Gaming: Hearthstone alums whip up something Marvel-ous; Game Boy controller mod; more

A core group of game designers with a deep pedigree in Blizzard’s sprawling World of Warcraft playground reportedly are making the jump to something Marvel-ous: a mysterious new title set in the Marvel comic book universe.

Hamilton Chu, co-founder of new game studio Second Dinner, revealed the Marvel partnership today in a YouTube update, with co-founder Ben Brode adding that the small team of former Blizzard devs already has been working on the unnamed new game for the past six months.

Whatever it turns out to be — whether mobile, console, or cross-platform — the mysterious new game is being produced by a tight-knit five-person group that worked on Hearthstone, the World of Warcraft-based card game, before leaving to form Second Dinner last year.

The studio says the Marvel game is currently in the prototype stage, so it sounds like a polished product is still in the distant future. While it doesn’t appear as though the new game is tied in with the ambitious, multi-title The Avengers Project previously teased by Square Enix and partners, it’s too early to know for sure. Fresh news on The Avengers Project has been slight since its big reveal all the way back in early 2017, so stay tuned.

The enthusiastic modding community that’s grown around Nintendo’s deep trove of legacy handhelds and consoles may have just come up with one of its coolest creations yet: a modded cartridge that converts pretty much any version of the iconic Game Boy into a wireless NES controller.

Actually, the mod appears to allow the Game Boy to control a variety of devices, but we’re loving the Nintendo synergy on display in this Mario-heavy demo clip from Alex Iannuzzi, the hobbyist who developed the new feature. 

According to Iannuzzi’s storefront, all that’s needed to pull this off is a modified cartridge, an active wireless signal, and a wireless receiver attached to the device you want to control. As you can see from the clip, the mod works with the classic Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance (as well as the Game Boy Player and Game Boy Advance SP).

For a super-technical dive into how it all works, check out Iannuzzi’s project blog.

Finally, the nuclear wind swirling around the stalled Capital Wasteland mod for Fallout 4 seems to have finally cleared.

First announced last year as a fan-supported mod aimed at bringing the devastated Washington D.C. ruins from Fallout 3 into the more advanced Fallout 4 game engine, the project stalled after Bethesda — which otherwise has given this and other grassroots efforts its blessing — advised the team against repurposing the original voiced dialogue from Fallout 3.

But the Capital Wasteland team shared a project update this week revealing that sticky issue has been resolved, thanks to a new plan to re-record all 45,000 lines of Fallout 3 dialogue line by line. Because that’s such a huge undertaking, don’t expect the Capital Wasteland mod to land anytime soon. But it’s nice to know we’ll still be getting the chance to visit with Three Dog once again… even if our favorite D.C. disc jockey won’t sound quite the same the second time around.