January 2024

Atlus shared the Persona 3 Reload opening movie, which also included a chance to hear a new song from the soundtrack. The music that plays over it is the track “Full Moon Full Life.”

Here’s the full Persona 3 Reload opening movie with soundtrack song preview. It begins with the protagonist sitting down and preparing to listen to music on his MP3 player. After scrolling past older tracks from the game like “Burn my Dread” and “Want to be Close,” he settles on the new opening them. It’s then that we see the original animation that highlights him and other party members like Yukari Takeba, Junpei Iori, Mitsuru Kirijo, Akihiko Sanada, Shinjiro Aragaki, and Ken Amada. We also see references to the Midnight Hour and Velvet Room.

In case you forgot, controversial YouTuber Logan Paul promised to pay back millions of dollars to folks who fell victim to his NFT “game,” CryptoZoo. The game—a sort of Pokémon-like where you collect, sell, and trade exotic animals on the blockchain—never really existed, though, which left the embattled content…

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Happy new year! This week the Kotaku weekend guide returns with a brisk list of games for your consideration. Maybe some of these you hadn’t considered playing before, or perhaps others have been sitting on your backlog. In that case, consider this your reminder to get working on that stubborn list of yours.

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AI-generated art is just pulling from existing work people have created and throwing elements together to create what the algorithm thinks you want. But it’s not often you hear specifics of where an AI program is scraping from. Well, the CEO behind AI art-generating program Midjourney allegedly has been training the…

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After The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time reinvented the series in 3D and became its new gold standard, Nintendo followed up with a surreal sequel in Majora's Mask. Set two months after the events of Ocarina, Link finds himself transported to an alternate version of Hyrule called Termina and must prevent a very angry moon from crashing into the Earth over the course of three constantly repeating days. Majora's Mask's unique structure and bizarre tone have earned it legions of passionate defenders and detractors, and one long-time Zelda fan is going to experience it for the first time to see where he lands on that spectrum.

Join Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard today and each Friday on Twitch at 2 p.m. CT as they gradually work their way through the entire game until Termina is saved. Archived episodes will be uploaded each Saturday on our second YouTube channel Game Informer Shows, which you can watch both above and by clicking the links below. 

Epic's Unreal Engine 5 is swiftly becoming the engine of choice for current generation gaming. It's not hard to see why: it combines ease of use and flexibility with some of the most advanced rendering tech in the industry, especially with its Lumen and Nanite systems. At the same time, that sophistication poses a challenge for lower-power platforms, which often aren't the target for Unreal Engine 5 projects - and that extends to Valve's Steam Deck.

The Linux-powered portable powerhouse is capable of some impressive feats, but more advanced titles often don't scale well to the system. So is Unreal Engine 5 a bridge too far for the diminutive handheld or does Epic's boundary-pushing tech scale down better than you might expect?

As of early 2024, we have a nice variety of early UE5 software to take a look at - mostly lower-budget efforts, but with some very attractive entries as well. Some of these games were even included in our best graphics of the year discussion back a few weeks ago, with some seriously impressive visuals on display. But are they 'too big' for Steam Deck? In our tests, we wanted to keep the games' visual character intact, while still aiming for 30fps or better performance levels.

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Ahead of the February 2024 debut of Granblue Fantasy Relink, Cygames made some of the Granblue Fantasy: The Animation anime episodes free to watch on YouTube. People can find them on the English and Japanese channels. 

There were two seasons of this show. The first one ran in 2017, and second followed in 2019. While there were 12 main episodes and two EX ones in the first season, only the first seven are available on YouTube for free during this promotion. The ones on the English YouTube channel feature the Japanese dub. By turning on the closed captions option, people can pick English, French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish subtitles. The Japanese channel only offers the Japanese dub and subtitle options.

Here’s the full list of all seven Granblue Fantasy season 1 anime episodes temporarily available on YouTube, with direct links to each one:

1. “Girl in Blue”
2. “Departure”

The Kaiju No 8: B-Side spin-off manga series is now running in Shonen Jump. Both MangaPlus and Viz Media have the first chapter available online in English for people to read for free.

The original Kaiju No 8 series follows Kafka Hibino, a man who gains the ability to turn into the kaiju he formerly would clean up after for the government. As a result, he gains the ability to transform into one and ends up the official Defense Force alongside a coworker named Reno Ichikawa that he met cleaning up after monsters. In that storyline, Soshiro Hoshina is a supporting cast member who is also a part of the government division fighting kaiju. This new B-Side manga focuses on his swordsmanship and work with the Third Division. 

This story begins with Hoshina training with swords. After that, we see him take part in an interview about the new rookies in his division, during which he discusses Hibino. Later in the chapter, we also get to seeIchikawa, Hibino, and Hakua Igarashi in a training session with Hoshina. But once that segment is done, the first chapter seems to suggest that the rest of the series will focus on him when he first joined Third Division and started working under Mina Ashiro.

Elsa Japan in collaboration with Square Enix opened pre-orders for a series of Final Fantasy XIV PC units. The computer units include designs and motifs inspired by the popular MMORPG.

There are three different options available for purchase with high end, standard, and entry level specs. The high end computer specifications include an Intel Core i9-13900F, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080, and 64GB of DDR5 RAM. Meanwhile, the standard computer has an Intel Core i7-13700F, RTX 4070, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM. The entry level rig includes a Intel Core i5-13400F, RTX 4060, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM again.

The high end version costs 554,800 yen (or approximately $3,845,) while the standard version costs 354,800 yen (~$2,460,) and the entry level version costs 264,800 yen (~$1,835.) For orders placed during January 2024, the computers will release around early March 2024. For orders made after February 1, 2024 more information, about the release window will arrive at a later date

The upcoming 2D Prince of Persia reboot from Ubisoft not only looks good, but it also has excellent performance. According to Ubisoft, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown will run at 60fps on all platforms, including the Switch, and will also support 4K/120fps on some consoles, too. After a string of ugly, bad, and…

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I watched Studio Ghibli's latest film The Boy And The Heron the other day, having gone in basically blind. I knew it would be the case, but I left the cinema and said to my mate, "I don't really know what just happened but what happened was great". It was a lot of things! A visual feast. Surprisingly goofy. Unsettling. But above all, a challenge. We walked back to our cars and tried - my mate was thrilled to have identified who Dave Bautista likely voiced in the dub (we watched sub) - to unpack what we saw.

Since then, we've listened to podcasts, read interviews, and engaged in some back and forth. It's all brought me back to my uni days, where Dark Souls made me get my shovel out for the first time and mine the internet for meaning. Much like Souls, Ghibli's latest only expands as you reflect on it.

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Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread creators Bossa Studios have laid off around a third of their staff, with 19 people departing the London, UK-based independent in December due to what co-founder Henrique Olifiers has called "a perfect storm of events" - heavy competition from blockbuster games at the backend of last year, increased operating costs, and delayed funding decisions across the industry.

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Netflix has released the first teaser trailer for season 2 of its hit animated series, Arcane. The next chapter of the League of Legends adaptation is scheduled to premiere this November. 

Since it’s a teaser, the trailer doesn’t reveal much about what’s in store other than an ominous look at a sinister laboratory cooking up experiments that will likely pose a threat to Jinx and Co. We're curious to see how the series follows up Season 1's dramatic conclusion. Season 2's cast includes returning stars Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, Kevin Alejandro, and Katie Leung. Check out the teaser below:

Arcane has been critically acclaimed by both League of Legends fans and general viewers. Here’s hoping Netflix can keep that momentum rolling into Season 2 this fall.

8-Colors Star Guardians + is one of those games that makes you think you know what it is and how to approach it at a glance. However, this relatively short game from Andrea Demetrio and Flynns Arcade instead is more about strategy and picking the right moves even before you head into its turn-based battles.

Like any super sentai sort of series, 8-Colors Star Guardians + begins with the world in danger. Taking healthy doses of inspiration from both Sailor Moon and Power Rangers, players pick and choose characters to form a three-person squad to fight bosses while the remainder “hold down the fort.” All eight monsters are attacking at once, providing an excuse for why you can choose the order in which you fight foes, and your goal is to eventually wipe them all out.

Larian Studios announced that bans related to Baldur’s Gate 3 capture clips on the Xbox Series X and S will be lifted. The team made an announcement through the official social media channels confirming the developer is in discussions with Microsoft to address the issue.

The bans are related to capture clips of Baldur’s Gate 3 made directly through the Xbox game sharing feature. Reports began to come in of users recording explicit scenes from the game to share with friends. However, because all clips recorded through the share functions are automatically uploaded to the Xbox servers, they clashed with Microsoft’s policies.

Capcom and hardware company MSI announced a new collaboration collection of limited edition Monster Hunter themed laptops, controllers, and gaming PCs. While it is currently unknown when the products will become available, MSI promised a preview at the upcoming CES trade event starting on January 9, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The MSI collaboration range is being produced as part of the 20th anniversary celebration of the Monster Hunter franchise. The anniversary itself is not until March 2024, but Capcom starting building up to it with promotional art and monster popularity polls.

The items include a Crosshair 16 HX gaming notebook, an nVidia GeForce RTX 4060 graphics card, a MPG Z790 motherboard, a MAG 274QRF QD E2 monitor, a MAG E360 liquid cooling system, an MPG Gungnir 300 PC case, and a Force GC30 controller. Each item in the MSI and Monster Hunter range will be limited and decorated with the image of the iconic Rathalos.

You can see the official announcement tweet below:

You might have watched the new Grand Theft Auto VI trailer a few times since it was released in December 2023. Maybe you even paused it once or twice to spot a detail. But I bet most of you haven’t sat down and spent a few hours researching and writing a 1500-word report on the sunscreen seen in a one-second bit of…

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Trigger warning: This post talks about child predation and sexual abuse.

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If you’ve been eyeing (or playing) Alan Wake II lately but haven’t yet played any of the other titles in Remedy Games’ growing “Remedyverse” of connected stories, then you might want to take a look at the Epic Games Store right now. During its “Developer Spotlight” sale, Alan Wake Remastered, Alan Wake American…

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It may be 2024, but we haven’t forgotten about 2023's Anime NYC, the three-day anime convention that takes place in the same hallowed halls as New York Comic Con. Anime NYC 2023 took place in mid-November, and drew 60,000 people to the Javits Center on the west side of Manhattan. As you might expect, many of the…

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Last week, Baldur’s Gate 3 players on Xbox found their accounts banned when their clips of the RPG’s spicy scenes were automatically uploaded publicly, as per the Xbox Series X/S’ default settings. It seems developer Larian Studios has had a chat with Microsoft to get these bans lifted, but is advising that players be…

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is crammed full of memorable, moving stories. At least one of those stories extends far beyond the Forgotten Realms into the real world too, as a fan has revealed the heartfelt tribute that developers Larian included to their father - a long-time CRPG player - diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

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Having marked its 10 year anniversary last year, survival shooter Rust is seeing in its second decade by adding the long-awaited ability to boost your inventory with a backpack. The update will continue what developers Facepunch Studios say will be even more updates and improvements throughout 2024, even as other long-requested additions slide back to 2025 or later.

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Over the Christmas holidays, I had very good intentions to finally tackle some of the big games from 2023. I still haven't played Resident Evil 4, System Shock, very much of Baldur's Gate 3 or Assassin's Creed Mirage, and I really wanted to play a bit of Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora. You know, just for a little look after the quite interesting preview I did back in October. Admittedly, I wasn't anywhere near my PC for at least one of the two weeks I had off, as I was away doing the inevitable family roulette of Christmas visiting. I also knew that, even if I had spent the whole time at home, there would be no way I'd finish or get through all of them. I knew I was sort of setting myself up to fail, but as I said. Good intentions. I did have my Steam Deck with me, after all, and even went to the trouble of loading it up with around 50 games, including some of those biggies that I have on Steam.

What did I actually end up playing though? Teeny games. Six of 'em, which were all four to six hours long. And some of them I didn't even enjoy very much! Why? Why do I do this? In some respects I'm pleased I managed to clear a bit more of my backlog, but man alive, I always fall into exactly the same trap. I play the shorties, and always leave the biggies, like I'm allergic to anything over four hours - and I don't like it.

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Seemingly not content with having raised over $650 million for a game in development for over a decade without a full release date in sight, Star Citizen is now offering a new way for those with too much money to spend it: a bundle of digital ships costing £46,000.

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This past Christmas marked the anniversary of me playing Overwatch 2. 7 years of my partner and I swearing at seemingly impenetrable enemy teams, then whooping in victory when we finally pull together a plan that cracks them apart - or just as our chill W+M1 game while we chat about our days.

For the uninitiated, Overwatch is a bright, colorful, and very funny team v team FPS that ditches the dour gunmen for a cast that doesn’t all require raw aim skill. Spider-themed snipers and six-gun slinging cowboys share space with winged angelic healers and a talking gorilla with a Tesla cannon - characters who reward positioning and timely ability usage just as much as one’s ability to click on heads. When the game went free to play and slapped a 2 on the end in 2022, it got a more muted reception, but the dev team have displayed a great willingness to experiment. In fact, there's never been a better time to give Overwatch 2 a go.

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Get ready to infuriate yourself in a whole new way as you swap mistakenly opening the Windows Start Menu with an accidental keystroke for summoning an AI determined to paint you a picture. Microsoft have announced their plans to introduce a dedicated AI button to keyboards for Windows PCs, the first major change to their keyboards since the Windows key was added nearly 30 years ago.

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Did we put the Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Silent Hill 2 remakes on that list of our most anticipated games of 2024? The article is so voluminous I’m not sure I have the energy to check. I get halfway down the page and feel like I need to pitch camp below one of the paragraph breaks, like a mountaineer sleeping beneath a crag in one of those dangling tents. Assuming we didn’t, both have been slated for 2024 release by the PlayStation blog.

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The first week of January is always one of my favourite times of the year. It's a time for making plans, setting goals, thinking about all the cool new games I'll be playing over the next 12 months (while also looking nervously at the pile of games I missed over the last 12 months and placing them very, very gingerly on the teetering and totteringly tall pile of my backlog). And, of course, making some new year's resolutions. Traditionally, I don't often set myself too many resolutions - I always give myself a reading goal (35 books is what I'm aiming for this year), for example, but the rest I usually play pretty fast and loose with - more 'nice to haves' rather than 'musts', I'd say.

This year, though, I do have a few gaming-related resolutions on my list, and in discussing them with the rest of the RPS Treehouse, it turns out we all have some games-themed goals this year. So I thought it would be fun to share them with you all below. And if you've also made some gaming resolutions for 2024, tell us about them in the comments. We can hold ourselves accountable together, like that big curtain of eldritch eyeballs up there in the header from good game Norco.

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Much as I enjoyed Spellcaster University, I was surprised it was so successful. Its dependency on randomly assigning you buildings differentiated it from the kind of full management game I'd expected, and which I assumed most people would want.

Happily, I was wrong: it did fine. Happilyer still, Mind Over Magic is here (though in early access) to provide a somewhat more traditional design, and it's already compelling enough to turn my quick test into a seven hour delve.

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This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian and Wesley catch up on all the latest news and talk about what they played over break. Then, in the main segment, it's time for the latest All Things Nintendo Draft! This time, we're picking a set of the five games we're most excited for in 2024. Finally, the episode wraps up with the return of the eShop Gem of the Week segment.

If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram/Threads @BrianPShea or Twitter @BrianPShea. You can follow Wesley on Twitter: @LeBlancWes.

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!

When Final Fantasy VII launched on PlayStation in 1997, it revolutionized the RPG genre and gaming as a whole. The transition from pixel art to fully animated computer graphics was a massive enough leap ahead, but the beauty of this classic title was much more than skin deep. Final Fantasy VII features an incredible cast of characters, an outstanding battle system, and a story that evokes joy, awe, anger, and grief. Final Fantasy VII is well-established as one of the most iconic and beloved video games of all time, but for Square Enix, the legacy is somewhat more important. 

For the team behind the Final Fantasy franchise, Final Fantasy VII was the entry that made the developers realize they needed to adapt to the times. "Even within the mainline Final Fantasy titles as a series, we can consider Final Fantasy VII to be this sort of midpoint title that's in the middle of it all," Tetsuya Nomura, who was a character designer and visual director on Final Fantasy VII, says. "Up to Final Fantasy VI, it was created in a certain way, and then from VIII, there was a brand new way of approaching development, whereas VII sort of sits between those two titles as a sort of mixed-element title."

Yen Press announced its first batch of new manga, light novel, and art book announcements, and among them is Sword Art Online: Kiss & Fly. This is a manga of side-stories set during the series.

The name might sound familiar. That’s because this is based on Sword Art Online 22. That light novel consisted of four short stories following different characters. The two primary ones involved one with Kirito and Asuna after they just get married and Asuna after she heads into ALfheim Online.

For people who don’t want to wait, Yen Press did already release the light novel that included these stories outside of Japan. That appeared in English back in June 2021. 

As for all of the January 2024 Yen Press manga, art book, and light novel announcements, here’s what people can expect to see from the company this year.

• Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra by Fehu Kazuno and Yasaiko Midorihana(Manga)

The newest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Warzone bundle includes an SMG that features a silly animation that references the annoying “Update Requires Restart” message players commonly encounter when trying to boot up either game. Just be prepared to spend $20 to get this new gun.

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Have y’all seen Saltburn yet? If you haven’t, Emerald Fennell’s black comedy which stars Barry Keoghan and Jacob Elordi as two Oxford University students spending a summer at the titular mansion, is pretty okay to great depending on whichever scene you’re talking about. Though it’s not as “weird” and unsettling as you…

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The Pokemon Foundation in Japan has announced that it donated 50 million JPY to help those affected by the 2024 Sea of Japan earthquake that struck Noto Peninsula on January 1, 2024. That would equate to around $345,770.

You can read The Pokemon Foundation’s full statement on the official Twitter (X) account for Pokemon. It expresses sympathy for the victims and prays that they’re able to finish with the rebuilding and recuperating efforts as soon as possible. In order to help them with that, The Pokemon Company has donated 50 million JPY to the Japanese Red Cross Society, as well as local volunteer groups. The Pokemon With You Foundation will also help provide disaster relief so “children in the affected areas can regain their smiles.”

Cover Corporation, the company that owns VTuber agency Hololive, has announced that it donated 5 million JPY to Japan’s Red Cross Society in order to help victims affected by the 2024 earthquake that occurred near Noto Peninsula. This would equate to around $34,580.

In a statement on Cover’s website, the company states that it hopes this donation will aid “in the restoration and reconstruction of the affected areas.” It also hopes that the money will help with disaster relief. Finally, it expresses sympathy for the victims and prays that the area will recover soon. Japanese fans have replied to Cover's Tweet announcing this, thanking the company for its support.

All aboard 2024, my dudes! Let me tell you, I have started off the new year anxious as heck, and despite insisting I wouldn't watch the Hootenanny (never the Hootenanny) I once again watched the Hootenanny. Jools loves his boogie woogie. I can't say for sure the two things - the angs and the boogie woogie - are related, but I wouldn't rule it out. You know what definitely soothes anxiety? Staring at a screen for hours and hours and not going outside or regulating your breathing! Here's what we're playing this weekend.

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I've been working through all that comes with my 80-year-old mum being in palliative, end-of-life, care. It's an emotionally unpredictable time, that much I expected. But also, it's been a time of reconnection and reflection with her. Over the last few weeks, we revisited happy memories and renewed beliefs that offer her comfort.

More than one of these memories has been her encouragement of my discovery of video games as a child. We talked about visiting the Littlehampton Pier where we first laid eyes (and hands) on the large four-player Gauntlet arcade machine. She would stand by my side, providing 10 pence pieces for me to line up across the screen to mark my ambition (and status) to other kids waiting to play.

As we reminisced about the times she attempted to join in, tears formed at the thought of what her enthusiasm for my burgeoning hobby had brought to my life - not only a career in games but all those video game stories, trials and epiphanies I couldn't imagine life without. But then, we were laughing together as she performed her (now infamous) impression of Gauntlet's tumbling-into-the-exit sound.

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Surgeon Simulator developer Bossa Studios has laid off a third of its staff.

As reported by our sister site, GamesIndustry.biz, it's thought 19 people were affected by the redundancies, "mostly in QA and production roles, as well as non-UK employees".

According to Bossa, the studio continues to employ 40 staff.

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