April Fools’ Day is almost here again, a day when brands flood social media with fake announcements, when writers have to quadruple-check to make sure news is legitimate, and when people forget “what if X was a dating sim haha” stopped being funny years ago. You know what else stopped years ago? These jokes being stealth announcements for actual things. Like when Nintendo sneakily hinted at Fire Emblem Echoes, before leaving the offshoot subseries alone in a corner ever since, and Ryu Ga Gotoku cheekily revealed Yakuza 7 as a turn-based RPG as an April Fools’ “joke” (even though it started development that way long before the gag).
The downtick in silly fun — in general, not just around April Fools’ — coincides with a lot of serious events in the world and in the games industry, which has slowly been eating itself alive since Yakuza: Like A Dragon‘s release in 2020 (well, since before then too, but that’s another story). But it still sucks to see. And the impulse to not lean into the fun kinda seems like a missed opportunity for brands to stand out at a time when getting noticed is harder than ever.
Look at how Larian Studios has handled Baldur’s Gate 3. Sure, that game had the weight of Dungeons and Dragons behind it, but one of the things that helped it break through and reach beyond the D&D crowd was how the team leaned into its more ridiculous (launching gnomes from windmills) and risque (bear sex) aspects. Larian has continued to do it after launch so even something dry and analytical, like releasing player behavior stats, has an element of fun to it.
