What The Mysterious Vortex That Appeared Above Indonesia Means For Videogames

When the vortex first appeared in the blink of an eye and began consuming the local population – often vacuuming the skin clean off their bodies before eventually pulling in the remaining sacks of living viscera, blood and bone rending from bodies that were, we can all now agree, lucky to be dead – there were plenty of questions worth asking.

What was the origin of this vortex that defied description and burned out the eyes of anyone who looked into it for longer than ten seconds? What was the nature of the creatures who emerged from it, the ones whose body structures defied all our understanding of what it means to be alive? What obligation does the world have to act against such an inconceivable threat, and would it not be kinder to simply destroy the planet, bringing an immediate end to all life in the hope of appeasing the beings whose purpose we cannot hope to understand beyond their shocking, unspeakable propensity for cruelty?

But there was one question that no one was asking, and it’s the most important question of them all: what does all of this mean for videogames?

PlayStation 5 Production Just Took A Hit

Unfortunately, one of the regions first destroyed – ripped right out of the ground and flung into the vortex, from which screams still echo so loudly that they can be heard around the world – was a factory where AMD manufactures part of the modified Ryzen chip that the system will sport. The utter and complete annihilation of this factory is, unfortunately, going to set Sony back somewhat in the development of its new system.

Sure, this kind of delay might be inconvenient, but it’s hard to hold the factory workers – who we hope and pray are dead, rather than facing whatever is on the other side – too responsible.

Strong Holiday Sales For The Switch

There’s a silver lining to all of this for Nintendo – with the vortex spreading and growing more actively malevolent by the second, people are going to want to keep themselves distracted over the holiday season as they hunker down in the bunkers we all know won’t, ultimately, save us.

Pokemon Sword & Shield has benefited greatly from the fact that some of the impossible beings that emerged from the vortex to begin their horrifying ritual faintly resembled the Pokemon Metagross – you can’t buy that kind of publicity, even IF the creatures have been amassing the corpses of our loved ones and reanimating them to form ghoulish armies!

Better Horror Games

With our concept of horror having fundamentally shifted following the opening of the vortex, the absolute worst terrors we were previously able to conceive of have been proven laughable by the totemic baseline of absolute fear that we collectively feel at all times.

Horror games will have to seriously step up to even register with us as anything other than parody now, and we have full confidence in the industry to provide – after all, VR horror games will be all the more terrifying, now that not being entirely aware of your surroundings for even a moment can lead to a prolonged, agonising death.

Every Person On Earth Will Die

Look, yes, this one’s a bummer – we’re all going to die, screaming and frightened, shattered and alone, our hearts unable to experience joy, love, or any emotion beyond rage, pain, fear and sorrow. And ultimately, we think that’s going to be pretty bad for games. There will be fewer competitors in Evo 2020, no one left to buy the annual FIFA release, and indie development will suffer as more and more small teams are fed to the vortex to appease whatever monsters reside on the other side.

It’s a tough truth for the videogame industry to face, but hey – we’re gamers, and we’ve gotten through worse. Remember E.T.?

The Last of Us Part 2 Will Probably Be Delayed Again

Honestly, Naughty Dog will take any excuse.

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Is the vortex moving closer towards you with each passing second? Keep us updated in the comments.