I wasn't expecting this to be such a big news day for the world of virtual pinball. Normally Zen Studios makes big announcements on its regular "Pinball Show" YouTube chow, but today the company made more big announcements in one clip than I've ever seen in a new "Pinball Bites" video format.
First and foremost, Zen announced that it is bringing the legendary 1993 Bally pinball machine Twilight Zone to its Pinball FX platform. Sweet.
Even better, Zen announced that PC users will now be able to play the new Pinball FX game in Steam. It's about time :). The previous Epic Gaming Store exclusivity is one of the big reasons why I haven't purchased any Zen tables in a while. Soon that won't be a problem.
Next up, Zen announced a new Godzilla / King Kong table pack. The pack contains three brand new tables, one for King Kong, one for Godzilla and a last one that's Godzilla Vs. Kong. Speaking of new IP, Zen also announced a new Crypt of the Necrodancer table.
Last but not least, Zen announced that it has remastered all of the Marvel tables that were available on FX2 to bring them over to the new platform. That's a whole lot of new content for anyone who didn't own them on the old platform already. I owned them on an old PlayStation or Xbox, it's been so long I forget which. Either way I don't use whatever I have them on any more so I'll probably buy them again as well.
All of these new tables and Steam access launch on Thursday, April 13th. That's a TON of news for Zen to not announce on The Pinball Show. I wonder if the fact that they didn't do it there means that the show is done?
Despite Zen's bungled launch of the new Pinball FX platform, I'm going to end up buying all of these tables on Steam and probably again on my Nintendo Switch (when it launches for that), just as I have in the past. I know that virtual pinball is not the same as the real thing, but I still love it. It sure takes a lot less effort to flop down on the sofa after a long day of work and play around with some pinball than it does to go out to a location or head on down to my basement and fire all of my pins up.
