April 1 has the potential to be one of the most nerve-wracking days of the year. You just can’t trust anybody, especially in the video game industry. As a journalist you have to mark your calendar and maintain a cynical level of skepticism. Half-Life 3, a Halo MMORPG, Noctis coming to Smash Bros… you just never know what you’re going to hear, and if it sounds too good to be true, it bloody well is.
This year wasn’t too bad. Most of the repeat offenders were kind enough in their delivery to let on that they were obviously jesting, and didn’t expect anyone to take them too seriously. Then you have stuff like ThinkGeek’s “VR Sensory Immersion Generator.” Before viewing the preview video, this is a product you’d believe exists, even at the $250 price point. Google really dropped the ball this year with its prank, which replaced the usual “send and archive” button in Gmail with a “mic drop” button, which placed a gif of a Minion dropping a microphone at the end of your email and then muted the thread. Apparently that wasn’t the brightest idea, and may have even cost some poor bloke his job. Then there’s IGN and Netflix, who put out a believable, really cool looking trailer for an original Star Wars series which was to allegedly air on May 4. Watch the trailer below, and we can both mourn its illegitimacy together: