Nintendo fan tried to get uni class cancelled

A student at California State University started an incident on campus after sending a threatening email to get class cancelled over a Nintendo stream.

A student at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF) in the United States has started an incident with campus police after trying to get out of a class so they could watch a Nintendo presentation.

Campus police released a statement on Twitter, saying that on February 8, 2023, a professor at the university received a “perceived vague threat to campus” from a student via email. The police said that the message “referenced a once-in-a-lifetime event”, and asked the professor to “cancel class for the good of humanity”.

The vague nature of the message meant that police had to get involved and investigate, to ensure that students and faculty at the university were able to go about their day safely.

Detectives in the case made a breakthrough in the investigation after noticing that the date and time of the event mentioned in the email coincided with a Nintendo Direct that was to be held on Thursday, Australian time.

The student reportedly didn’t want to miss the livestream, where Nintendo was set to reveal a number of new details about existing games, but also seemingly didn’t want to skip class.

Message from Acting Chief Scot Willey regarding perceived threat to @csuf. pic.twitter.com/RyDbTqfxt9

— CSUF Police Department (@csufpd) February 8, 2023

The professor who received the email reportedly received another message later, admitting that the first email was “a bad joke”. Despite this, campus police said they had increased presence on the day of the Direct, just in case anything unusual happened.

“We understand that a threat of any kind, real or not, causes many to fear for their safety,” the statement from campus police reads, “Please know we will do all we can to ensure the safety of our campus community”.

Vague security threats aside, the Nintendo Direct was a memorable one, with over 50 games shown off during the 40-minute-long runtime of the presentation. The February Nintendo Direct was filled with highlights, such as a release date for Pikmin 4, the return of legendary Japanese publisher Level-5, and a few surprises.

Metroid Prime Remastered has been rumoured for years, but finally released yesterday. Picture: Nintendo

One of those surprises was the release of the long-rumoured Metroid Prime Remastered, which was both announced and released during the show. The game is a remaster of a cult classic Nintendo GameCube game, and part of the popular Metroid series, which has a major focus on exploration.

Nintendo also released a new Zelda trailer, showing off slick new gameplay for the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The long-awaited sequel to Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom was shown to be offering players new combat styles, gameplay elements, and an overhauled game world.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.