Our Favorite Gaming April Fools’ Jokes for 2014
Our favorite gaming April Fools’ jokes for 2014 is awash with both funny quips and some astonishing productions that make us wish they were real. The gaming jokes have become something of a social marketing push, but the April Fools’ jokes for gamers in 2014 do not disappoint. Read on to find out favorite jokes of the year.
Our Favorite Gaming April Fools’ 2014 Jokes
Final Fantasy XIV “Favour” System
From the official blog: “Today we’ll be discussing the upcoming “Favour” system! This new system will allow adventurers to grow even closer to their favorite NPCs. Have you held out hope that one day Minfilia will look your way for longer than a cutscene? Or perhaps you offer gifts to Merlwyb to try and win her over? Well, that’s what the Favour system is for!”
Poking fun at the NPC many people wish they could interact with on a more “meaningful” level, the blog even goes so far as to make a mock design document showcasing a few examples of NPC’s that you can build a loving relationship with. Our personal favorite is the Primal Garuda who players can battle at level 44 in the game.
Garuda’s preference is “Foolish Landwalkers” with her favorite item being “Sacrificial offerings.” Her initial phase of the relationship would be where she comes across as a cruel and heartless primal. You must be a loyal minion, attending to her every need, and offer sacrifices whenever commanded.
World of Warplanes updated their game today to include a visit from Nazi UFO’s. The April Fools’ joke came to the free-to-play plane dogfighter in the form of the German Kampfflugplatte Sleipnir UFO. Players who take part in the “On Sleipnir’s Tracks” missions will be rewards with a UFO emblem titled appropriately, “April Fool’s Day Emblem 1”
Posted on the site was the following message to pilots, “Those of you who have already logged into the game today will have seen the surprise that was waiting for you in your Hangar. To make this year’s April Fools’ an even more memorable event, we have decided that a little something extra was in order to truly make this an outstanding experience. Thus, our developers have come up with a special set of April Fool’s missions that eager pilots will be able to complete over the coming days.”
Path of Exile Goes to a “Pay to Win” Model
This entry in our list of Gaming April Fools’ jokes deserves a spot because of the tongue-in-cheek reference to the one rule credible free-to-play online games do not break: paying to win a game. Path of Exile is a game built by a small studio based out of New Zealand has built a name for itself with its Action RPG property. However, in an effort to increase its bottom line, the studio allowed players to purchase “wins” at the steep price of $.15 per “win” on April 1 only. According to their official blog, winning looks like the following points:
- When players win, they need fireworks.
- Social is good. Announce the wins to everyone nearby.
- Price-wise, you should nickel and dime the players. That’s why we chose a price of $0.15 per win.
- Wins should be consumable and sold in stacks so that players have to keep buying more.
Google Maps Pokémon Hunts
Google may be seen as a scary depository for all our data, but they have a lot of gamers who work for them and love for the craft. Last year they turned the earth into a map that looked like it came out of Final Fantasy. This year the globe became a Pokémon Challenge hunting ground for users of Google Maps on their iOS and Android devices. You can read the full details on the Pokémon from our own Jan Omega.
Blizzard | Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft
Blizzard has made April Fools’ top lists everywhere because very few companies go to the lengths they do to give their fans a good laugh. This year, all of their properties were fair game.
The first one on the April Fools’ list is Starcraft: Herald of the Stars. The expansion would abandon the conclusion of the trilogy of games and instead focus on the more important question regarding the enigmatic Protoss race. According to the the writers of the expansion, “We don’t want to give away too many details of the plot at this point, but rest assured we will answer the important questions you’ve always wanted to know about the Protoss, and we plan to do so in excruciatingly specific detail. ‘What do they eat?’ ‘How do they breathe?’ ‘Do they breathe?’ ‘Hold on – they surely breathe, or how do they oxygenate their blood?’ ‘You know what, I’m sorry I asked about the whole breathing thing… this is going massively off-track.'”
World of Warcraft also was not spared from an April Fools’ joke when character designs were brought into the mix. Many of the races are receiving updated models but the female Draenei is getting more of a downgrade. According to the official post from Blizzard, the goal was to essentially uglify the female in the most hilarious form possible. We think they did a pretty good job.
Diablo III also was not spared in the shenanigans of the day with Happy Reaper being the mobile game from Blizzard. The April Fools’ joke lists the game as, “incredibly difficult to learn and almost impossible to master!” What is this insanely difficult mechanic you ask? Tapping on the screen of your mobile device. Or if you can’t wait, you can play the game in browser here.
As if all this was not enough, Blizzard brought all there games together in one epic fighting mash-up called Blizzard OutCasts: Vengeance of the Vanquished. The official site for the game states, “They’re underdogs. Also-rans. Some, the punching bags for the so-called “good guys.” But now, their days of being pushed around are over; the misfits are taking control.”
The game comes with a 32 button controller, a fighting joy stick that has sharp spikes covering its surface and a credit card slot so you can speed up your in-game purchases to make your character more powerful.
Rappy Bird
Sega was not to be left out of our favorite April Fools’ jokes list with their own clone of Flappy Bird. Built with backgrounds from Sonic the Hedgehog and starring Rag Rappy from Phantasy Star Online 2, a game that has yet to make its way to the states. You can play the game here.
Thief as Interpreted by Final Fantasy
Thief has been downgraded to an 8-bit incarnation and merged with the original Final Fantasy for gamers to play on the Square Enix Japan site. What makes the game interesting is that your thief has 30 HP and can only “Steal” or “Run Away”. You can play the game here.
Titanfall Transformers DLC
Our favorite gaming April Fools’ joke comes from Respawn Entertainment and IGN. Posting a trailer for the ultimate DLC, gamers will be able to play with Optimus Prime as your titan. Having grown up with the Transformers cartoon, this was a no-brainer, and the production quality of the trailer was top notch.
While the chances of this actually happening are very slim, gamers remember Ubisoft’s reveal of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon as an April Fools’ joke that actually was a brilliant announcement trailer for a stand alone expansion that released a short while later.
We hope you enjoyed our favorite picks for gaming’s best April Fools’ jokes for 2014. Let us know in the comments what were your favorites if we didn’t list them here. See you next year!
