It’s April Fools internationally again, the day when everyone and every brand’s got jokes. Some of them are good. Most of them are bad. Many of the game-related ones will show up here. It’s a whole thing.
Square Kirby
Hal Laboratory transformed one of the world’s most famous spheres into a cube. Square Kirby’s got his own landing page, complete with polygonal merch.
Meanwhile, on the official Japanese BoxBoy! Twitter account …
Tekken’s Real Boss
This is one of those “if only it were real” April Fools’ Day jokes. The Tekken Twitter teased a new fighter: game director Katsuhiro Harada. Personally, I think he’d make a better Dead or Alive guest character.
Really Rainbow Six Siege
For a game with the word “rainbow” in its name, Rainbow Six Siege is not very colourful. Except for right now, during the special eight-day long “Rainbow is Magic” event. It’s filled with pink, rainbows, unicorns, teddy bears and more. In other words, it is perfect.
Corsair’s Game Launcher Launcher
Epic. Steam. Battle.net. Origin. Those other ones. There are too many PC game launchers. It’s a problem, and Corsair has the solution. The Corsair Game Launcher Launcher launches all of your game launchers. What about virtual currency? The Corsair Game Launcher Launcher has its own virtual currency used to buy other virtual currency. It’s beautiful.
Ear Cup Noodles
Nissin and Hyper-X teamed up for this April Fools’ mock-up of the Hyper-X CUP Mix-In, the first headset designed for marketing Cup Noodles. See, the microphone is a fork. And the cups are… well, you see it. It’s got a website.
Love Thyself
Amplitude Studios, creators of Endless Space, go above and beyond this April 1 with Love Thyself. It’s a dating sim that revolves around The Horatio, the Endless Space race made up completely of clones of its eccentric trillionaire leader. It’s a real, free Steam game you can play right now.
Nvidia’s Holographic PC Gaming Assistant
It’s like Alexa for PC games. It measures your performance, suggests improvements, owns online trolls, and distracts family and friends so you can game peacefully. Not Nvidia’s finest.
r/AnthemTheGame
Cute header. Probably for the best.
Conan Chop Chop
After wasting years making super-serious Conan video games, Funcom announces Conan Chop Chop, a game that is definitely not real but probably should be.
Everything Is Coming To The Switch
IGN made a fake Nintendo Direct to deliver what feels like real news. Everything is coming to the Switch. Even you and me.
For Bwaahhhhhnor
For one day only, Rabbids are taking over for minions in Ubisoft’s For Honour. Which makes sense, as Minions and Rabbids are pretty much interchangeable.
Earth Thunder, AKA E.T.
Gaijin Entertainment’s War Thunder gets a special, limited-time event in Earth Thunder. Running today through April 5, it’s a special game mode that has players doing battle in Universal Fighting Orbiters. Get it? GET IT!?
Truck Driver – Pay Per Gallon
Sodesco thinks it’s being funny here, with a free-to-play truck simulator where players have to pay for gas via microtransactions. This is not funny. This is the future. Hold me.
Final Fantasy XIV: Omega, The Smart Home Assistant
He’s an ancient primal being of unimaginable power who’s travelled between dimensions for thousands of years. And he’s a smart speaker, too! I would trade Alexa for Omega in a heartbeat.
The Origin PC Competitive Building League
Origin PC turns building a gaming PC into a sport, in which two builders try to assemble a system while dealing with challenges like having to use chopsticks to install RAM, or having to build in a room where the only light source is flashing LEDs. I would watch this.
Dragalia Lost The Shoot-Em Up
Players of Nintendo’s mobile dragon-summoning RPG get a special one-day-only mini-game today in Notte’s Slumber Shot. Guide the pink-haired fairy through swarms of vicious flying lizards who are firing magic bullets. It’s cute.
The Annual Fake World Of Warcraft Patch Notes
Every year, Blizzard releases a lengthy set of fake World of Warcraft patch notes, detailing changes to the game that players often wish were real. This year’s batch is exquisite. Here’s a taste:
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The human racial ability that allows you to escape has been renamed. It is now called Every Skinny Kul Tiran for Himself.
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New Death Knight travel form: Death Leopard
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Feral Druids can now be crowd-controlled by throwing a slice of cheese on their head.
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Mist Wrap has been upgraded to Mist Wrap Supreme, which includes sour cream and cheese.
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Because you can’t stop being children with abbreviations, Assassination has been renamed. It is now known as “Sneaky Stab Guy.”
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Protection Warriors with the Safeguard talent have now been signed up for 12 months of credit monitoring.
Comments
16 responses to “The Best (And Worst) April Fools’ Day Jokes For 2019”
The Divisions/Anthem reddit switch is seriously screwing with my head. Especially given when you think you are on Division (with Anthem header), they now have a ‘summon the loot’ sticky which has been a fixture on Anthem for weeks, so you know you are on Division but really no longer sure.
Also Stylosa’s Overwatch road map is thoroughly hilarious even if you know it is not really right at the start but there is just something about his dedication that just makes it cute.
I would actually love something like the Game Launcher Launcher tbh.
I was gonna say it was the only one that made me chuckle
Yeah the only funny one
I would actually pay for that. The amount of times I almost bought a game I already own on another launcher…
try Hyperspin, you’ll need to play folder hero to get it set up but it’ll launch anything PC from a fancy UI.
I lost it when all the notification windows for friends coming online started flying all over the screen.
A friend of mine updated Elite Dangerous and started flying from the bubble to Sagittarius A last night because he fell for the oldest E:D trick in the book; the free anaconda. Only realised about halfway through he was being stitched up.
The plastic fork mic for the cup noodle headset is genius.
IGN, WHY YOU HAVE TO MAKE ME MAD! 🙁
The cool (and somewhat confusing) thing about the Anthem subreddit theme/header change is that the Division’s subreddit followed suit – they swapped themes for the day. Further, you start reading threads on one of them about stronghold balance and getting one-shot from off-screen, and it was easy to forget which game you were actually reading about. 😛
The discord one got me
That one annoyed me because I don’t like the dark theme. So I was stuck with it for the day and no way to change it 🙁
They actually reverted the change after a few hours because it was causing issues with accessibility.
Every April Fools, I still think back to when Kotaku Australia pulled one of their own.
Back in the day, on an April 1 morning, they put up an article saying the classification system for games had been updated but all ratings above PG had been scrapped.
It the comments went a bit while before someone pointed out the date and time.
I lost my shit toward the end of the Nintendo Direct. I’ve gotta say it was sort of cruel to include all those Zelda titles in an April Fool’s joke when Nintendo knows full well that a lot of people really want them. Oh and Metroid Prime Trilogy also.
Razer Ping!
is another weird thing for which advertising turned up in my inbox on the 1st (as well as the nvidia assistant).
Yeah it’s weird I saw the nvidia assistant stuff leaked a few days ago. So it seemed like a genuine product attempt. Kinda disappointing that it turned out to just be an April Fools prank leaked two days early.
I loved the Nintendo Direct one! The Switch getting everything… and yet I imagine someone somewhere would still ask if something is coming to the Switch.