The good, the bad, and the fugly: April Fool's day in gaming

Update: An earlier version of this article included Age of Wonders 4's new expansion, "Giant Kings", which was not in fact an April Fool's joke. Yep, they really did just release an expansion called Giant Kings on April 1. Apologies for the error and thanks to reader Stellionate for the correction.

Original story: April 1st is here, which means every marketing team on the globe is sending terrible jokes around and asking us why we haven't covered them. I'm not allowed to reply and say "the joy went out of my heart years ago and none of them are funny" but I can sure write it!

Then I looked at my assignments for the day, saw "April Fool's round-up" with my name next to it, and knew that fate had dealt me a cruel, cruel hand. So on this day of mirth and frivolity, I present to you… the least-bad April Fool's gags from the wonderful world of gaming.

Ricochet gets the respect it deserves

We prefer to think of this one not as an April Fool's Day joke, but simply as Ricochet getting the respect it deserves. Half-Life fansite LambdaGeneration brought together Valve fans to smash the concurrents record for Valve's least-loved classic, and did it easily. PC Gamer's Andy Chalk recorded the chaos you see in the video embeddeed above.

Totally Normalwatch

Overwatch is once again up to some April 1 shenanigans, this time with a new game in the Arcade, and new challenges and cosmetics, that will be playable until April 14. Here are the full patch notes—even though I'm not an Overwatch player, a few jump out at me as, uh, interesting:

• Reinhardt recently saw some street racing anime and has become so obsessed with it that he has learned to drift.
• Hanzo can press Interact while near Orisa to ride her into battle, giving Orisa extra movement speed
• Fixed a bug where Moira was classified as a Support Hero and removed any unintended healing. Thank you for your patience as we resolved this seven-year-old issue that has prevented Moira mains from reaching their ultimate damage potential.
• Soldier 76 can no longer see allied or enemy health bars. Including his own.
• Zenyatta now fires sticky googly eyes instead of orbs.

Looks like there are plenty of other googly eyes running around in there too. Totally normal.

Nuking Gen-Z for the lulz

Razer Skibidi | Level Up Your Lingo - YouTube

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Despite myself, I found Razer's Skibidi headset quite amusing, but that's mainly because the company has decided to absolutely roast the youth for some reason. Take a look at this:

"For two decades, we’ve been elevating your in-game voice chats with the best gaming headsets on the planet. But when it comes to communication, mic clarity is only one part of the equation. Introducing the Razer Skibidi—the world’s first intelligent brainrot translator headset, optimized for the de-evolution of speech. Finally, you can understand the cancer your Gen Z teammates are spewing."

Tell me you're in your forties without telling me you're in your forties, marketing team.

The Warhammer Tactical Rock

Stand out from the flock with the new Warhammer: Tactical Rock - YouTube

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Games Workshop sure knows its audience, and this is one of those where, if it was real, people would legit buy it. The Warhammer Tactical Rock is basically a miniatures base but for humans playing Warhammer:

"The Warhammer: Tactical Rock is also immensely practical, providing an unparalleled view of the entire battlefield, offering the truest line of sight over any intervening terrain. At a reassuring 30kg you’ll never have to worry about your Tactical Rock being nudged out of place accidentally, and with your base size clearly delineated, any risk of folks bumping into you mid-game is removed, eliminating distractions from your precise strategic calculations."

Winner Winner Romantic Dinner

The 'you've put too much effort into this' award goes to Krafton, which has cooked up PUBG: Battlegrounds' "doki doki gun-girl dating sim" Winner Winner Romantic Dinner Mode. Deep breath:

"The Battlegrounds have always been a place where bullets fly and chaos reigns.

But... what if love could bloom even here?

"If I pull your trigger... can I 『loot』 your heart?"

Your trusted firearms—those who have fought alongside you, sharing victories and defeats—

They are no longer just tools of war.

Now, they are special beings(?) who can spend time with you, share their feelings, and maybe… just maybe… steal your heart."

Dave the Diver Remastered

FIRST LOOK | Dave the Diver: REMASTERED - YouTube

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MintRocket has Dave the Diver: Remastered, listed for release in 2049 and changing the original's pixel-art aesthetics into bug-ugly realism.

More Than Just Pals

Pal♡world! ~More Than Just Pals~ | 2nd trailer | Palworld | Pocketpair - YouTube

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Pocketpair has returned to an old April Fool's joke, and once again put way too much effort into it: leading me to suspect they might actually make the damn thing. They've even got a Steam page for it and, given the pitch seems to be "anime characters throw themselves thirstily at the player", I suspect this would probably outsell Palworld itself.

WoW you spent some time on this

World of Warcraft has some frankly voluminous patch notes up on "The More Herein", the game's newest patch. It does also gently poke fun at a playerbase Blizzard has been dutifully serving for decades, even though it can never do enough.

"If there’s anything we know about WoW players, it’s that you want more. In this patch, we’re adding more of everything. More dungeons, more classes, more races, more pets and more mounts and more flight paths and more words on the screen. Unless you want more empty spaces, in which case—we've cut the words and we’re adding more empty spaces! 'More more more' is our motto."

Super Size Super Earth

Helldivers 2 has a straightforward gag: the guns are giant now! But it does raise a smile because the official account got straight on the lore train about it: "Rumors of Super Earth weapons changing sizes are considered Automaton propaganda and should be ignored. Anyone spreading such malicious lies should be reported to the Ministry of Truth."

Developer Arrowhead also announced a name change, dropping the "Arrow" for a future as pure "Head". Head to the future!

The sound of modding

NexusMods has released an official soundtrack: The Sounds of Modding. Featuring computer clicking, exasperated tutting, and various ambient office noises, this is basically geek ASMR and I actually found it quite relaxing to have on in the background. 10/10, would April fool with Nexus again.

Edit SteamDB

Visit SteamDB today and look in the top left corner. There's a new "admin edit" button just waiting for you to try out. Could it be…?

Boykissers of Steel

This one speaks for itself. "This mod wemeshes the t60 powew awmow into a fancy shmancy boykissew powew awmow and wetextuwes the bwothewhood wogos and fwag into a new cute boykissews of steew wogo."

Boykissers of Steel puts cat ears and a little tail on the T60 power armour, and makes the flag into a cute cat thing. As my esteemed colleague Joshua Wolens noted, "idk if it counts as an April Fools joke when it's indistinguishable from 80% of the regular mods that get released on Nexus every day."

The one good joke

Thank you Aardman animation for the Wallace and Gromlette kit, allowing you to make a facial omelette of the beloved animated characters. It's the mushroom as Wallace's nose that really makes it.

See you next year, unless we all rise up against the oppressors, sack the centers of power, and agree that we'll never do April fool's day again. Just a thought.