August 2023

As expected and teased, Usada Pekora will join the Hololive Vtuber fighting game Idol Showdown. She made her debut at Evo 2023. Besto Games revealed a trailer showing her off and teasing the performer's moveset. She will join as a free roster update on August 11, 2023.

The Usada Pekora Idol Showdown trailer begins with a warning. The Oozora Police issued a warning about an individual who leaves carrots at the scenes of her crimes. That’s when we get to see the Vtuber appear and get a better look at her moveset.

However, she’s not the only member of Hololive to be featured. At the 35 second mark of the video, the Houshou Marine pirate ship stage appears. We get to see the two attack together. Ninomae Ina’nis is also featured at the 51 second mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNx_ObPDRcs&t=1s&ab_channel=IdolShowdown%7CBestoGameTeam
There are still two more Hololive Vtubers confirmed to be joining the fighting game. This video didn't offer us any hints as to their possible identities, however. At the moment, there are still only eight playable characters, and they're all from the company's Japanese branch. As such, it's possible the final two could be pulled from the English or Indonesian branches.

Final Fantasy XIV FanFest 2023 heralded the return of the massive fan event. Thousands of people from all over the globe headed to Las Vegas, Nevada to meet up with friends and Free Company members to attend Live Letters and special concerts in the flesh. However, while attendees were more than happy enough to meet up with their fellow Warriors of Light and bond over their communal enjoyment of Square Enix’s long-running MMORPG, their experience with the venue and the sweltering dry heat of Las Vegas left something to be desired.

I sat down and interviewed several members of the Final Fantasy XIV community about their experience at FanFest 2023, and while some were divided about how the event was run, two thing remained unanimous. Attendees were thrilled to meet the friends they’ve made through playing the game, but the Las Vegas heat was unbearable.

The Metal Gear series has topped 60 million sales.

That's according to a new update posted on the official Konami website which reveals that the revered stealth series – which launched in 1987 – hit the milestone in the run up to June 2023.

As spotted by VGChartz, that's compared with 57.7m units sold in September 2021, and 59.3m units sold back in November 2022, intimating that 700,000 Metal Gear games have been sold in the last seven months alone... even though the series hasn't published a new mainline title since 2018.

Read more

Bandai Namco Europe has seemingly let slip about two more characters coming to Tekken 8's roster.

Yesterday, the official EU website was seemingly updated to add two news stories to its Tekken 8 mini-site revealing the new additions. Shortly thereafter they were taken down again, but not before eagle-eyed players were able to grab a screenshot.

Yes, this could be an elaborate hoax – there's no way to be sure, as the Wayback Machine hasn't indexed the site since the end of July – but if true, it does add credence to the incomplete roster that leaked shortly after the closed network test as the new additions see the welcome return of Raven and usher in newcomer Azucena.

Read more

The first volume of the I Want to Be a Receptionist in This Magical World manga appeared outside of Japan, and it doesn’t waste time getting to the point. Mako, Yone, and Maro’s series follows Nunnally Hel, a young woman who aspires to work at the counter of Harre’s, an organization that aids adventurers. However, its criteria for employees is surprisingly strict, which means needing to become the best of the best to find a spot. This initial entry essentially speedruns the first part of her life story and, honestly, it works.

Volume 1 of the manga covers Nunally’s early life. The prologue begins with her discovering Harre’s when going with her father to visit one and being captivated by the receptionist working there. By the time the first chapter proper begins, she’s at the Kingdom of Doran’s Magic Academy alongside the nobility. Her goal remains intact, and she is determined to be first in her year, show up the other rich kids who think she won’t do well due to being a commoner, and especially intends to show her deskmate Alweiss Rockmann what’s up.

Destiny 2 developer Bungie has revealed plans to shake up how players progress in its upcoming expansion, The Final Shape.

In a "State of the Game" update posted to the official website, game director Joe Blackburn confirmed that as well as addressing "a number of player feedback items over the past few months", the team would be "rolling out something very new and different in Season 23".

"While there's always room for us to revise and improve, the community's response has reinforced that we're on the right track with norm-breaking efforts like these, and we'll be rolling out something very new and different in Season 23," Blackburn said (thanks, NME).

Read more

Welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best community-created content from the previous week!

As most of you know, Jeff Grubb has returned from their vacation. Moving forward, the site's programming schedule will return to normal.

Also, some people have been asking about Niki Grayson. Their contract starts this month. Currently, they are attending the Women's World Cup in person in Australia.

It was previously announced that the professional wrestler Jeff Jarrett would be attending last week's Voicemail Dump Truck. Unfortunately, a sudden scheduling change prevented him from doing so, but you can rest assured that Jarrett will be attending the podcast in the future.

Also, here's another friendly reminder I'm working on a list of the Twitter alternatives the staff are using to keep everyone updated on their activities and possible site-related announcements. If you know of any accounts that are missing from my list, please drop a comment.

Finally, I created Tumblr, cohost, and Bluesky alternatives to the Giant Bomb Community Twitter account. I wish to thank the dozens of you that have already subscribed to one of these accounts and liked the posts I have shared with each of them. This helps me gauge which platforms are worth investing in moving forward.

At Evo 2023, SNK shared a trailer for the new Garou game it teased and confirmed it is Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves. We first heard this project was "green-lit" back at Evo 2022. There's no release date for it yet. We also don't know which platforms the fighting game will appear on when it launches.

For that first teaser for the new Garou/Fatal Fury game project, we only got to see Rock Howard. For this second spot, Rock reappears. However, we also get to see how Terry Bogard will look in this installment.

The Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves video also begins by showing locations on the map alongside character voice clips, with Geese Tower, National Park, South Town Airport, Live House “Old Line,” Factory, and an Abandoned Dojo highlighted. It seems like characters like Andy Bogard, Mai Shiranui, B. Jenet, and Billy Kane are teased at each spot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTyy0kgQ8Ug&ab_channel=SNKOFFICIAL

Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves is currently in development for unspecified platforms, and there's no set release window for this new Garou game. The last entry in the series to appear was Garou: Mark of the Wolves, which debuted in arcades in 1999 before heading to multiple platforms worldwide.

At Evo 2023, SNK announced a release date for the KOF XV Najd DLC, as well as confirmed Duo Lon will follow her. She will show up on August 8, 2023. After that, he'll follow sometime in Autumn 2023 with "specific character refinements.

First, here's the new trailer that shows both the Najd and Duo Lon DLC in KOF XV. She’s the initial focus, as we get to see her introduction. It also confirms that Ayaka Fukuhara will voice her. At the 34 second mark, he shows up. Likewise, this only features the character’s introduction and doesn’t show any of his moveset. The video then closes with an updated roadmap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yqDtKF5hrA&ab_channel=SNKOFFICIAL

The roadmap confirms that only one character remains in season two. The person's identity isn't revealed.

[caption id="attachment_976628" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via SNK[/caption]

Over the decades I've been playing video games, I've flown spaceships made of futuristic alloys and bubbles of energy, and I've flown spaceships hammered together from wooden planks, chunky metal bolts and flapping sailcloth. I've flown ships that extrapolate believably from the design of the International Space Station, and I've flown ships that are basically steam trains with an attitude problem. But not till Noctis, somehow, have I flown a spaceship made of glass. In this "dreamable space simulator" from Italian developer Alessandro Ghignola, released in 2000, you explore a galaxy's worth of solar systems in a Stardrifter - a chunk of polarised quartz that harbours a single, square room, more of a conservatory than a cockpit, with Centerparcs-style viewing domes protruding above and below.

Noctis players often affectionately refer to the Stardrifter as a "catbox", because the game's Feltyrion voyagers are said to be descended from cats. But any feeling of absurdity evaporates when you hit the Depolarise button. This switches off the electrical current running through the hull, turning those glass walls transparent and so, transforming your ship into a prism - a folded extravaganza of photons and facets, which derives its colour from the nearest star: gold, blue, green. The game's crunchy 320x200 display resolution only adds to the lustre of the refraction effects. It makes them feel artful and tactile in a way I don't think I've experienced in any space sim developed for more "powerful" hardware.

We already knew that highly-anticipated D&D role-player Baldur's Gate 3 was doing well on Steam – it had racked up an impressive player peak of more than 472,000 people in its first day on sale – but it's now one of Steam's most-successful games ever.

According to SteamDB, as of this morning (Sunday 6th August) Baldur's Gate 3 has broken into Steam's top ten most played games. It has amassed a staggering 712,281 concurrent players, becoming Steam's ninth biggest game ever in terms of concurrent player counts.

That means Baldur's Gate 3 has now eclipsed the concurrent Steam player peaks for games like Valheim, Goose Goose Duck, and Respawn's Apex Legends.

Read more

Thieves have stolen over $300,000 (£235.3K) worth of trading cards from Gen Con 2023.

As spotted by our friends over at Dicebreaker, the alleged theft occurred at the Indiana Convention Center on Wednesday 2nd August, the day before the show opened. According to police reports, the suspects acquired the cards whilst exhibitors were setting up for the event.

"[Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department] detectives are seeking the public’s help in identifying two people of interest possibly involved in a theft of upwards to $300,000 worth of gaming cards," the IMPD tweeted earlier this week, including images of the suspects making off with a full pallet of Magic: The Gathering cards.

Read more

It’s easy to have fun playing online games with friends. The real challenge is for a live service game to be fun on its own. Exoprimal is a fresh take on a saturated genre and an extremely well-made game that manages to be a hell of a lot of fun. While its story and characters are nothing new, they are still charming and entertaining. However, Exoprimal misses the mark in some ways that make it a hard sell to people that might already be committed to other online experiences.

The hook of Exoprimal is simple. Two teams of five Exofighters compete in a series of wargames designed by rogue AI Leviathan set on the dinosaur infested Bikitoa Island. Add to the mix some time-traveling shenanigans and a corporate conspiracy, and you have a good recipe. After a mandatory tutorial, you get the chance to jump into the game and try the seven Exosuits available from the start. There are three extra Exosuits locked by level, and those can be obtained with real money or with certain editions of the game. For a $60 game, it’s not great to have to grind for the remaining suits.

[caption id="attachment_976406" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Siliconera[/caption]

Hot off the heels of the Pikmin 1 and 2 HD remasters on Switch, we have a completely new series entry in Pikmin 4. It's been a decade-long wait, but in that time Nintendo has jettisoned its in-house engine in favour of Unreal Engine 4, which provides some of the most striking visuals seen on Switch to date. But how much of a graphical leap is it over the Wii U release of Pikmin 3, what new visual features have been added and how does performance hold up?

The extent of Pikmin 4's reinvention runs deeper than its visuals of course. As well as higher-fidelity graphics, the game's long development has seen major overhauls to its mechanics, UI and quality-of-life features too. The cursor has a lock-on, for a start, while a rewind feature is there in case all of your Pikmin perish. And adding an extra dimension to the series' combat, resource-gathering and puzzles, Pikmin 4 of course also features the Oatchi, a space dog sidekick. This photogenic canine is capable of jumping, swimming and charging through obstacles, providing more variety to Pikmin's usual gameplay loop. It's a risk that pays off, and if you've never played a Pikmin game before, there's never been a better time to jump in; it's the most streamlined it's ever been.

10-year-old fighting game Killer Instinct is getting a "free anniversary update" later this year.

The surprise patch will not only include a balance update and improved matchmaking, but it will also bring 4K support for fans playing on Xbox Series X/S, too.

"Our friends Iron Galaxy are back!" the official Killer Instinct Twitter/X account tweeted. "And together, we’re bringing you Killer Instinct's free 10th Anniversary Update later this year – including a balance update, improved matchmaking, and 4K support for Series X|S."

Read more

Surprise! Turns out that the hooded figure that's recently been stalking the Overwatch community lately is none other than John Cena.

That's right – as part of its marketing plan to get us hyped for Overwatch 2's next update, Invasion, John Cena has been working with developer Blizzard to "interrupt" the streams of some of the community's biggest content creators with ominous warnings about what's coming up in next month's Invasion update.

You can see the reveal yourself in the teaser below:

Read more

30 years after its creation, Aquatic Ambience has taken on a life of its own. It’s been sampled by superstar artists like Childish Gambino, adored by Trent Reznor, performed in huge concerts around the world and, of course, remixed in every possible direction once the internet got its hands on it.

But what is it about Aquatic Ambience that resonated with a worshipping fanbase? How did something so simple from something so quintessentially 90s end up being referred to as the Eleanor Rigby of video game music?

Wizards of the Coast has revealed what new crossover expansions Magic: The Gathering fans can expect to see next year, including new sets based upon Final Fantasy, Fallout, and the Assassin's Creed series.

The cards have been released as part of the trading card game's Universes Beyond series and is set to kick off in early 2024 with the Fallout expansion.

You will have to wait a little longer for the Final Fantasy expansion - that's not expected to go on sale until 2025 - but the previously-announced Assassin's Creed set will release towards the end of/Q3 2024.

Read more

Sokoban became a puzzle game genre back in the 1980s, when the title about moving boxes around a space to complete objectives appeared PCs in Japan. Since then, we’ve seen different sorts of variants, like Chip’s Challenge or Baba is You. With Patrick’s Parabox, we get a box-pushing game where there’s more than meets the eye, like Baba is You, but maintains the traditional type of gameplay we’d see in more straightforward games of this type.

In Patrick’s Parabox, players always control an anthropomorphic box. Your goal is to get the inanimate boxes in a stage to specific positions, while getting yourself to the “goal” box with two eyes. The concept is straightforward and is about spatial awareness. The fact that there are these distinctive markings where other boxes must rest even resemble the original Sokoban. Back then, you were making certain specific points were covered too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl_ohYPXNMo&ab_channel=PatrickTraynor

Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra has confirmed that the team hopes to have "fixed" the bug that's preventing some Diablo 4 players from progressing and collecting their rewards in the new season by 15th August.

After tweeting his progress thus far, confirming that he had fully completed Season 1, Ybarra received a reply from a Diablo 4 fan who said: "Unfortunately some of us cannot do this due [to] a bug".

The issue sees players stuck at Slayer level because the game won't accept that they've completed the A Boon in the Tide quest no matter how many times they attempt to open the Tortured Gift Helltide chest.

Read more

The new Obsidian Flames expansion of the Pokemon Trading Card Game isn’t entirely about its new dark Charizard. There are a lot of new printings worth checking out, whether you’re interested in aesthetics or gameplay. So what are the best Obsidian Flames cards? Here are our picks.

The coolest Obsidian Flames cards

Would you believe that they made the new Charizard card good? Wild, huh? The Tera Charizard ex speeds up your energy ramp-up, and does 180 damage with an attack that ramps up by 30 for each of your opponent’s taken Prize cards.

There are somehow three more Lechonk cards to add to an ever-growing pile, but one of the new variants takes a fun approach to the art that we really appreciate. Does it justify its existence? Maybe not. We don’t know what’s going on over there with all these Lechonks. But if we’re cutting some, we’d keep this one.

Of course, there’s a wealth of cool art still locked away in the batch of Illustrator Rares. We’re particularly fond of Pidgey and Pidgeotto, taking some usually fairly boring creatures and giving them a bright, simple art treatment.

[caption id="attachment_974693" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Photo by Siliconera[/caption]

At Evo 2023, Bandai Namco revealed Azucena and Raven are the next Tekken 8 characters joining the game's cast. New trailer showed up for each fighter. While Raven first debuted in Tekken 5, Azucena is an entirely new character.

First, here’s the Tekken 8 Azucena trailer. It notes that she’s from Peru. She refers to herself as the “coffee queen.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iILoqJlCa2s&ab_channel=BandaiNamcoEntertainmentAmerica

Next, here's the Tekken 8 Raven character trailer. He showed up in Tekken 5 and 6, as well as the spin-offs Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and Street Fighter x Tekken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPPKjJgQT4A&ab_channel=BandaiNamcoEntertainmentAmerica

He had some idea that both Azucena and Raven would be showing up in Tekken 8. Ahead of their Evo reveal, both of them were accidentally revealed early. Bandai Namco’s European branch showed both of them on the official website on August 4, 2023, though these were quickly pulled.

In case you missed some of the past Tekken 8 character announcements, these folks will also be part of the roster.

At Evo 2023, Arc System Works revealed Jellyfish Pirates Captain Johnny will be the first Guilty Gear Strive Season 3 DLC character. He’ll arrive at various platforms’ ports on August 24, 2023. People can buy him alone for $6.99, or get him in the $24.99 new season pass alongside three other characters. A Daredevil Edition version of the game will also arrive on August 24, 2023 for $99.99. The developer also confirmed it passed 2.5 million players worldwide.

Here’s the first Guilty Gear Strive Johnny DLC trailer.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGgkwLAutgs[/embed]
He follows Asuka R. Kreutz, who debuted in May 2023.

A handful of Johnny screenshots also showed up. Many of them also show the new Deflect Shield and Wild Assault systems. Those will debut in the game alongside Johnny. Deflect Shield uses half of the Burst Gauge to distance a player after they block. Meanwhile Wild Assault uses the same amount of Burst to perform a rush attack.

[gallery columns="5" ids="976182,976183,976184,976185,976186,976187,976188,976189,976190,976191,976192,976193,976194,976195,976196,976197,976198,976199,976200,976201" link="file"]
In addition to four characters, Season Pass 3 gives us three colors for all four characters Additional Color Pack 3, and two Battle Stages.

A new Mortal Kombat 1 character trailer dropped at Evo 2023, confirming the return of Reptile. In addition, Mortal Kombat: Deception fighters Ashrah and Havik will return. Rounding out the new reveals is Sareena, who appeared in games like Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero and will be a Kameo fighter here.

Things all start with Reptile in the Mortal Kombat 1 “Banished” character trailer. After meeting characters like Johnny Cage, Kung Lao, and Baraka, he explains how he can take both reptilian and human forms. After that, the group meets Kitana, and we see Reptile fight her.

After that, the Mortal Kombat 1 video shows Kung Lao, Johnny Cage, Reptile, and Kenshi Takahashi meeting Ashrah. She explains she’s a Netherrealm demon who “purged most evil” from herself. She and Reptile, whose true name is revealed to be Syzoth, then meet Liu Kang.

After that, the “Banished” video focuses on gameplay. We get to see matches between characters like Ashrah and Havik, Reptile and Mileena, and then Reptile and Havik.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M39CVZt6uu0&ab_channel=MortalKombat

The last Mortal Kombat 1 character trailer appeared in July 2023. It focused on the Lin Kuei, with Smoke and Rain showing up alongside Sub-Zero and Scorpion.

At Evo 2023, Capcom showed off a Street Fighter 6 AKI trailer and shared a TMNT crossover with customization items. AKI won't show up in the game until Autumn 2023. However, the heroes in a half shell will show up on August 8, 2023. These announcements follow an earlier reveal at the event that showed Outfit 3 costumes for Dee Jay, Guile, Juri, and Marisa.

First, here’s a look at the Street Fighter 6 TMNT crossover. It begins by showing a player heading to the kiosk for the event in the Battle Hub. After that, it shows the costumes for Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. We also get to see bandanas for avatars, pizza, a pizza-eating emote, stamps, and phone wallpapers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbOnC5DJx2c&ab_channel=StreetFighter

I've been excited about Clash Mini since it was announced. The idea's simple: the Clash universe, with all the units and concepts I already understand, but this time instead of the streamlined tower-defence battles of Clash Royale, it's something closer to a brisk spin on the auto battler genre. This is a sort of game I'd always wanted to get into but struggled with. All of that combined with the fact that Supercell squishes a lot of games before they get to an actual release, I was doubly intrigued. Clash Mini would be the first new Supercell game in an age. What would a game the publisher deemed fit for actual release look like after all this time?

For years I kept an eye out on all the news, but I must have drifted somewhat. In the end, Clash Mini's UK soft launch in early July was so soft that I missed it completely. Anyway, last week I idly checked on the App Store to see if it was out, and discovered that it was. I've been playing it ever since. It's an interesting game. Here's what I think so far.

Clash Mini takes auto battlers and shrinks them down so they fit inside of three minutes or so. It's you and an opponent at either end of a 8x5 board. At the beginning of each round you place a bunch of units down until you've run out of elixir, or mana. You rival does the same. The game starts and all placements are revealed. Then your units fight your rival's units and you can't intervene. You can place more units in between each round. First player to win three rounds gets the glory. That's it.

Read more

As people of a certain age will know, the current, slow-moving death of Twitter is nothing we haven't seen before. Most of us who were knocking around the internet in the early 00s will have at least one online gravestone in the closet somewhere, whether it's a long abandoned LiveJournal or MySpace page, or an old internet forum that sadly doesn't exist anymore (RPS in peace). But for the citizens of Videoverse, an online community that's part and parcel of the soon to be defunct 1-bit video games console the Kinmoku Shark, this sense of an ending is something that many of them aren't equipped to deal with, least of all teenager Emmett, who's just discovered the fan page for his favourite video game, Feudal Fantasy.

As he deals with the prospect of having to bid farewell to friends old and new, including the mysterious but talented fan artist Vivi, Videoverse taps into a potent and nostalgic melancholy. It's a love letter to the early internet at its rose-tinted best, and to the lost, formative spaces that brought so many like-minded individuals together and gave them a sense of purpose. Yes, there are trolls spoiling everyone's fun, and yes, there's a hint of something more nefarious going on underneath Videoverse's source code. But another Hypnospace Outlaw this is not. Rather, this is a proto-internet tale that's all about the friendships we form online, and the bonds that carry us forward when real-life relationships just don't cut it anymore.

Read more

Hideki Kamiya, creator of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry, believes Japanese developers should be "proud" of the term JRPG.

Debate around the term recently resurfaced following comments from Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida in an interview with Skill-Up. Yoshida stated the term "wasn't a compliment to a lot of developers in Japan" and was seen as "discriminatory".

Kamiya, however, is more positive about the term, believing it reflects the "unique sensitivity" of Japanese creators in the games they make.

Read more

A new trailer for Mortal Kombat 1 at Evo 2023 revealed three returning characters joining the roster.

A new Kameo was also revealed, alongside another glimpse at the game's story.

Check out the trailer below: expect plenty of blood, of course.

Read more

An all-new character will join Tekken 8: Azucena, a Peruvian MMA fighter.

As announced at Evo 2023, Azucena is known as the "Coffee Queen" as she's the latest heir in the Ortiz family line who's entered The King of Iron Fist Tournament to promote their coffee plantation.

Azucena's movement is based on Mixed Martial Arts but with some unconventional twists - she's able to switch to the Liberador stance where she dodges attacks by instinct instead of blocking.

Read more