This week was set to be a slow one, with just on title set to launch… and then stuff happened!

First up, as has become the pattern, a peek at where we left on on the scoreboard at the end of week seven.

The standings for Week 7

With that established, week eight saw a number of things happen, several of which I mentioned in the headline.

First up, Warner Brothers, ever the fickle studio owner… they owned Turbine for a while and we’re probably all lucky that LOTRO and DDO escaped intact… felt that the video game thing wasn’t doing enough for them, so they shut down three of their studios, including Monolith Productions, which was making Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman was already at risk, having been delayed and unlikely to ship in 2026.  But now it is cancelled, never to appear.

• Wonder Woman
  • [Picked by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod), Counter Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
  • Estimated release date changed from ‘TBA’ to ‘Cancelled’. Note removed: ‘Jason Schreier has reported this was rebooted in 2024 and is years from releasing’. Game is no longer ‘Delay in Contention’. Tags changed from New Game to Cancelled, New Game.

The settings I picked for our league this year causes FCL to get upset if people have cancelled titles as picks and it turns them orange on the page and demands I do something about it.

Wonder Woman being called out as a DEI hire or something

So, having set the precedent a few weeks back with Football Manager 2025, I will use my league managed powers to remove Wonder Woman from Shilgrod’s lineup tomorrow afternoon.

Wonder Woman was also counter picked by Bhagpuss, but the game doesn’t seem to mind that.  So unless I am required to delete that counter pick, I will leave it as is unless Bhagpuss wants it removed.  Right now it will be a zero point counter pick, which means it has no impact, positive or negative, on his score.

That out of the way, I will move on to Fable, which also had some news.

With the estimated ship date moving out to 2026, that seems to be an unlikely candidate to score this year.  However, a date slip is different from being completely cancelled.  In truth, if the game hadn’t sent me dire warnings about cancelled titles, I probably would have let them ride because picking titles that may or may not ship during the current year is part of the exercise.

So I will not be removing Fable from the picks, and since Archey was counter picked by Shawn, both of them are stuck with it for the season.

Also on the forecast, Pokemon Legends Z-A got a mention in the latest Nintendo update, which seemed to make it a likely title to ship in time for the holidays.

Since Nintendo usually ships just one main line Pokemon title a year… yes, there have been exceptions… that seems to make the Pokemon Black & White remake less likely to appear.  It was on the pick list as a possibility.  You have been warned.

One of my picks also got a ship date.

And then we started to get some scores showing up.

• Monster Hunter Wilds
  • [Picked by Play Forever Mwahahaha (Shintar)]

  • Now has a score of 89.3

• Two Point Museum
  • [Picked by Rodent Entertainment (Arhanta)]
  • Now has a score of 82.5

Scores only land on the scoreboard once a game has shipped, but some titles go out for review early to build up their launch.  So, while Two Point Museum won’t launch until next week, it already has enough reviews showing up to start displaying a score.

All of which led to the scoreboard for week eight looking like this.

The standings for Week 8

Shintar, having received her first title on the board, moved up to fourth spot.  More amusing/interesting was the change in the projections, which put her in first spot and me down in 10th position. Part of that is the pass the projection gives you on empty picks, assuming you’ll not screw that up, but the part with me in 10th might relate to this weeks bids.

Here were the bids that resolved last night:

• Blue Prince
  • Won by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss) with a bid of $5
• Half-Life 3 (Unannounced)
  • Won by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm) with a bid of $5
  • Dropped game ‘Promise Mascot Agency’ conditionally
• Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land
  • Won by Crash and Burn Games (Shawn) with a bid of $1
• Hell is Us
  • Won by Hare Brained Schemes (p0tsh0t) with a bid of $8
• Light No Fire
  • Won by Hare Brained Schemes (p0tsh0t) with a bid of $11

Bhagpuss picked up Blue Prince, set to release in April, while Potshot added two titles once he got back into his account.

If you’ve forgotten your password and the site won’t send you the reset email, for whatever reason my opening up your league in the league manager panel seems to fix that.  Or it was pure coincidence.  Anyway, reach out if you’re having problems.

Among the bids, was Half-Life 3, the forever delayed sequel that Valve could never quite get to because they were making so much money just running Steam.  Rumors about a possible coming release have swirled for years, always proving false.  So I will probably regret bidding on it based on an Ars Technica article where Valve-ologists who have been watching the company for years have decided that a Half-Life 3 announcement and launch are imminent.  And then they have run with how it could secure the domination of the Steam Deck and its operating system.  They’re all in on it.

And… I mean… it could happen.

Anyway, I felt like I needed a longshot to bet on.  If you haven’t got your counter pick selected yet, this is a prime candidate.  Also, I suspect picking an unannounced title has a negative effect on the league projection.  We shall see.

Finally, a peek at what titles are coming up this week.

Coming Up for Week 9

Week nine will see three releases.  Two Point Museum already has a score, so is just waiting for the release day to hit to count.  I am playing in two leagues, and picked Two Point Museum on the other one.   Then on Thursday we have a pair of titles launching.

So that should shake up the rankings a bit.  The worst pick to ship so far has been Sniper Elite: Resistance, which got me just 3 points.  I’m wondering if we’ll get a title that bombs and comes up with negative points.  Is UbiSoft shipping a non-Assassin’s Creed game this year?

On to week nine.