It‘s been a while, but we’re back with a bulletin, albeit short! In this week’s bulletin, we discuss Retro Gaming Scams, The Dark Pictures Anthology, Civ VI wonders in Minecraft, Call of Duty: Vanguard’s heroes, Paradox troubles and Age of Empires IV attempts to help new players!

YouTuber accuses Retro Games Sales of being scams

Over the past years, retro video games have been sold for astronomical prices. Factory sealed copies of old classics like The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros have been sold of for somethimes millions of dollars. Two companies at the centre of this boom are Heritage Auctions and Wata Games. However, Youtuber and speedrunner Karl Jobst (who has been featured in this bulletin before when he unravelled cheaters and speedrunners) claims there’s some fraudulent behaviour going on. In a hour-long YouTube video, Jobst claims that the prices might be inflated not only by collectors bidding against each other, but also some speculation and get-rich-quick schemes from people behind both companies. If you don’t want to watch the entire vid, you can also read a rundown by Kotaku’s Ethan Gach here. Probably we haven’t heared the last from this.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes

Last week, a new trailer for The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes dropped. The third game in the Anthology is set during the US invasion of Iraq. Somewhere in the remnants of an Akkadian temple, US Marines and an Iraqi soldier fight each other and monsters (I mean, it’s still The Dark Pictures Anthology). Besides the trailer, Bandai Namco also released a website filled with game lore, which also looks pretty cool. Watch the trailer below, and read more on Eurogamer.

A Civ VI fan is using Minecraft to remake all World Wonders

This is a piece written just for us: Minecraft and Civilization VI! Civ VI fan LookosZero shared a timelapse of them creating the Great Lighthouse, a world wonder from Civ in Minecraft. It looks pretty dope! More wonders are in the making, and you can even contact Lookos for the world files, as they’re happy to share. Read more on PCGamesN!

Paradox CEO steps down & report shows mistreatment of staff

Last week, Paradox CEO Ebba Ljungerud stepped down after three years in the job (PCGamesN). It was cited that she and other higher posted people had differing views on the company’s strategy and way forward. This week, a report by two unions came in citing that of 133 of the 400 employees of the company, 44% had experienced some sort of ‘mistreatment’. Unfortunately, of the female employees questioned, 69% claimed mistreatment. The report apparently also speaks of a ‘culture of silence’, where issues aren’t properly solved. Even though the company claims the departure of the CEO had nothing to do with the report, she did see it before she left. Kotaku reached out to Paradox for commentary. Paradox say they’re working on it, but are unable to provide any real clues on what’s happening. It seems this isn’t the last we’ll hear about this, unfortunately.

New Zealanders aren’t happy with a national hero being turned into an Aussie

In the upcoming Call of Duty: Vanguard (PC Gamer), you can play as one of four ‘fictional’ war heroes. Fictional, but also based upon real people. Like the hero Lucas Riggs, who is Australian, and clearly based upon the New Zealand war hero Charles Upham. Upham was the one of the few men to have ever been awarded the Victoria Cross (UK’s highest military award) twice. Safe to say, many New Zealanders aren’t happy of him being reimagined as an Aussie. New Zealand site explained to Kotaku: ‘it’s like turning Sir Edmund Hillary into an Australian’. It’s not that hard, Sledgehammer: New Zealand and Australia are two different countries! Read more on PC Gamer.

How to help starting Age of Empires IV players

If you’ve never played a real time strategy game, the sheer amount of information thrown at you can be simply overwhelming. Especially making the step to multiplayer can be very hard, as you often play against people who have played manier hours of the game, whilst you are still getting to know the basics. AoE IV‘s presence on the Xbox Game Pass will mean many new players will play the game. But how can the developers make the experience easier for them? The devs have already partnered up with Microsoft Research to make an adaptive AI (Kotaku) that can help new players. Kotaku’s Alex Walker had a talk with Adam Isgreen and Quinn Duffy, who both work on the upcoming title. They had many good things in store. Not only will AoE (not at launch) feature adaptive AI, but also adaptive tooltips, which can help you with the mechanics the game sees you struggle with. Them experimenting with the possibilities of better PC’s and better engines is good news for other RTS’s as well, as one of the studio’s working on AoE is also working on the next Compamy of Heroes! Read more on Kotaku.