people down.

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Diablo Immortal allegedly banned in China

Diablo Immortal has managed to stay on video game news reports, week after week ever since its launch. The constant accusations of greed and predatory practices have not stopped since the game left its beta testing phase.

The free-to-play game, according to a post on Reddit, has been banned in China. This is not due to the various predatory practices the company has taken part in, but because of, according to Reddit, a Weibo post. It was said on Reddit that their account made a post mocking Xi Jinping, the current president of China. And for that reason, the game was banned in the nation.

It was also suggested that NetEase may lose their license to develop games in China for the next three years, although that has not been confirmed. If that does happen, it will affect many games in the region including Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, and World of Warcraft: Dragonflight.

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This is just a sampling of the news from the past week and is not everything that was covered here. Make sure to keep an eye on Sportskeeda for the latest and greatest in video game news throughout the week.