Destructoid Checkpoint: There are two kinds of sinking

Another week in the trenches of the great gaming war has seen winners and losers on both sides. The victors are already busy writing the history books, but those hastily scrawled tomes will no doubt be upended next week as more battles break out.

For now, it’s a major win for developers versus pushy publishers, bad news for a console king, and never a bad time to make yourself look like a dummy as long as you are rich enough.

Subnautica 2 reigns supreme

I think most people who play games would have predicted a big win for Subnautica, but achieving two million sales in 12 hours is pretty crazy. The runaway success may be fueled by the incredible drama that surrounded the developers and some apparent overreach by publisher Krafton. I can’t say for sure that gamers decided to show up and show out for Unknown Worlds, but it certainly feels that way.

Subnautica 2 is off to a cracking start, so I can only hope the Unknown Worlds keep focused and produce a healthy glut of content for us over the next calendar year.

And because nothing can just be about games anymore, early access title Subnautica 2 is being pitched against the recently released Mixtape, a short, narrative exploration of what musical snobbery was like in the 90s (I think, I haven’t played it). This is the inevitable fate of just about every game in the current gaming landscape, as people with too much time on their hands decide if the game is culturally pure or not, and then proceed to either shout at everyone or hold it near and dear to their hearts until the devs betray them by being marginally more empathic than they anticipated. 

My argument remains the same, which is that you just play the thing that interests you, and you play it more if you like it and less or not at all if you don’t. It’s a simple technique, but quite effective. 

Sony eats a major loss over Bungie

At the height of their free-to-play madness, Sony bought Bungie. For a mere $3.6 billion, they picked up a company that had produced a top-flight live-service title that lasted for 10 years, and that would lend its expertise to the rest of the business as they turned every property they had into some kind of live-service title. Well, because the gods laugh at mortal plans, it all fell apart, as people figured out that you can’t really force more space in the live-service landscape just because you want to, and Sony was left with a company that had historically produced Halo, Destiny, and had an upcoming Marathon live-service game on the boil. 

Then the ass fell out of the Destiny business as Bungie struggled to maintain the game while developing Marathon, and player numbers fell off a cliff. Marathon was released to somewhat muted interest, and Sony has had to record a combined $766 million impairment loss for the 2025 financial year.

For those not in the know, an impairment loss is essentially an admission that the thing you bought is no longer worth the money you paid for. I have always felt what Bungie was best at selling was actually Bungie, as the company has made out like bandits from deals with Microsoft, Activision (although that wasn’t quite an ownership setup, outside of Destiny), and now Sony. Part of this is because Bungie implied a sense of quality and value, and it’s safe to say that this is now dead. 

Whoever approved the deal at Sony is most likely not going to get their Christmas hug from Jellefor, the giant, sentient mouse that I have decided is secretly running the company. This is the only way I can really explain the completely mid generation that Sony has gifted us with, and I shall be sticking to it for the foreseeable future. 

I do want to point out that all my interview requests with Jellefor have gone unacknowledged, which I am taking as absolutely proof that he is real. 

I don’t know what GameStop is doing

I have stopped thinking of GameStop as a gaming-related company and have just started thinking of it as a meme machine designed to separate idiots from their money. Despite all the hoohah, the Mother of All Short Squeezes never came, and the company is now left with Ryan Cohen at the helm, who seems content to fire every third employee he passes in the hall of GameStop HQ and try to meme his way onto the news.

GameStop recently made a play to purchase eBay for $56 million, which they don’t actually have. CNBC summed it up by essentially hanging up on Cohen during an interview where he completely floundered when asked how they intended to actually afford the purchase. This disastrous interview resulted in a 10% dip in GameStop's share price, so someone check Polymarket to find out who was informed it would all go down before it did. (I am joking and cannot be sued for humor!)

eBay replied by issuing a statement that the GameStop offer was neither “credible nor attractive,” which, if you are a company, is the equivalent of asking someone to prom and having them spit in your mother’s face by way of reply. 

For Cohen, the play seems to be as simple as finding anything he can to get GameStop’s market value cap to $100 billion, as that will activate a massive reward clause, seeing him earn billions in stock options. 

I would like to point out at this time that if GameStop, Sony, or even eBay wishes to hire someone to waste millions of dollars, I know a guy.

What’s happening, Destructoid?

Scott Duwe has been back in Fortnite, getting accustomed to Zero Build, and finding out that he really is a fan of the mode. - “Whenever I hop back on Fortnite to check out a new update or skin, it’s in the Zero Build mode, which up until now has just been a battle royale variant without the ability to build walls and ramps. With today’s update, though, Zero Build has become its own big, beautiful monster that’s the most fun I’ve had on the game in quite some time.”

Andrej Barovic is thinking about Dead by Daylight and potential new killers. - “But now that this great jubilee is upon us, which iconic killer should mark this special occasion? After all, this isn’t just any old anniversary, though every year on the market for a live-service game such as this one is definitely worthy of celebration, since we’ve seen all too many “games as a service” attempts end before even their first month goes by.”

Hadley Vincen spent time with Directive 8020, and found potential, if not good execution, in the vastness of space. “Its strong start, full of mystery and intrigue, gets thrown off course when we take a leap — both physically and temporally. A shift in perspective and now jumping into the near future, Directive 8020 slowly lets go of its reins as that pull it had on me slips from its fingers chapter by chapter. This sci-fi title started strong, but suffered from what many storytellers dread—a saggy middle. It didn’t take long before I grew tired, and my disappointment festered longer than any scare could last.”

And that’s it for this week.