Oct 25, 2019 9:00 AM

Congress Is Pretty Peeved That Blizzard Suspended Blitzchung

The Hearthstone pro, also known as Chung Ng Wai, was blocked from competing after voicing support for protesters in Hong Kong.

Hearthstone characters fly through a stormy sky toward the viewer

Greetings, and welcome to Replay, WIRED's one-stop shop for the week's biggest videogame news. Want to know what you've been missing? Let's get to it.

Even Congress Is Unhappy With Blizzard After Blitzchung's Punishment

Short recap: After he discussed the political protests happening in Hong Kong on a Blizzard-sponsored stream, Hearthstone player Blitzchung, aka Chung Ng Wai, was seriously punished by Activision Blizzard, which banned him from competing for several months and, initially, forced him to return his prize money. Very few people were happy with this decision. And now members of Congress are stepping in to voice their concerns.

In a letter drafted to the company, several members of Congress—including Ron Wyden, Marco Rubio, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mike Gallagher, and Tom Malinowski—expressed "deep concern" over the decision to punish Blitzchung for speaking out. "Your company claims to stand by 'one's right to express individual thoughts and opinions,'" they wrote, "yet many of your own employees believe that Activision Blizzard's decision to punish Mr. Chung runs counter to those values." It's hard to disagree.

Bethesda Is Selling a Subscription So You Can Play Fallout 76 Alone

Let's just get this out of the way first: Fallout 76 is a game predicated on the ability to play Fallout with strangers and friends. That's, like, its whole deal. Well now studio Bethesda has decided it's a good idea to offer you a way to play the game alone.

Introducing Fallout 1st, a new subscription service for the MMO-ish Fallout 76. For the low, low price of $13 a month (or $100 for a year, what a steal!), players can purchase their own little slice of the Fallout world in the form of a private server, where they can play with up to seven friends, separate from the rabble of regular server matchmaking.

OK, sarcasm aside, offering people a way to play a group game by themselves, or in private co-op, is ... strange. That's strange, right?

The Last of Us Part II Is Going to Be a Little Late

Ellie's second lengthy rampage of survival and revenge will begin a little bit later than expected. The Last of Us Part II, the sequel to the famously lauded PlayStation 4 game, has been delayed from its initial release date to May 29, 2020, developer Naughty Dog shared in a new blog post. This news comes just a few weeks after the revelation of the game's initial release date, which was supposed to be next February.

In the post, Neil Druckmann, the game's director, explained that the delay was needed for a necessary polish on the final product, which is game developer jargon for "parts aren't quite, uh, done yet." And delays are generally good, because, yes, relatively finished games are preferred to ones that needed a few more minutes in the oven. That rollicking rampage will have to rollick in the spring, then.

Recommendation of the Week: Hatoful Boyfriend, published by Devolver Digital, on PC

Y'all like visual novels? The largely Japanese genre is a delightful storytelling medium, and has some incredibly deep, complex, and strange stories to tell. And one of the most accessible ones for new Western audiences is definitely Hatoful Boyfriend, an absurd-until-it-gets-real story about dating birds and, well, you'll see. I definitely recommend it if you're at all curious about the genre. Or if you just like birds.