Puma Is Making Gamer Shoes Now

Welcome to the last Replay of 2019! For this final installment, we’re covering some light news during a light week. But still, we will not let you fall behind, dear readers. Read on for all the videogame news you need to know as you go headlong into 2020.

The Core Rainbow Six Siege Team Has Moved On

Rainbow Six Siege has one of the most interesting success stories in games. A multiplayer-only entry in a series that has always had single-player, it felt, at first, like something that would just come and go. But its sharp, highly strategic gameplay and interesting mechanics (being able to shoot walls open to create new paths, that’s awesome stuff) proved incredibly engaging and the game, and its community, grew and grew.

Now, after supporting the game for years, the core development team on Rainbow Six Siege is moving on, perhaps to work on the next entry in the series. Fear not, a new team of developers who were also involved with Siege will step into the role of core development leads, as PC Gamer reports. But the passing of the creative torch signals the end of an era for one of the most successful multiplayer games out there right now—and the sign of maybe something new coming for the franchise. Keep an eye on this.

Thanks, Puma, For the Gamer Shoes, I’ll Definitely Wear These

If there’s one activity that requires specialized footwear, it’s gaming, amirite? Puma sure seems to think so. As you can see from the (frankly bonkers) YouTube ad below, the company’s new “Active Gaming Footwear” line includes a sleek-ish black rubber shoe that is, best I can tell, a big, thick sock. In the description for the video, Puma claims that this design is based on “extensive talks with professional gamers,” and I’m very curious which professional gamers they talked to and why any of them had strong shoe opinions. We take esports as seriously as athletics, but they are usually played sitting down, right? Like, I’m not imagining that. You just sit in a chair. I don’t really think you need special shoes for that.

The shoes will reportedly set you back about 100 bucks, and have three different “modes.” Look forward to Ninja wearing them at the next Game Awards.

Recommendation of the Week: Deus Ex: Game of the Year Edition, by Ion Storm, on PC

The holidays are a great time to dig into something meaty, and there’s nothing meatier than Deus Ex. The most emblematic of the style of design referred to in PC nerd circles as the “immersive sim,” Ion Storm’s late-’90s masterpiece is a game where you can, within reason, play however you want. Be stealthy, be action-y, try to hack and talk your way out of problems. It’s a fascinating, paranoid cyberpunk world of conspiracy theories and cyborgs, built with a broader sense of world-building and player agency than even most games today. If your PC wasn’t meaty enough to handle this thing when it came out, try it now. It’s clearly showing its age, but it’s also clearly brilliant.