Despite the unorthodox nature of the current world climate and the changes in the way in which the games industry presents new information, July remains a huge month for the gaming world. A game which remains a constant regardless of what takes place in the gaming world is Fortnite. Fortnite once again took the number one spot in the Strongest PR Presence top ten. No one topic was hugely dominant for Fortnite’s press in week 27 but the Modes/Interface topic made up the biggest chunk of the games press with 15.1%, a lot of this content touched on the Save the World update that was release by the Fortnite team. This was followed by DLC/Content Update with 10.8% and Early Access at 7.9% as articles talked about new seasons and Save the World leaving early access. One of the biggest releases of recent weeks has been The Last of Us: Part II, so it’s no surprise to see the title in the number two spot. Sales/Player Numbers was the most covered topic for the game making up 15.3% of the games press coverage. Launch Details was up next with 8% as the developers talked about their plans with a possible launch on the new Playstation hardware in the future. Reviews are still trickling in as certain outlets took a bit more time getting a feel for the game, the Reviews topic was 7.2% piece of the pie for The Last of Us: Part II. Cyberpunk 2077 once again made a strong attempt at being the most covered game in the previous week, coming just short in third. The most touched on topic for the future set RPG was how the game will be made available on next gen consoles for those who purchase on current gen, this led the Launch Details subject to 11.2% of total coverage. The next most covered topic was Other News with 9.5%, the bulk of the articles under this topic spoke about the censorship that would be applied to the game in different regions. The Technical Specs topic made up an 8.8% of the Cyberpunk 2077 coverage in the previous week as an interview with CD Projekt Red devs revealed details of the games use of ray tracing technology. Top ten mainstay, Call of Duty: Warzone, again grabbed a top ten spot, this time fourth. 21.2% of the game’s coverage came under the DLC/Content Update subject as the details of the second part of the fourth season were released. In-game Events made up a further 13.5%, again relating to the new content but after it had launched. The most talked about topic for Warzone was the addition of a 200 player mode, this coverage made up 11.6% of the titles total and came under the Game Mode/Interface subject. Top ten newcomer NBA 2k21 made its way into fifth in week 27. Initially announced weeks previously the 2020 outing of the sports sim giant once again made a splash in the media with the price, platforms and release date being announced, this led to the Launch Details topic taking up 27.2% of the games total press. 26.8% of the NBA 2k21 press coverage came under the Screenshots/Artwork umbrella as the new cover star was revealed. Another 11.5% of PR belonged to the Special Editions topic, a deluxe “Mamba Forever” version of the game was put up for pre-order. Ubisoft couldn’t quite wait until their Forward event to announce the sixth most talked about game of week 27, Hyper Scape. The biggest topic discussed here, rather surprisingly, was Modes/Interface at 39.9% the reason being that Hyper Scape takes on the ever-popular Battle Royale mode type as its primary focus. The more expected Announcement topic took up a lesser 14% of the game’s overall coverage. The accompanying trailer that came with the announce led the Trailer topic to a 7.5% share of the press. Where there is one Call of Duty there is often another, week 27 was no different, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare took the number seven spot. The big topic here once again was DLC/Content Update with Season 4 additions being discussed at length; the topic made up 20.2% of the games press. Just like Warzone previously the second most talked about subject was In-game Event with 13% for the same reasons. The parallels between the 2 COD products ended there as the third most covered topic for Modern Warfare was Bug/Issues/Patches/Updates with 9.8%, the articles covered the details of the patch notes and intricacies of what was included within the new update. Crysis: Remastered made a splash for all the wrong reasons in week 27, this attention however enabled the game to hit eighth in the top ten. A leaked trailer caused a lot of concern for fans waiting on the remaster and the articles covering the story led the Trailer topic to making up 23.6% of the PR. More leaked content in the form of screenshots, release date and download size were also obtained which led the Leak/Spoiler/Rumour/Speculation subject to 18.6% of the Crysis PR as outlets ran stories on the leaked content. Following the poor reception to the leaked content the team behind Crysis: Remastered issued a statement delaying the launch of the title as they attempt to create a product more fitting of the fan’s expectations, coverage on this news amounted to 17% of the games overall press. Up in ninth was Animal Crossing: New Horizons, the champion of the Covid-19 pandemic. A new month means new fish and bugs for the Animal Crossing fans to catch, articles helping the New Horizons islanders play through the game led the Guide/Walkthrough topic to a 23.3% share of the game’s coverage. New Horizons continues to sell well and so it’s a not a surprise that once again a big subject for the game was Sales/Player Numbers, this time at 18.7%. DLC/Content Update was up next with 11.8% with content covering the summer update which launched at the start of July. Rounding off the top ten was Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of Tsushima is near launch and so the breakdown of the press coverage reflects that with the publishers doing all they can to secure the last minute preorders and sales. The topics of conversation for Ghost of Tsushima broke down as follows: Trailer at 37.6%, Announcement at 16.2%, Launch Details with 12.7% and Soundtrack at 7.3%. The rest of the coverage was spread across a range of other subjects in smaller quantities.
