Critical Path: September 2022 – Highlights for the month!

Here are the key upcoming events and releases to mark in your calendar for September 2022.

Dragon Con

September 1, 2022 – September 5, 2022

Image courtesy of Dragon Con Photography (c) Dragon Con, Inc

While not entirely video game oriented and somewhat overshadowed in recent years by younger, more acronym heavy expos that we’ll get to presently, Dragon Con still remains an amazing celebration of gaming culture. It’s also one of the most venerable, with this being the 35th year since the Dragon Alliance of Gamers and Role-Players got together to deliver the very first event back in 1987. Here’s hoping the conference (which will be done and dusted by the time you read this), will have attracted a few more people than last year’s covid-hit return and returned to its normal upward attendance trajectory.

 

PDXCON

September 2, 2022 – September 3, 2022

Last year grand strategy specialist Paradox revealed Victoria 3, arguably the least well known title within its sweeping historical tetraptych. Thanks to PDXCON we now have a release date of October 25th, which is sooner than anyone expected. There was an assumption that one or more of either Crusader Kings 3, Hearts of Iron 4 or Stellaris would be getting some substantial love, and expectant rumblings of a Europa Universalis 5 announcement, given that it’s been almost a decade since the last game came out. One game we weren’t told to expect to see was Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Shame that.

 

PAX West

September 2, 2022 – September 5, 2022

The obscure west coast equivalent of the UK’s Insomnia Gaming Festival made its annual return, once again filling the halls of the Seattle Convention Center for three days of gaming celebrations. Panels, tournaments and gratuitous excitement were never in short supply, and neither were the games, with the likes of Nintendo, Bandai Namco, Sega, Plaion, Thunderful, Humble Games and Devolver nestled among the booths of scores of local, indie and tabletop game creators.

 

ESI London

September 5, 2022 – September 7, 2022

Having graced Washington and Singapore earlier in the year, Esports Insider touched down in London for what was billed as the largest and most ambitious event ever in the ESI calendar. A day of panels exploring the commercialisation and mainstream acceptance of esports was followed by another focused on web3 technologies, climaxing in four hours of axe throwing – which is one way to settle the debate on whether blockchain is a good thing for gaming.

 

Temtem

September 6, 2022

Humble Games soft launched Crema’s Pokémon-inspired MMO into Steam Early Access all the way back in January 2020, receiving increasingly mixed reviews over the course of the last 18 months due to the supposed lack of things to do. However with the 1.0 full release, players found themselves a new island and a battle pass, designed to occupy the attention of those early adopters eager to explore the game’s endgame content. In addition, of course, Humble can claim bragging rights for beating Pokémon into second place for being the first creature collect-’em-all-up to embrace multiplayer.

 

Splatoon 3

September 9, 2022

Following the 30-minute Direct we got on the 10th August, Splatoon 3 launched with a host of new features. The game goes all-in on the city that acts as the main hub, making it much bigger than the previous titles, with many more cosmetic items to earn and collect. All multiplayer weapons, maps and abilities return from previous games, and the promise of regular Splatfest events seems a safe and sure fire way to keep the game active for longer. The co-op and single player modes look to be full of new features too, meaning that the most approachable competitive game around is even more so.

 

Disney & Marvel Games Showcase

September 9, 2022

For its upcoming D23 Expo Disney is hosting a digital showcase, in which we’re told to expect the just-released Dreamlight Valley, the latest on Take 2’s Marvel’s Midnight Suns (which was delayed to next year) and LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga – which most have taken to mean some sort of DLC is on the way. Beyond that, a debut look at the Marvel game that Amy Hennig and Skydance have been quietly working on is also being talked about, as well as content from Lucasfilm Games and 20th Century Games. A Simpsons: Hit and Run reincarnation? LEGO Aliens? We can only dream.

 

Little Orpheus

September 13, 2022

Publisher Secret Mode was originally set to release The Chinese Room’s side-scrolling adventure game across all platforms in March. However, with the game starring a Soviet-era cosmonaut, the launch was terminated so as not to cause offence. The game is now back on the multiformat pad after an extended period of iOS exclusivity as part of Apple Arcade. No doubt the extra time in the hangar will have given the game a boost it otherwise might not have had.

 

Call of Duty: Next

September 15, 2022

Next is Call of Duty’s new franchise showcase, at which we can expect to see more of Modern Warfare II and learn when it will be entering early access and how it might inform future seasons of Warzone. We’re told to expect a few surprises, but aside from the unlikely bombshell of Xbox exclusivity, we can’t think of what they might be. Call of Duty’s ability to shock has long retreated, but we’ll be tuning in regardless, just in case.

 

Tokyo Game Show

September 15, 2022 – September 18, 2022

This could be the most accessible TGS in years, with not only the masses allowed in for the first time since 2020, but a mysterious VR component that we hope means those of us with a headset will be able to experience some of the unique flavour of gaming’s most easterly global get-together. Or maybe it’s just something that Square Enix and Kojima Productions has signed up to – which is reason enough in itself to dust off the ol’ cybergoggles.

Beyond those two, TGS2022 promises to be a fitting finale to the summer’s game showcases, with Konami, Capcom, Koei Tecmo, SEGA, Atlus and Bandai Namco all with secrets to reveal and updates to provide.

EGX London

September 22, 2022 – September 25, 2022

Coming once more to London’s ExCel, the Eurogamer Expo has an impressive list of playable games this year, with over 100 of the blighters to tinker with, such as the hotly anticipated (if your name is Vince Pavey) Sonic Frontiers. Expect the usual queues and, for when your legs give out, some essential panel discussions to collapse into. One being a celebration of 1997’s N64 GoldenEye game, which is another Vince favourite. Why, yes, Vince will be going to EGX this year! How could you tell?

Dual Universe

September 27, 2022

Conceived more than a decade ago, Dual Universe launches after eight years in crowd-funded, early access development. With Elite and Star Citizen taking all the space game headlines over recent years, Novaquark’s game has patiently flown under the radar, but that looks set to change now that it has appeared on Steam for the first time. The scope is Minecraft in space, in that you can build everything from scratch, with the same scale and ambition as EVE Online in terms of in-game politics and stellar economics. In a further throwback to when it was originally conceived, it also requires a subscription, which might not endear it to too many players these days. Still, with EVE and Elite getting on and Star Citizen not getting off, maybe a new universe is just what genre fans need.