Plus the United Videogame Workers union is launched and SIFTER is up for an award
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SIFTER is produced by Kyle Pauletto, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Courtney Smith, Adam Christou and Chris Button. Mitch Loh is Senior Producer and Gianni Di Giovanni is our Executive Producer. Thanks to Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER.
FIONA: Hi I’m Fiona Bartholomaeus
KYLE: and I’m Kyle Pauletto
FIONA: Welcome to Walkthrough, SIFTER’s weekly recap on the biggest news in video games.
KYLE: This week get ready to build a Pikachu, Lego Pokémon sets are coming, Microsoft shares an Xbox screenshot with a rival game store on it, and the biggest cross industry union for video games launches in the US.
Here is the news for Sunday 23rd of March. Let’s go!
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PROMO: Join the SIFTER community on Discord at sifter.com.au/discord
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FIONA: Lego fans get ready as a new collaboration has been announced with The Pokémon Company.
The Lego website says it's coming in 2026, and reports say it’s part of a new multi-year partnership.
It does make sense considering Lego has a set for everything including Zelda, Mario and Animal Crossing.
I can’t wait to see what other Pokémon get announced, please give me a Charizard or Lugia.
KYLE: However up until now Pokémon had a partnership with Mattel’s Mega Bloks and Mega Construx lines, and they’ve always held exclusive rights to create official licensed brick Pokémon.
Mattel even renewed its license with the Pokémon Company in 2022 to make Mega Pokémon building sets for years to come, but clearly it’s not exclusive rights anymore.
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KYLE: Whoops, Microsoft shared a new image this week of a redesigned Xbox interface and it included something that people didn’t expect - Steam.
That’s right in a tiny bubble up the top of one of the screenshots there was a tab named after Valve’s massive PC storefront, which fueled a bit of rampant speculation as spotted first by the Verge.
FIONA: Now it could be that on PC the Xbox app might become more of a unified store for all your games, think how GOG Galaxy works for example, but what people would be really interested to see I’m sure is Steam games on Xbox hardware.
That might be a stretch, but Microsoft quickly pulled it down, so either they wanted to chuck water on this idea or weren’t ready to announce that particular feature yet.
Hit the show notes to see the Verge story and speculate wildly yourself.
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KYLE: We here at SIFTER love a union, and we love the games industry, so we were thrilled to hear that this week a bunch of game developers have launched an industry-wide union for anyone working in video games.
Speaking at the Game Developers Conference this week, Communications Worker of America announced the launch of the United Videogame Workers union, which will run alongside their main efforts.
The UVW-CWA aims to build a community of workers and promote large-scale education campaigns about labor rights within the industry.
Which is just music to my ears.
FIONA: With all the studio shutdowns and mass firings, it’s no wonder those working in the industry are looking for guidance on how to best protect themselves.
Unfortunately negotiation efforts between unions and studios in the states haven’t been overly promising yet, like with staff at Raven Software who have been in negotiations with Activision for close to three years now.
But a more united workforce is a stronger workforce, so power to them, and good luck.
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FIONA: And the most important news this week, well for us at least, SIFTER has been nominated for an award.
The Samsung Australian IT Journalism Awards are back for 2025 and we’ve been announced as a finalist in the Best Independent Coverage.
Sifter has been running for 10 years and it’s a massive team effort to create all of our podcasts, Lightmap, Drop Rate and of course Walkthrough, so it’s always wonderful to see what we love to do be recognized.
And thanks to you for listening to all our different shows.
KYLE: That’s not it though, some of our team are also finalists for individual awards for work they do outside of SIFTER.
Courtney Smith is nominated for Best New Journalist, Chris Button is in the running for Best Technical Journalist and our Executive Producer Gianni Di Giovanni is up for Best Gaming Journalist.
Fingers crossed the team walk away with some wins next week.
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FIONA: That’s it for the headlines, here are the games coming out this week
KYLE: My little Throneys - Game of Thrones Kingsroad hits early access on the 26th, you play your own character going on adventures next to your best buds of Westeros where every story ends happily…probably not hey but it’s very closely connected to the TV series. That’s out on PC.
FIONA: Out Thursday is the long awaited Atomfall, a survival-action game set in post apocalyptic Britain. Rebellion, the developers of the Sniper Elite series are channelling Fallout and Farcry for this one and it looks great. That’s out on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S on the 27th.
KYLE: Also out on the 27th is The First Berserker: Khazan. It’s a brutal looking action RPG with fast, precise combat and parrying. Early impressions are positive, so be sure to check this one out when it comes to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S
FIONA: For all our nostalgia heads out there, the 90’s GameBoy classic Bubble Ghost is getting a full remake this week. All new art style, new levels, plus the full original game included as well. Out on Switch this Friday.
KYLE: Also out Friday is the hopeful Sims rival inZOI. Customise characters, construct houses, and build a life amongst your fellow Zois…can you murder them with household related mishaps? Find out when it comes to PC on the 28th.
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PROMO: Articles to read, videos to watch and podcasts to listen to on sifter.com.au
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FIONA: This has been Walkthrough by SIFTER, my name is Fiona Bartholomaeus.
KYLE: And my name is Kyle Pauletto, thank you so much for listening.
FIONA: We’re taking next week off so there won’t be a regular episode because most of the team will be at the Lizzies, but we will still bring you release radar - so keep an eye on your feed for that - and wish us luck and we’ll be back the week after that with another episode.
KYLE: SIFTER is produced by myself, Fiona Bartholomaeus, Adam Christou, Courtney Smith and Chris Button. The episode is edited by both Senior Producer Mitch Loh and Gianni Di Giovanni who is SIFTER’s Executive Producer and also Walkthrough’s script editor.
FIONA: Thanks to Brian Fairbanks from Salty Dog Sounds for composing the Walkthrough theme tune, and Audio Technica Australia and Apple for their support of SIFTER’s podcasts.
KYLE: We’ll be back with more news on the 6th of April, that’s in two weeks time.
