We are now into the eighteenth week of our 2025 Fantasy Critic League and it is time to see how another quiet week actually went.
Fantasy Critic League – Like Fantasy Football, but for Video Games
The word “actually” is always a tell, hinting as it does that maybe things didn’t go to plan. And I will get to that. But first, a recap of where the scores stood at the end of week seventeen.
The Standings for Week 17
For openers, we had another score update that had a score go UP! That has now happened two weeks in a row, and for the same game no less. So the good reviews came in late for Old Skies.
- Old Skies
- [Picked by Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)]
- Score has gone UP from 81.2 to 82.8
We only get score updates for things that move more than half a point, games or players, so with a bump like that we also got a corresponding message for Bhagpuss.
- Publisher Score Updates
- Pretty Blue Fox Games (Bhagpuss)
- Score has gone UP from 59.1 to 60.7
The starting score there was more than his end of week score, so it had climbed a bit before the bump happened.
We also had early reviews arrive for Doom: The Dark Ages, so while that doesn’t release until Thursday, it is looking pretty good.
- Doom: The Dark Ages
- [Picked by Hare Brained Schemes (p0tsh0t)]
- Now has a score of 85.7
And then we had another trade take place as Shilgrod suggested we swap a couple of Nintendo titles, supplying his cold hard logic for the proposal.
- The following trade has been PROPOSED
- Trade Details
- Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod) will receive: Donkey Kong Bananza
- TAGN HQ (Wilhelm) will receive: Pokémon Legends Z-A
- Message from Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod): I may have had a couple beers
I had to think about that for a minute. On the one hand Donkey Kong has a launch date locked in, so all that was in doubt was the score. Meanwhile, Pokemon Legends Z-A is still a maybe for 2025, with no launch date announced.
But, I had wanted to grab Legends during the draft and failed, so decided to accept the trade. Then, as the league manager, I had to press the button to execute the trade. I am not sure why I have that power, but there it is.
- The following trade has been EXECUTED
- Trade Details
- Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod) will receive: Donkey Kong Bananza
- TAGN HQ (Wilhelm) will receive: Pokémon Legends Z-A
I was primarily interested, after the trade, to see if that change would update the league’s projection for either of our final finishing spots. It did not and we remained in 8th and 10th spot respectively.
And then came the picks. We had three picks in play for week eighteen:
- Gears of War: Reloaded
- Release Date: 2025-08-26
- Hype Factor: 0.1
- Marathon
- Release Date: 2025-09-23
- Hype Factor: 12.1
- Monster Train 2
- Release Date: 2025-05-21
- Hype Factor: 11.4
When the smoke cleared on Saturday evening, the bid results resolved as follows:
- Monster Train 2
- Won by Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane) with a bid of $5
- Marathon
- Won by TAGN HQ (Wilhelm) with a bid of $1
- Dropped game ‘Mouse: P.I. For Hire’ conditionally
- Gears of War: Reloaded
- Won by Rusty Shackleford (Shilgrod) with a bid of $20
In addition, there was one straight up drop:
- Grand Theft Auto VI
- Neutical Publishing (Cyanbane): Drop Successful
GTA VI is next year’s new.
That left the score looking like this.
The Standings for Week 18
Bhagpuss is both in first place and projected for first at the end of season. He will likely drop to second place this coming week unless Doom: The Dark Ages falls from its current score of 86 to below 84.
Nothing I did this week shook me out of being projected in 10th place at the end of the season, but one more pick put Shilgrod down a slot in projection, with him swapping spots with Cyanbane.
Then we had the following updates on release dates, all for titles pick by Kluwes!
- Killing Floor 3
- [Picked by Slightly Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)]
- Release date changed from ‘2025’ to ‘Thursday, July 24, 2025’.
- Mafia: The Old Country
- [Picked by Slightly Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)]
- [Counter Picked by Hare Brained Schemes (p0tsh0t)]
- Release date changed from ‘Summer 2025’ to ‘Friday, August 08, 2025’.
- Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter
- [Picked by Slightly Scuffed Studios (Kluwes)]
- Release date changed from ‘Thursday, September 25, 2025’ to ‘Friday, September 19, 2025’.
So that nailed down three more released dates for the league and put another counter pick in play. We’ll see how that plays out soon enough.
That leaves us with the following titles queued up for release.
Upcoming for Week 19
As I said above Potshot looks to be poised to take over first position once more before the end of next week. Then we get a trickle of releases between now and the end of June, though Chained Echoes needs a release date still. Not having a Q2 date with about six weeks left in the quarter makes me suspect that we’ll see if pushed out until later in the year.