What retro revival could resurrected ’90s licensed game publisher Acclaim possibly be teasing? Why doesn’t the director of Dragon’s Dogma want to make Soulslike-slop? And how did novelist turned film maker Alex Garland achieve every FromSoftware fan’s dream of showing his Elden Ring fanfic to Hidetaka Miyazaki?
It’s another edition of Morning Checkpoint, Kotaku‘s daily round-up of gaming news and culture. Also, an update on the ongoing saga of the Washington D.C. sandwich slinger: A grand jury of his peers declined to indict the man who throw a hoagie at one of the Border Patrol guards occupying the city earlier this month.
PS5 games just got easier to refund
Sony has finally scrapped the customer service chatbot you used to have to talk to in order to refund a game. While you still only have 14 days to return a digital purchase and can’t have downloaded it, you can now initiate the refund directly from the PlayStation website or app.
Zombie Acclaim is teasing a September showcase
The publisher went defunct over 20 years ago but was recently revived, presumably to cash in on the current era of ’90s kid nostalgia. “We’re not here to chase ghosts,” new Acclaim CEO Alex Josef said in a statement. “We’re here to take the energy and chaos that made Acclaim unforgettable and channel it into something new.” Acclaim’s back catalog would appear to be a licensing nightmare. It includes things like WWF Super WrestleMania and NBA Jam. The publisher is holding a showcase that will reveal some of its plans for the future on September 10 at 2:30 p.m. ET.
Elden Ring‘s director didn’t hate Alex Garland’s movie script
The New Yorker reports that the 28 Years Later writer wrote a 160-page spec script with an additional 40 pages of imagery to try to win over FromSoftware’s Hidetaka Miyazaki. Garland flew over to Japan to present his take on the best-selling open-world RPG, and Miyazaki was apparently impressed enough to greenlight his take on the adaptation. Here’s the full excerpt:
A few years ago, [A24 Head of Film Noah] Sacco visited Garland at home during a trip to London. The director, who had gushed on the phone about Elden Ring, showed off the game on his PlayStation, then asked whether A24 would back an adaptation. The lush visuals and fantasy setting reminded Sacco of the Lord of the Rings movies. He replied, “Fuck yeah.” Garland, in the hope of garnering the support of the game’s elusive creator, Hidetaka Miyazaki, offered to write a script on spec. Once he had completed an epic hundred-and-sixty-page draft (with forty additional pages of imagery), Sacco flew with him to Japan to close the deal with Elden Ring’s developer and publisher. This is the second forthcoming A24 video-game adaptation—the first will be based on Hideo Kojima’s post-apocalyptic Death Stranding. Sacco pointed out to me that both designers are auteurs in their own medium. His first question for Kojima had been “Are you sure you don’t want to direct?”
Kojima’s answer was famously “no.” He’s just too busy.
Nintendo announces a new merch company: Nintendo Stars
Originally created for the production of the Kirby: Right Back at Ya! anime, Warpstar, Inc. was purchased by Nintendo earlier this year and officially rebranded on Wednesday as Nintendo prepares to dive deeper into transmedia initiatives with the upcoming Mario Bros. 2 and Legend of Zelda movies.
Here’s the first trailer for the Silent Hill movie reboot
Return to Silent Hill stars Jeremy Irvine and Hannah Emily Anderson and is about a man whose search for his lost soulmate takes him to none other than Silent Hill, a town full of sadness, horror, and Pyramid Heads. It’s out January 23, 2026.
Atari has purchased some of Ubisoft’s long-dormant franchises
Those include 2005 Xbox survival horror shooter Cold Fear and 2011 post-apocalyptic survival adventure I Am Alive, but also the rhythm rail shooter Child of Eden and very good action platformers Grow Home and Grow Up. The retro game publisher plans to re-release all of the games on modern platforms.
Dragon’s Dogma director promises he’s not making a Soulslike
Industry veteran Hideaki Itsuno left Capcom last year to launch a new Tencent studio called Lightspeed Japan. Since then, he’s been on a hiring spree, poaching Street Fighter and Devil May Cry talent. So what’s he making next? Not another FromSoftware rip-off. “I didn’t create a company to make a high-end version of existing games with a similar gameplay, story and character design,” he told VGC. “I came to Lightspeed Studio to create an action game with a different value, gameplay than the existing ones. I appreciate their contribution but I’m not going to create the same thing.”
ICYMI:
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