All The Announcements Packed In Pokémon’s Big Event…
The Gathering Cards Stolen At Gaming Event
During Gen Con, an annual tabletop gaming convention held yearly at the Indiana Convention Center, some thieves made off with a substantial amount of Magic: The Gathering cards worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Indiana Metropolitan Police Department is now looking to speak with two persons of interest: New York City residents Thomas J. Dunbar and Andrew Pearson Giaume.
Both Dunbar and Pearson are game designers themselves, having produced Castle Assault, a board game that one of the thieves is wearing a shirt for in the surveillance footage of the theft.
Kotaku has reached out to the Indiana Metropolitan Police Department for further comment.
Though originally reported on August 2, the theft is now understood to have occurred on August 1, 2023, shortly before the event was actually open to the public. According to the Indiana police department’s’s official statement, the suspects “acquired a pallet jack, removed one pallet of gaming cards, and moved them to an unknown location.” That single pallet contained as much as $300,000 worth of cards, according to the IMPD. In a statement on Facebook, the IMPD said:
On Wednesday, August 2, 2023, in the downtown area of Indianapolis. The people of interest reportedly acquired a pallet jack, removed one pallet of gaming cards, and moved them to an unknown location. The alleged theft took place before the opening of events in the downtown area and while vendors were setting up their displays at various times.
On August 11, the IMPD released more surveillance pictures showing the two suspects leaving the Indiana Convention Center with a pallet full of Magic: The Gathering cards.
During the event, it was initially mistakenly believed at the time that the cards were for Disney Lorcana, which isn’t due to be released to the public until later this month yet is already being sold for substantial sums. With folks lining up for nearly 14 hours to get some time in with Lorcana at Gen Con, it certainly made for a prime target.
On August 5, as details of the theft began to hit various outlets and social media, Ravensburger, the company producing Disney Lorcana, confirmed that all of its stock of Lorcana was present and accounted for.
A few hours later, Indiana games shop Pastimes Comics & Games confirmed that the cards were indeed Magic: The Gathering. The pallet contained “mostly Commander Masters Sets and Collector Boosters,” which can retail for as much as $300 to $400 and typically contain multiple rare and legendary cards. At least we know that the pallet didn’t contain the $2M One Ring card.
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Everything We Saw At PlayStation’s State Of Play Event
Today Sony held another State of Play event, showing off upcoming titles for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. Today’s event featured expansions for Resident Evil 4 and Tales of Arise, another look at a very funny walking simulator, and one epic, mega huge trailer for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, which will launch on two (count ‘em) discs on February 29 of next year.
Let’s get into it.
Baby Steps
You know, sometimes you just wake up in a mud puddle in the forest and need to figure out how to walk. Well if you’re lucky or something and haven’t experienced that in reality, then Baby Steps looks like a solid simulation of such an experience. Try to walk, fall down, talk to yourself, rinse and repeat.
Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord
PS VR2 will be seeing some cooperative ghost-capturing action soon with Ghostbusters: Rise of the Ghost Lord.
Resident Evil 4 Remake VR mode
Ready to play Resident Evil 4 yet again? PS VR2 will soon be home to a VR mode for Resident Evil 4, featuring the reimagined gory violence of this classic, undying entry in the legendary horror series.
Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways
Starring Ada Wong, Resident Evil 4 will see an expansion by way of Separate Ways, which will tell a parallel story to the main events of RE4. It releases on September 21, 2023.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
James Cameron’s brightly colored fantasy world is coming to the land of video games by way of a first-person adventure adaptation (though you’ll get to ride some flying creatures in third-person, it seems). Like in the movies, those pesky humans are out to destroy the serene and lush environments of Pandora. It’s up to you to stop ‘em.
Ghostrunner 2
Ghostrunner 2 will be arriving on PS5 on October 26. You can download a free demo of this fast-paced run-and-slash game today.
Deep Earth Collection PS5 plates and controller colors
If you’ve been looking for some new colors for your PS5, there are some on the way with Volcanic Red, Cobalt Blue, and Sterling Silver.
Helldivers II
In a close look at Helldivers II gameplay, today’s State of Play showed off the cooperative nature of this third-person shooter. With four players taking on some beastly lookin’ aliens, this looks like a pretty good excuse to round up some friends to devastate some alien wildlife.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Today we got a closer look at the open-world environment of Spider-Man 2. Not only will you have Manhattan Island, but also Brooklyn, and Queens—also known as the best borough.
Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn
Tales of Arise will see a new DLC expansion hit PS5 on November 9, 2023.
Honkai Star Rail
Featuring eye-pleasing combat and some slick anime style, Honkai Star Rail launches for PS5 on October 11, 2023.
Foamstars
This Splatoon-like trades ink for foam and features specific characters similar to that of a hero shooter. The open beta launches in late September.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Anticipation is at a fever pitch for the continuation of Final Fantasy VII’s remake project. Today’s trailer showed off some classic environments and scenarios from the original game, as well as some wildly unexpected twists (what’s with Zack carrying Cloud into Midgar?). We also saw some vehicular travel including an, uh, Segway? There’s a ton of stuff packed into this trailer, so you can bet we’ll be watching it several times over. And then some more.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth launches on February 29, 2024.
And that was it for today’s brief but very cool State of Play event. Now, I’m gonna go daydream some more about Final Fantasy VII.
Overwatch 2 Reveals Music Event With K-pop Group LE SSERAFIM
Overwatch 2 has been taking a page out of Fortnite’s book lately, increasingly making cross-cultural, in-game collaborations part of its repertoire. We’ve already seen crossovers with the popular Shonen Jump anime One Punch Man, WWE superstar John Cena, and a Blizzard in-house collaboration with Diablo IV. Now, the free-to-play hero shooter is setting its sights on a music collaboration with the popular K-pop girl group LE SSERAFIM.
On October 18, Blizzard announced Overwatch 2’s first music collaboration, which will see a custom game mode and hero skins inspired by K-pop stars LE SSERAFIM appear in the shooter on November 1. LE SSERAFIM is the five-member girl group behind popular songs like “FEARLESS” and “ANTIFRAGILE.” The collab will see a LE SSERAFIM-inspired custom game mode and items like hero skins coming to Overwatch 2 on November 1. But Blizzard isn’t just sprinkling some LE SSERAFIM into OW2’s in-game store; the hero shooter will also be featured in the music video of LE SSERAFIM’s upcoming single “Perfect Night” which debuts on October 26 at 9 pm PDT. You can see one of the members (don’t ask me who) wearing D.Va’s headphones in their “Perfect Night” concept trailer video so we can at least take pride in knowing that they have good taste in heroes.
Why would Overwatch 2 collaborate with LE SSERAFIM, you might ask? Well, when they formed in 2022—the same year as OW2—the girl group boldly proclaimed that they would stand at the pinnacle of their musical genre, and their name is an anagram for “I’m fearless,” so their spirit matches the game’s whole competitive drive. Plus, the group has 8.9 million listeners on Spotify and over 6.5 million followers on Instagram. The prospect of reaching all those people probably has something to do with why Blizzard would like to have the group for its first in-game music collaboration.
“We’re extremely excited to be working with LE SSERAFIM for our game’s first musical artist collaboration,” Overwatch general manager Walter Kong wrote in a press release. “Like the heroes of Overwatch, the LE SSERAFIM members are amazing as individuals, but unstoppable when they come together.”
LE SSERAFIM will also perform at BlizzCon on November 4, playing their new single, “Perfect Night,” and other tunes.