November 2023

The latest Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and original FFVII comparison screenshots focus on the Turk Elena. Square Enix shared images from her introduction. 

Due to her role in the story, Elena isn’t introduced in the original game until after the party leaves Midgar. In both games, she debuts alongside Rude and faces the party. First, here’s the original FFVII screenshot. It’s a little more dynamic in its initial execution. We see her on the higher ground introducing herself, while Rude is on the same level as Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa.

In the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth screenshot, it is a closer and more focused look at the character. She’s in her suit, we get a better look at her face and haircut, and there’s a better idea of the atmosphere.

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has always wanted to make a serious crime drama, but this clashed with the need to balance it with a large action world with stuff to do. Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is seemingly the team’s opportunity to lean harder into cinema. There are some distractions here and there, but the game mostly focuses on Kiryu’s core tale.

Gaiden plays around with its narrative timing, crossing paths with Ichiban’s story since this story takes place at roughly the same time. These connections are oblique nods rather than crucial crossovers. Still: it would be wild for this to be your first game in the franchise, so references likely have a large audience.

Kiryu’s “Joryu” disguise is sub-Superman levels of flimsy, like people wouldn’t recognize the most famous yakuza in the world just because he’s wearing glasses. We’ve already seen from trailers and previews that the upcoming full game does a better job of this, but… seriously, if you’re trying to be undercover, maybe get a haircut sooner rather than later?

Microsoft and AI company Inworld AI have announced a "multi-year co-development partnership", which will see the companies work to develop a range of AI tools for Xbox's studios.

These tools include an "AI design copilot" and an "AI character runtime engine".

The design copilot will be able to take prompts and turn them into "detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests and more", the companies said. The character runtime will enable "entirely new narratives with dynamically-generated stories, quests, and dialogue".

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Burnout is now available on Nintendo Switch, but it's not the Burnout you think it is.

EA's Burnout Paradise Remastered has been on the eShop since June 2020. But now there's another Burnout game that's been added to the store not made by EA, but from publisher GameToTop Corp.

Burnout is, of course, a car racing game where players must "prove [their] mettle and rise through the ranks to become the Burnout champion," its description reads.

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There's an embarrassment of riches in the 136th edition of DF Direct Weekly, spread across almost two hours of 'content'. We discuss the good and the bad points of the Modern Warfare 3 campaign and EA's WRC, we spend time talking about how impressive the Switch port of Super Mario RPG is and share impressions on Apple's newly announced M3 processor line-up. However, for this Eurogamer blog, I'm going to talk about what it's like to run Marvel's Spider-Man 2 on the slowest, quantifiably worst PCIe Gen 4 SSD 'upgrade' money can buy.

Long-time readers/viewers of Digital Foundry may recall that back in the day, when the PS5's M.2 bay was enabled, we stacked up the internal storage solution with the best and worst PCI Gen 4 SSDs of the time. The Western Digital SN750 SE 250GB is a bit of a stinker to be honest. At just 3200MB/s of bandwidth, it falls well short of the 5500MB/s demanded by Sony, not to mention the 7000MB/s recommended by Mark Cerny when the PS5 was first revealed. It also lacks any kind of DRAM cache, which isn't helpful. Even so, while slower at transfers, the drive still performed well. It could even run Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart just fine. Clearly, we needed to up the ante.

This is where backers of the DF Supporter Program stepped in, pointing out that the rubbish SN750 SE could be limited still further, by physically taping up a selection of the pins on the PCIe interface, reducing PCIe x4 to x1 bandwidth. Remarkably, the drive still works in the PlayStation 5. According to the PS5's internal benchmark tool, this gives the console just 1782MB/s of bandwidth to work with, suggesting that the drive 'might not be fast enough' to play PS5 games seamlessly.

While reviewing Cities Colon Skylines 2, I didn't actually go in that hard on public transport (beyond providing it and making it free), despite the urge. Since then though, it's become a game where I don't so much build a single mega-city as a series of experiments.

Naturally, those experiments devolved from a noble effort to remove the stain of cars into a sadistic urge to drive thousands of my own people on a never-ending hell march.

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Hello folks. A small bit of RPS Game Club news today. Since it's starting to get toward end of the year season, Game Club will be taking a short break for the next two months. That means we won't be running it this month (November), or next month (December). We will, however, be returning with a fresh set of monthly game selections in 2024, so you can look forward to more group play-a-longs and liveblog chats early next year.

In the meantime, though, we hope you've enjoyed this first year's outing of the RPS Game Club, and we'd love to get some feedback on it for how we can improve next year. Regardless of whether you're a regular Game Clubber or have only ever watched it from afar, please come and join in the discussion below to help us make it even better.

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In 2021, Twitter user Thomas Violence, an Australian podcaster who was working in a bar at the time, recounted that a 19-year-old had asked for a refund on their drink because they realised they were too drunk already. One of the early replies was an "ummm actually," pointing out that you had to be 21 to buy booze in most states, and Thomas Violence responded "I'm one of the dozens of people worldwide that live in a country that's not America". I am reminded of this tweet a lot, and I am reminded of it whenever I log on to Puzzmo, a new daily browser-based puzzle service from Orta Therox and Zach "Zach Gage" Gage.

Puzzmo is great, and currently in a sort of gradually expanding beta where you can sign up to get a chance to be sent a log-in, or existing users can give two friends a log-in (I have used mine already, sorry). Every day you get a few different puzzles, with a subscription model offering bonus puzzles. I've not subbed because I'm just not built for anagram puzzles and I do not understand chess, which form about half of the daily offering, but I enjoy doing the daily fliparts and crosswords a lot. Except. The crosswords always have clues that are very specific to the USA.

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Mad dashes, daring escapes, last minute reversals: these are some of my favourite moments in multiplayer shooters. It’s exhilarating to scream towards the chopper in Left 4 Dead or a dropship in Titanfall.

The Finals is a multiplayer shooter that seems to take place entirely at this elevated pitch. In the dozens of open beta matches I've played, the result is as thrilling as those other games, but also exhausting. I wish it would chill for just a moment so I could fully enjoy its delights - of which there are many.

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After what’s felt like a never-ending final season, Attack on Titan, the mega-popular shonen anime series, finally came to an end on November 4 on Crunchyroll and Hulu. Unlike the manga it’s based on, whose controversial ending split its fandom in half over whether the decade-spanning series was an utter disappointment

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Every week I play a very specific game. No, it’s not Halo (though I do occasionally play that), but the game where I desperately try to manage the storage space on my PC because of video games. Oh and if I go to my PS5, trying to curate a decent list of installed games also runs into problems. Same on Steam Deck. Same…

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After returning from a large, exclusive party over the weekend, some Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT owners are complaining about severe eye pain, skin burns, and poor vision potentially caused by powerful UV lights used at the event. Some folks have reported the pain was so bad they had to go to the hospital for treatment.

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Microsoft is betting everything on AI, Wired reported earlier this year. And now we know those bets includes gaming. On November 6, the company announced a new business deal to bring AI-generated non-player characters and more to the platform. The tools will be optional for developers. I’m sure this will all go…

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I put off writing this Alan Wake 2 review because I was scared. Scared that I’d look into myself and find I wasn’t up to the task, that I lacked the right words, with nothing to offer but emptiness and failure. It’s not at all uncommon, though, for writers to be wracked with doubt. Many years ago, I saw the novelist…

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Nintendo will release a manual in Japan for the upcoming game Super Mario RPG on the Nintendo Switch. It is scheduled to be released on November 17, 2023 and will cost 6,578 yen (~$43) for the physical version and 6,500 yen (~$43) to download. [Thanks, Game Watch!]

The Super Mario RPG manual will be available to purchase at video game retailers and department stores across Japan. It has not been confirmed whether an English version will be released overseas just yet. It is modeled after the original 1996 instructions for Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Mario and company are featured front and center on the cover of the book.

View the Super Mario RPG instructions in the gallery below:

HoYoVerse released a new browser-based game set in the Zenless Zone Zero universe that allows players to earn entry attempts at taking part in the upcoming closed beta. The web event will be available until November 16, 2023, while the dates for the beta itself have yet to be revealed.

The game is called A Sandwich Scented Dream and follows a rabbit-like robot called a Bangboo as it launches its own sandwich shop. Players must assemble sandwiches according to customer orders to earn Dennies and Carrots, the latter of which can be exchanged for attempts at prizes. These include physical items like mouse pads and virtial items like in-game currency and an entry into the Zenless Zone Zero closed beta test. Carrots are earned in game by completing achievements and daily tasks.

Zenless Zone Zero is an upcoming game from HoYoVerse, makers of Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail. Registrations were recently opened for the game's second closed beta test, and the game also appeared at the Brasil Game Show. It is more of an action game than the other two, which feature more RPG elements.

A new collectable item featuring the characters from the Danganronpa series is now available to pre-order on AmiAmi, which ships worldwide, until November 19, 2023. The new Danganronpa student ID cards will cost 550 yen (~$3.67) each and will be released in Japan in February 2024.

All characters from Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair, and Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony appear on these student ID replicas. That means there are 48 student ID cards to collect in total. The cards mimic the descriptions that are written on the e-Handbook that is given to the students when they enroll in Monokuma’s institution. They are all in Japanese. For those that would like to carry one with them or use it for cosplay, the cards are made of PVC materials in an attempt to make them more durable.

By pre-ordering a single Danganronpa student ID card, you will receive one at random when they are released. If someone would like to secure all of the cards, a full set for each of the three games is also available for purchase from AmiAmi. One set costs 8,800 yen (~$58.85).

HoYoVerse shared teaser art and profiles for the Genshin Impact characters Navia and Chevreuse, who will debut in 4.3. Both will be playable for the first time after the December update.

First, Navia’s appeared in the Fontaine story before. She’s a Geo character who is head of the Spina di Rosula. Her Constellation is called Rosa Multiflora. We also already know that she is going to be an Ousia character when she debuts in the game.

Meanwhile, Chevreuse is a new Pyro character. She’s the Special Security and Surveillance Patrol Captain in Fontaine, and her Constellation is Sclopetum Ensiferum. She will also be an Ousia, for those who are planning teams for exploring the region.

Here are the official social media reveals for Navia and Chevreuse before both characters become playable in Genshin Impact 4.3. Both show the characters' full art and offer a bit of a hint about their personalities and roles in the game.

Blizzard Entertainment has revealed that the first expansion for Diablo IV is called Vessel of Hatred, and it hits the game late next year. The Diablo team revealed this news over the weekend during BlizzCon 2023, which is also where we learned about three new World of Warcraft expansions and three new Overwatch 2 heroes coming to the game. 

During BlizzCon 2023, Blizzard kept Vessel of Hatred details light, stating it will share more details next summer. As for what to expect, it features a campaign that continues the dark tale that began in Diablo IV. "Vessel of Hatred brings players back to learn the fate of the prime evil Mephisto and his demonic plans for Sanctuary," a press release reads. "Travel to the lush jungles known by the locals as Nahantu." 

Check out the Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred expansion announcement trailer for yourself below: 

Blizzard says Vessel of Hatred will allow players to traverse an exotic new region, vanquish new evils, and perhaps most excitingly, explore fresh ways to kill demons and loot chests with a completely new Class "never seen before in the Diablo universe." 

Kachow! Cars' Lightning McQueen is joining Rocket League tomorrow, November 7, with special decals, Goal Explosions, and more. Lightning McQueen is also an extra special release. Beyond being a big collaboration between the vehicular soccer game and Disney and Pixar, it's the first car in Rocket League to feature dynamic expressions. 

Like in the Cars Pixar franchise, Lightning McQueen will look around the pitch while you cruise the Arena, narrow his eyes as you focus his speed, and react with each score. "With the Lightning McQueen Mega Bundle, you'll be able to play as three different versions of the Route 66 icon," a blog post reads. "First up is the Rust-eze Decal. With number 95 on the side and a flashy lightning bolt, you'll be taking the winner's podium with plenty of style to spare." 

There's also the Cruisin' Decal and the Dinoco Decal, and you can see both in action in the gallery below: 

Blizzard Entertainment has revealed the next three heroes of Overwatch 2, including Mauga, a new duel-wielding tank hero that hits the game next month. Plus, the Overwatch 2 team teased a new DPS hero and Support hero hitting the roster sometime down the line. 

Mauga was actually playable for free as a part of a limited-time trial run for the tank hero this past weekend, but he's already out of the game; his real debut happens alongside Overwatch 2's Season 8 launch on December 5. "Equipped with two chain guns (Gunny and Cha-Cha), Mauga is ready to bash through the front lines of his opponents and tear through anyone that stands in his way with tons of fire-power," Blizzard says about the hero. 

Watch the official Mauga gameplay trailer below: 

Here are some additional Mauga screens from Overwatch 2: 

Fortnite returned to its map circa 2018 (or Chapter 1 Season 5 if you prefer to measure time that way) last Friday, reviving locations like Tilted Towers, Loot Lake and Greasy Grove and unlocking the battle royale game’s vaulted weapons, vehicles and items in a four-week nostalgic event dubbed Season OG. As it turns out, with the old map and items came a whole lot of players, setting a new all-time concurrent player record for the multiplayer shooter that surpasses even its previous heights in the pop-culture zeitgeist.

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Cryptic Studios, the makers of MMOs including Star Trek Online and Dungeons & Dragons MMORPG Neverwinter, have confirmed a number of layoffs due to the ongoing “comprehensive restructuring” of megacorp owner Embracer Group. The “personnel changes” at Cryptic make them the latest Embracer-owned developer to suffer job losses in what continues to be an unrelenting year for thousands of those working in video games.

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Much like Weyland-Yutani linking arms with Skynet, Microsoft have teamed up with Inworld to bring the latter's "generative AI" tools to Xbox studios. This "multi-year co-development partnership" will "build a powerful toolkit that harnesses artificial intelligence to enrich the narrative and character creation elements of game development", according to Inworld CEO Ilya Gelfenbeyn. You might recognise Inworld as the tech used by that GTA 5 mod about AI cultists in which characters speak AI-generated dialogue, which Rockstar blocked from distribution over the summer. Suffice to say that Microsoft have grander plans for it.

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When I reviewed Hunt: Showdown for a different parish back in 2019, it was a swampy, stealthy, slow-paced extraction FPS that consisted of weaving through mouldy undead and pockets of inconveniently noisy wildlife, ears pricked for the rustle of a rival player in the bushes. It was a game in which every footfall felt like a gamble and every second lasted an eternity, even before you entered the lair of a giant spider. Fast forward to 2023, and streamers are playing Hunt: Showdown like it's Titanfall 2, scurrying along walls with scant regard for the NPC cannon fodder below, duelling each other on rooftops with pistol shotguns, and tearing through those poor, befuddled boss monsters like sandcastles.

Thus the fate of any competitive shooter lucky enough to acquire a seasoned pro following, I guess. But still, returning to Crytek's PvPvE shooter has been a shock, and speaking to the development team, it sounds like the devs themselves have been struggling to keep up with the more ambitious players, too. Showdown was never expected to endure quite this long and evolve in quite this way, according to general manager David Fifield, and managing the community's ambitions for the game is as much of a challenge as compensating for the limitations of its ageing engine.

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Two weeks ago, hundreds of Roblox players jumped into a custom game that let them take part in a pro-Palestine march. The game, which appeared to have been organized by Malaysian Roblox players, was made in response to the escalating violence in the Middle East. On October 7, the Islamic political and military…

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Fans will go searching underneath their couch cushions to find more information about Silent Hill 2, the highly anticipated but, as of now, secretive remake of the beloved survival horror game by Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team. The game does not yet have a release date (though fans have tried divining one) or…

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There will be a pause in activities for Nijisanji Vtuber Millie Parfait, as she announced an “indefinite hiatus.” However, she noted that there will be new content running while she is away.

Millie announced the break on November 4, 2023. She noted this is due to a “real life” emergency. She said she will still appear on social media, as well as upload planned ASMR and song cover videos. While she didn’t share an expected return date, she did note that she will be back for the Zuttomo group outfit reveals. Those start on November 17, 2023 with Petra Gurin, though hers is November 25, 2023 at 6am PT/9am ET/2pm GMT/11pm JST.

Here’s the Vtuber’s official announcement, which covered both the announcement and her tentative return to streaming.

Toei announced that Hololive's VTuber Shirakami Fubuki will be the voice actress for Geats Chemy in the movie Kamen Rider The Winter Movie: Gotchard & Geats. The fox-themed VTuber will play the creature modeled after a nine-tailed fox.

Geats Chemy will appear as a new original character in the crossover movie between Kamen Rider Gotchard and Kamen Rider Geats. She is a species of artificial lifeforms sealed inside Ride Chemy Cards in Kamen Rider Gotchard, the 34th Kamen Rider entry which started airing in September 2023. Toei will model Geats Chemy after the eponymous hero of Kamen Rider Geats, the 33rd entry that concluded in August 2023.

The announcement is available to view on the official X account for Toei Hero Movies right below:

Amazon started a buy 2, get 1 free video games sale. The promotion involves titles for all current major consoles, with newer titles like Diablo IV, Armored Core VI, Disgaea 7, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage appearing. [Thanks, Wario64!]

People can access the deals via the sale page. As long as you’ve added games that are part of the deal, the cheapest of the free will be free when you go to check out. The full promotion also includes books, board games, and puzzles. As Wario64 noted, more titles were added since it started.

Here’s a list of some of the more notable games that are part of this sale. Note that while there are some games that are multiplatform, not all version might not be part of the offer.

• Armored Core VI (PS4, PS5)

Cities: Skylines 2 devs Colossal Order have said that the game known as the Builder of Cities and Destroyer of Framerates (at least, known as of me typing this) won’t get any paid expansions while they’re still getting its performance up to scratch.

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Former quality assurance testers who worked on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf are preparing to picket outside Bioware’s Edmonton offices after being laid off earlier this year. Electronic Arts tried to block the protest but the developers prevailed in a ruling by the Alberta Labour Relations Board in Canada.

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Oh wow! Look, a new Burnout game is out now! Awesome, I love those super-fast racing games filled with vehicular carnage and big jumps. What a surprise! Oh weird, this new entry is only on the Switch eShop. And wait…oh no…

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Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are all about finding freedom in their open world. This is as true mechanically as it is thematically, as the pair of Switch RPGs let you freely explore the Paldea region in search of your own “treasure.” They posit that the Pokémon world is full of possibilities and that it can mean…

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PlayStation 5 is ditching its integration with Twitter, the social media platform recently rebranded as “X” after Elon Musk bought it for $44 billion and then promptly crashed it into a brick wall like a dad coming home from a mid-life crisis bender in his brand-new Ferrari. Nintendo Switch will soon be the only…

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Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun will be delisted after November 2023. Bandai Namco announced that it will discontinue digital and physical sales of the series' first Nintendo Switch entry on November 30, 2023 at 11:59 PM in each region's time zone.

People who access the game's Japanese official site will now be greeted with a splash page containing the delisting announcement. Bandai Namco's Southeast Asian branch also posted the announcement in English on its official X (ex-Twitter) account:

Re-Ment revealed Kirby Wonder Room, a collection of stackable figure dioramas featuring characters from Nintendo and HAL Laboratory's Kirby franchise. It will release the sets in February 2024.

The collection will consist of six room types: Playroom, Kitchen, Party Room, Bathroom, Living Room, and Bedroom. While most of the rooms will let the owner place the figures as-is, the Living Room will require them to apply the star-shaped carpet sticker from the sheet included in the package.

Re-Ment will generally sell the sets randomly in singular boxes. However, it will also provide all-in-one packages that guarantee the inclusion of all six unique sets.

The reveal tweet for the figure room dioramas is available on Re-Ment's official X account right below:

A teaser video for the upcoming Classic Characters Costume and Arranged BGM DLC for Tales of Arise showcased some of the new costumes, as well as new arrangements by composer Motoi Sakuraba. The costumes were originally revealed back in September 2023, but this new video gives us a look at them in motion and our first taste of the Sakuraba arrangements.

The video begins by showing Tales of Arise battle scenes set to four of the new arrangements, interspersed with shots of Sakuraba in the studio. The tracks showcased are: "Follow Your Heart," "One Strike, One Beat," "Flame of Hope," and "Flame of the New Dawn." Then, we get a look at the new Tales of Arise costumes for characters during both cutscenes and special attack animations.

You can watch the full video below:

Alan Wake 2 is not only the best game I've played all year, but I believe it's also one of the best narrative thrillers the gaming industry ever released. The mind-bending story parallels masterpieces such as David Lynch's Twin Peaks and Nic Pizzolatto's True Detective.

Alan Wake 2 wastes no time pulling punches, as the game's story opens with a disturbing scene of a bloated, naked man crawling out of a dark lake in the middle of the night. Before any questions can be answered, the opening segment abruptly ends with a violent murder. It's been thirteen years since the events of the original Alan Wake in 2010, and the city of Bright Falls changed. Instead of nightmares and shadow monsters, we now have a ritualistic cult thirsty for blood. The people who went missing in the first game are now re-appearing decades later and being brutally sacrificed for mysterious reasons.

Good Smile Company opened pre-orders for two new Attack on Titan ugly knit sweaters, which are based on the Colossal Titan and Levi Ackerman. They will launch in March 2024 in Japan, after the holiday season.

Each sweater costs 13,750 yen (or approximately $92). This is their second appearance. The sweaters originally appeared in July 2022 only in Japan, and the new batch is a re-release of the items.

The sweaters are now available for pre-order from the Good Smile Company online store until December 7, 2023. While the sweaters don’t seem to be available in the US store, Good Smile Company offers international shipping, as well as international partner shops that sell the items.

You can take a better look at the Attack on Titan ugly knit sweaters here: