A new Valkyria Chronicles exhibit will appear in Japan ahead of the series' 15th anniversary. A pre-opening of the Raita Honjou & Valkyria Chronicles Exhibit will take place at Phrase Gallery Akihabara from July 31 to September 4, 2022.

This exhibit will primarily feature illustrations from the Valkyria Chronicles series. There will be a focus on Valkyria Chronicles Duel, the mobile and PC browser card game that ran from 2012 to 2015. A shop selling merchandise related to the series will appear for the duration of the event. The venue will also double as Raita Honjou's personal art exhibit. Raita Honjou provided character designs for the Valkyria games, as well as for other titles like Fate/Grand Order. As such, the venue will also feature art and products other than Valkyria Chronicles and Sega-owned IPs.

The exhibit will be open five days a week. People in Japan will be able to visit the venue on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 14:00 to 18:00 JST, and Fridays to Sundays from 12:00 to 20:00 JST. The venue will not be available on Mondays and Thursdays.

The Valkyria Chronicles series' 15th anniversary will fall in April 2023. Sega released the first game in Japan on April 24, 2008. The series' latest entry, Valkyria Chronicles 4, came out in 2018 for the PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

This morning, Sony announced that it would be rolling out a beta to test a collection of fan-requested new features for the PlayStation 5. These features include curatable gamelists, the ability to play games in 1440p output, and small quality-of-life features for those who enjoy playing games with their friends.

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The games industry moves pretty fast, and there's a tendency for all involved to look constantly to what's next without so much worrying about what came before. That said, even an industry so entrenched in the now can learn from its past.

So to refresh our collective memory and perhaps offer some perspective on our field's history, GamesIndustry.biz runs this monthly feature highlighting happenings in gaming from exactly a decade ago.

A decade ago, the console industry was desperate for a shake-up.

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Today Square Enix released an announcement about the previously-revealed expansion of the Final Fantasy XIV North American Data Center.

The message, signed directly by producer and director Naoki Yoshida, explains that the server vendor has informed Square Enix of a delay in the delivery of the necessary equipment due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage.

As a result, despite efforts by Square Enix to find an alternate solution, the first phase of the expansion won’t happen in August as previously announced. It will be delayed to November 2022.

The first phase will include the opening of a new logical data center with four new worlds.

A second phase, which is supposed to add four more worlds to the same logical data center, remains scheduled for spring or summer 2023.

Yoshida-san accompanied the announcement with its apologies to those who were looking forward to the new servers.

Final Fantasy XIV is currently available for PlayStation 4, PS5, and PC. The Endwalker expansion has been released a few months ago and you can read our recent review.

Two years since its launch in early access, Obsidian's garden survival adventure Grounded is finally getting a full release on 27th September.

The announcement was made by game director Adam Brennecke, along with news of a final early access update out today which includes a huge revision to the game's armour and upgrade systems.

There's also a secret feature called the Homestretch included in the update that will be turned on at a later date.

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Diablo Immortal has surpassed $100 million in global player spending across the App Store and Google Play, two months after its release.

According to Sensor Tower, the title, which launched on June 1, hit the milestone in eight weeks, becoming one of the fastest mobile titles to do so.

Data from the firm revealed that Niantic’s Pokémon GO took around two weeks to hit the same figure, while Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes took ten weeks.

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The final season of Better Call Saul is almost at its end, and fans simply can’t get enough of the drama that’s been unfolding these past few episodes. Whether it’s all of the death or the emotional heartbreak, the show is proving once again that series creator Vincent Gilligan is still a master of his craft.

And while there are still a lot of questions left hanging in the air, one of the big ones fans are still waiting to have answered is: where are Jesse Pinkman and Walter White?

During a panel at PaleyFest LA earlier this year, Better Call Saul co-creator Peter Gould revealed that the Meth-making duo would be making an appearance this season, so what better episode to show up in than the one named after their show? That’s right, the next episode is indeed called Breaking Bad.

The title card of the next episode was revealed earlier this week, accompanied by the synopsis of “The partners escalate their enterprise to new levels.” Just about everything about this screams that Jesse and Walter will be showing up on Monday.

Of course, the title and synopsis could just end up being bait, as Gilligan is known for subverting expectations when it comes to how he writes each episode. Combine this with the fact that the previews are all about Gene, and it wouldn’t too shocking if we either don’t get Jesse and Walter this episode, or maybe we just get them in a flashback sequence.

What do you think? Is Gilligan trying to throw fans for a loop? Will Gene Break Bad? Or are Walter and Jesse returning? Be sure to let us know in the comment section below.

Amazon has announced the free games available as part of its August Games with Prime lineup.

They are: StarCraft: Remastered, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Beasts of Maravilla Island, Recompile, ScourgeBringer and Family Mysteries: Poisonous Promises.

All six titles will be available from 1st August for Prime Gaming members.

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A year ago today, the "A Better Ubisoft" group penned an open letter in solidarity with Activision Blizzard workers which also called out Ubisoft's own management for its handling of misconduct scandals in the past.

This group has been campaigning for improved working conditions since the company was hit with allegations of a toxic work environment, including numerous accounts of sexual harassment and assault concerning multiple employees at the company.

However, the group says, its demands for change have not been met despite Ubisoft boss Yves Guillemot vowing he would do "everything in [his] power to ensure that everyone... feels welcomed, respected, and safe".

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I’ve been excited to play Exoprimal, Capcom’s upcoming multiplayer dino shooter, ever since it used the phrase “unstoppable raptor horde” in one of its trailers. It is a completely unhinged combination of words that makes me giddy just thinking about them. I’ll often find myself muttering them out loud when I’m unloading the dishwasher or folding laundry. “Unstoppable raptor horde”. It’s like the season finale of language. It’s perfect.

Admittedly, prior to the existence of that phrase, I was feeling a little sceptical about Exoprimal’s existence. Not only does Capcom have - let’s say - a less than favourable track record when it comes to multiplayer titles, but as a long-term fan of Dino Crisis I was a bit miffed to see them creating a game featuring prehistoric creatures that wasn’t some kind of lavish remake of my beloved PS1 series.

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Life is Strange is getting its first tie-in prose novel, titled Steph's Story.

The book, which is set to launch on 21st March 2023, will chart the life of fan-favourite D&D lover Steph while on the road with her bandmate Izzie.

This sounds like the time period which directly precedes last year's True Colors and its Steph-focused DLC chapter Wavelengths, which I enjoyed. That DLC included a few voice clips from Izzie in the form of memories, and hinted at a sad end to Steph's time roadtripping while in a musical duo.

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Concept Ventures announced today that it's launched a $60 million (£50 million) pre-seed fund known as The Fund.

Backed by the British Business Bank, the fund is one of the few pre-seed investments in the UK dedicated to gaming.

The Fund will also include a $36 million (£30 million) commitment from the British Business Bank's Enterprise Capital Funds program

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During February’s Nintendo Direct, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe got a lot of overdue attention with the announcement of 48 race tracks – new and old – coming to the arcade racer by 2023. The first wave dropped in March alongside a 2.0 update. Wave 2 is just around the bend and promises the Turnip and Propeller Cups next month. This means we’re getting some familiar courses across multiple consoles, including the Super NES, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, Wii, and Mario Kart Tour games. Here are the details for each cup based on a recent press release:

The world’s greatest detective who isn’t Batman will once again tangle with the many-tentacled forces of darkness in an upcoming remake of Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. It serves as a sequel of sorts to Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, although they’re calling it a “full remake and substantial rewrite” of the original. There isn’t a trailer just yet, so feel free to anticipate that while you refresh your memory of exactly who Sherlock Holmes is by watching one for Chapter One below.

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The development of Aspyr Media's remake of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic has been delayed indefinitely.

As reported by Bloomberg, the pause comes after the publisher fired both its art director Jason Minor and design director Brad Prince.

The remake was announced last year and has been in development for three years so far.

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Now's the time to claim Japan's seedy underbelly for yourself. Yakuza: Like A Dragon is packaged into the free PlayStation Plus August catalog. However, eight other Yakuza are coming to the subscription service starting this month.

According to the official PlayStation blog, Extra and Premium members can download/play Kazuma Kiryu's classic, crime-riddled journeys in Yakuza 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 next month. Later this year, those same subscribers get access to Yakuza 3 Remastered, Yakuza 4 Remastered, Yakuza 5 Remastered, and Yakuza 6: The Song of Life. That's hundreds of hours of fantastic Ryu Ga Gotoku content. Be sure to check out our reviews or previews for the games below:

The Sims 4 High School Years is launching today, but its release looks set to be overshadowed by a couple of major bugs introduced by its supporting update, Patch 132. The patch came out on Tuesday and, if you've played The Sims 4 since then, you'll have automatically downloaded it unless you've been playing offline. While the patch's release coincides with the High School Years expansion and supports a number of its features, it also added several new elements to the ever-evolving base game. These include long-time fan requests like sexual orientation customisation, body hair options, and the return of a wants and fears system in the style of The Sims 2.

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Takanori Nishikawa, also known for their solo act T.M. Revolution, appeared in a commercial for Touhou Arcadia Record. Nishikawa dressed as popular Touhou Project character Reimu Hakurei. The commercial aired on Japanese televisions and is also available to watch on YouTube. [Thanks, Inside Games!]

The 30-second commercial initially features Nishikawa dressed as a Japanese high schooler. When his teacher catches him sleeping during class and throws a piece of chalk at him, Nishikawa transforms into Reimu Hakurei. Fittingly, Nishikawa's character is named "Nishikawa Reimu".

The transformation has Nishikawa fit snugly into a midriff-exposing outfit and full makeup, mimicking Reimu's appearance in the game.  Nishikawa then dodges an array of pink chalk, a la Touhou Arcadia Record’s side-scrolling shoot-em-up game mechanics.

You can check out the full commercial in the video below:

https://youtu.be/Prsd0DKxa3o

I really appreciate when games don't hold your hand. They don't waste time insulting your intelligence, they just set you loose in their playground. They let you strike out on your own, figure things out for yourself, and create something valuable with your own two paws.

Bear And Breakfast doesn't hold your hand. It wraps you up in a gigantic bear hug, and refuses to let you out of its smothering embrace until long after your enthusiasm has evaporated.

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Yesterday, EA had its big gameplay reveal for FIFA 23 which showed off all the fancy current-gen features in action.

But some eagle-eyed fans noticed that the polish for the trailer was not all there.

Skip to 3:06, and you'll notice a player doing a T-Pose as the narrator discusses how the improvements to the game make it feel more like "real world football."

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Today Square Enix released the key artwork of the upcoming patch 6.2 for its super-popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.

The artwork, which is downright gorgeous, shows Themis, Erichthonios, and another character who is almost certainly Lahabrea.

This is rather appropriate because the new raid which will feature them, “Pandæmonium: Abyssos,” is one of the key additions of the update.

The update comes in late August and doesn’t yet have a firm release date, but you can check out the full artwork below alongside a summary of its content.

Publisher Asmodee Digital is pulling its Pandemic game from the Nintendo eShop, and is disabling online multiplayer in its Switch version of Catan.

For the former, an announcement on Twitter stated the game would be pulled from 31st July, although existing owners will not be impacted.

"The initial digital game was released 9 years ago, and we no longer feel the current quality and reliability are on par with what Pandemic deserves on digital platforms," reads the statement.

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A new study from the University of Oxford has revealed that playing video games doesn’t affect a person’s wellbeing.

As reported by The Guardian, the study tracked the habits of nearly 40,000 people.

They were asked to track information such as if they were playing for fun, to socialize, and or to meet goals within the game.

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VRChat’s had a hell of a week. On Monday, the wildly popular virtual reality social game announced that its next update would implement Epic Games’ Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) technology, prompting immediate outrage from a large portion of its playerbase. That update landed Tuesday, and since then, VRChat’s struggled to…

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PlayStation has today announced several new features coming to PS5 Beta, including the much-requested native 1440p support, gamelists, and other quality of life updates designed to improve the overall user experience. A detailed article over on the PSBlog runs through the particulars of each new feature.

The new resolution functionality essentially offers players the option to run the game at a native resolution according to their television for improved performance or to improve anti-aliasing by super-sampling down to a smaller resolution.

Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead. In other words, the player-hated, troll-approved Oppressor Mk. II jetbike in Grand Theft Auto Online has finally been nerfed following nearly half a decade of terror. While many players are happy about the change, others have shared concerns that it has made the expensive vehicle…

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Today Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games is launching the new major update for its space simulator in ongoing development.

The new update, numbered Alpha 3.17.2, brings the server capacity up to 100 from the previous 50, which will help players find company while they wait for the introduction of server meshing, new missions, interesting features, and the Anvil Centurion flak vehicle.

Perhaps the most interesting element is the Siege of Orison dynamic event, which will prompt players to liberate the gas giant’s floating platforms with trusty lead and lasers.

Here’s a full breakdown of the new features.

The highly anticipated second wave of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass is arriving next week on August 4. Nintendo has released a trailer to introduce and highlight the courses the eight courses included in this wave.

The eight courses that will be included in this second wave, and the original game that each one appeared in, are as follows:

Turnip Cup

• Kalimari Desert, N64
• Mario Circuit 3, SNES
• Waluigi Pinball, DS
• New York Minute, Tour

Propeller Cup

• Sydney Sprint, Tour
• Mushroom Gorge, Wii
• Snow Land, GBA
• Sky-High Sundae, a brand new course that will later be added to Mario Kart Tour

This wave of new courses added to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is just the second of a total of six that will eventually be added to the game. The first wave of eight courses was added back in March.

Four more waves of eight courses each will be released one at a time by the end of 2023. This means that a grand total of 48 additional courses will ultimately be added to the game. As you can see, they consist of courses from previous Mario Kart games, but it also appears as though brand new courses that will eventually be added to Mario Kart Tour can also appear.

The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass costs $24.99 as an individual purchase. If you are subscribed to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, you will be able to play the courses at no additional cost.

You can watch the trailer that features each of these eight courses coming to the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass below.

Understanding how to gather interest for your game ahead of launch is a prime topic at every Develop:Brighton.

And at this year's edition of the conference, Twin Drums' founder and creative director Allan Cudicio delivered an inspiring example based on the studio's journey so far with Afro-fantasy MMORPG The Wagadu Chronicles, which has garnered interest in particular since a viral Twitter thread in January 2020.

"There are so many games out there, Steam every year is worse," Cudicio started. "That's why it's really important to think about traction before your game comes out. It's important to think about B2B as well. So not just customers, but also publishers, investors and other additional organisations you are going to be working with. That's something I started thinking of very early and it paid off."

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Nintendo has detailed the second dollop of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC headed to your Nintendo Switch on 4th August - and there's some proper bangers in the roster.

N64 classic Kalimari Desert is included, as is DS masterpiece Waluigi Pinball. Mushroom Gorge from Mario Kart Wii, Snow Land from Mario Kart Advance, plus Mario Circuit 3 from the SNES are also in.

These are joined by New York Minute and Sydney Spring from smartphone spin-off Mario Kart Tour, plus the new Sky-High Sundae track - a future Mario Tour addition.

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The fans of Gundam Evolution have spoken. According to Gundam Evolution rankings taken by Bandai Namco, Gundam Unicorn is the most popular Gundam work. The data was gathered via surveys sent to participants in the Gundam Evolution closed network tests. Among other questions, Bandai Namco polled players on their favorite Gundam movies and series. Collected from players in both the North American and Japanese tests, they form a picture of which series are Gundam Evolution players' favorites, at least in those territories.

Bandai Namco shared the collated Gundam Evolution rankings via its official Twitter account. They're divided between Japan, North America, and a combined result for both territories.

https://twitter.com/gundamevolution/status/1552351959008497664

On the Japanese side, the Gundam Evolution rankings placed Gundam Unicorn in first place, followed by the Char's Counter Attack film. Gundam 00, Gundam Hathaway, and the original Gundam series made up the rest of the top 5. Universal Century series dominated the top rankings overall, making up 7 of the top 10 places. Zeta Gundam, The 08th MS Team, and Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory all placed. Of the original settings, Iron-Blooded Orphans and Gundam Seed joined 00 for the top spots.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 is old, clunky and boring, but at the same time I am entranced by it. This is history I'm playing; the game is 18 years old. There's nothing you can do short of remaking it that's going to make it feel young and exciting again - and Wizards of the Coast tried that last year with Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, and look how that turned out (clue: not well). So all those lumps and bumps I feel while playing it - all those things that have been smoothed by the many waves of action role-playing games since - I don't mind them. In fact, I love them, because they're what revisiting Dark Alliance 2 is all about.

Quick history lesson: Dark Alliance was an experiment, really, in bringing Dungeons & Dragons to console. Interplay didn't want a slower, wordy adventure like BioWare's Baldur's Gate but something more suited to a console audience - something faster, something more action-packed. So it enlisted Snowblind Studios (which would go on to make something of a spiritual successor in The Lord of the Rings: War in the North - remember that? We gave it 4/10) to make one. There was reticence but when BG Dark Alliance came out in 2001, it was surprisingly well received, so a sequel was greenlit.

Clear community guidelines and human moderation are key to reducing hate and harassment in online gaming communities.

That's one of the key findings the Anti-Defamation League reported this week out of a study it conducted into hate and harassment in Minecraft.

The group partnered with Take This, Gamersafer and the Middlebury Institute's Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism to assess three months' worth of anonymized moderation actions and chat logs provided by three private Minecraft servers.

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Bandai Namco just released one more character trailer of its upcoming fighting game JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R.

This time around, we can enjoy a look at Shigekiyo “Shigechi” Yangu, straight from Diamonds is Unbreakable.

Of course, we also get to see his stand named “Harvest” in action.

You can watch the trailer below.

Flux is the first of cyberpunk thought-poser Citizen Sleeper’s free DLCs, and it launches into the game today. It’s the start of a series of three free episodes coming to the game, and features a new story that should last players around 1 or 2 hours. Catch a glimpse of what to expect when you watch the trailer below.

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The first ever Life Is Strange tie-in novel, subtitled Steph's Story, has been announced for next year. The novel will be a prequel to last year's Life Is Strange: True Colors, and will follow recurring character Steph Gingrich and her bandmate-slash-girlfriend Izzie on the tour that will eventually lead them to Haven Springs, the game's setting.

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Michael ‘Shroud’ Grzesiek’s addition to Sentinel’s professional Valorant team last month was a move few saw coming, and given the player’s enormous following on Twitch has a lot of fans excited. A large part of the intrigue is, of course, how he’ll perform after so many years away from the competitive scene, and how long his tenure with Sentinels will last. Well, Shroud spoke about the matter himself during stream from the team’s bootcamp yesterday evening, and it turns out that he’s potentially in it for the long haul.

“If franchising is a thing, and it is in LA, which is where I live, there’s a very good chance I will continue to play professional Valorant,” Shroud explained to his stream. He continued: “Is it with Sentinels? I don’t know, are they in franchising? I have no idea.”

Franchising is set to transform Valorant’s professional scene in 2023, changing the dynamic of how teams are involved with the game’s highest level of competition. Instead of the open qualifying system for the Valorant Champions Tour, which has existed up until this point, only a dozen or so partnered esports organizations will be involved in various super leagues around the world. Riot Games has been conducting interviews with North America’s most prestigious organizations all year, and question marks over Sentinels’ status still remain.

Depending on whether Sentinels make it in, which could rest on their performance at the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) to attend Champions next month, it sounds as though Shroud may or may not stick with Sentinels. From his comments, he might otherwise entertain moving to an organization that did make it in to continue as a professional.

Fuga: Melodies of Steel is known for having a cutesy, furry-adjacent aesthetic that belies the tension in its gameplay and drama in its story. CyberConnect2 appears to be continuing in that mold, going by its new trailer for Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2.

The company uploaded a new video laying out the story on July 28, 2022. You can see it below.

Note: The Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2  trailer and the rest of the article may spoil elements of the first game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OolRShEoq9I

The Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 trailer recalls a "secret movie" from the first game. That movie unlocks when players turn all the white gears on the title screen to orange. It previews the continuation of Fuga's story in Fuga 2, along with some rough concept art and voice acting. The new trailer follows most of the same beats, but uses more complete, colored art instead of rough sketches.

As in the secret movie, the trailer's story picks up after the conclusion of the first game's true ending. It also confirms earlier leaks about the premise. The Taranis, the giant tank from the first game, has gone berserk, taking some of the children hostage. To fight it and rescue their friends, the remaining children board the Tarascus, the tank piloted by Shvein Hax to make war upon those responsible. The trailer closes with Malt vowing revenge against his enemy, promising to find them and kill them.

Zombies have returned to Call of Duty Warzone in a limited-time mode called Rebirth of the Dead.

While we last saw zombies in the now blown-up Verdansk map, this time they will be invading Rebirth Island, which was first introduced with the release of Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War.

The new mode, developed by support studio Beenox, has had some significant changes from the previous mode to better fit into Rebirth Island's smaller map design.

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