Arc System Works' has entered its final marketing chapter for upcoming fighting sequel Guilty Gear Strive. After a long wait, some exciting character reveals, some fan frustrations, and an eventual delay, the wild roster of the GG universe is set to let rip on PC and PlayStation platforms June 11.

The publisher held one final beta this weekend in order to stress-test the effectiveness of GG Strive's rollback netcode — a key component in ArcSys' plan to make the new sequel a success within the global fighting game community. In addition to its run of crash course character guides, ArcSys also dropped a new video giving newcomers a brief overview of Guilty Gear's storyline. For a deeper look at the GG universe, be sure to check out our own Zach Bennett's in-depth guide to the series' world and roster.

Striking up a romantic relationship with a character in Mass Effect 3 will earn you a lovely picture of their face that sits on the desk in Commander Shepard's quarters. It's a nice touch, but for Tali romancers it's particularly special, because it means you actually get to see her face without her helmet on. Unfortunately, in the old ME3, that picture of Tali was a stock photo of a model edited to look a bit alien. But now in the Mass Effect Legendary Edition, BioWare have swapped it out for a much more "realistic" pic.

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Mass Effect Legendary Edition seems to be going down well on Steam, where its launch racked up EA's second-highest concurrent player total, behind Apex Legends.

Its current peak concurrent total of 59,650 (via Steam Charts and BenjiSales) is the highest for any Mass Effect or indeed BioWare game on Steam.

The average user review rating is "Very Positive", though there are a number of complaints over the game's lack of an FOV slider outside of photo mode, and its insistence on launching Origin to launch the Legendary Edition launcher, to then launch a specific game.

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A release date for the mobile port of Danganronpa V3 has finally been revealed.

The post Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Mobile Port to Release in May appeared first on Siliconera.

It's time to put on your Sherlock Holmes hat and re-open your detective agency. Publisher Playism has announced that the super-cool, ultra-hip "social deduction" game Gnosia will be coming to PC later this year, following its launch on Nintendo Switch back in March.

This week, while a lot of you will be (re)exploring the galaxy of the original Mass Effect trilogy, we thought it would be fun to revisit some of our own favourite video game planets. First up, Oli remembers the glory of Halo. Halo's a planet right? It isn't? Oh well, nobody said this stuff was simple - just ask Pluto.

Halo, the series, owes a lot more than just its name to its original setting. The name is a pretty good start, though, with its evocation of holy reverence, of refracted glory, of encircled perfection. It is the name the religious zealots of the Covenant have bestowed upon a mysterious celestial body: a ringworld orbiting a gas giant, and an artificial paradise harbouring a dark purpose. Its creators, a long-lost race known as the Forerunners, called it, rather prosaically, Installation 04.

Whichever angle you approach it from, the Halo inspires awe. Lore first: the Halo is both ancient, a hundred thousand years old, and futuristic, created by a society far more advanced than either the humans or aliens of the game's nearish future. Over the course of Halo: Combat Evolved, you discover that it is both a research station and a terrifying weapon. The Forerunners created an array of such Halos that, when triggered together, would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, to prevent it being overrun by the parasitic Flood. It's terrifying!

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Recently, an article on a Japanese news site claimed that Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno was doing “a new version” of an anime that “everyone knows” in Japan. The article added that the original iconic anime was directed by someone else, and the information claimed to be from a studio staffer. Speculation ran wild.

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Over time, Destiny 2 has become more of a grind. But the recent transmogrification system (or "transmog," or even simpler, the ability to swap out cosmetic looks for gear, similar to MMOs) is a grind upon a grind, seated on a throne of microtransaction shortcuts.

So we knew it was going to suck. We had a heads-up where Bungie for some reason explained the system in detail like people weren't going to push back against it, like it was a good idea; to convolute a really old mechanic that developers nailed over a decade ago. But this Reddit thread from alonie-homie sheds some light on just how bad it is.

Remember how you needed to grind out materials to earn the right to start the transmog process? well apparently drop rates of those mats aren't based on kills: they're time-gated, according to community testing. So it can take about five hours to get past step one: then you need to actually collect bounties and complete them.

By some estimations, it would take roughly 150 hours to grab all of the ornaments across the three classes, or about 50 hours per class. Note that transmog is gated by season. Or, you can pay real money (silver) and skip this.

It's kind of indefensible, and Bungie will probably use their "we hear you and will adjust" shtick. But the extent to which people are willing to actually sit through it is dwindling over time, especially given the aggressive monetization of this whole mechanic.

At the end of this year, a theme park in Suining, China is slated to finish a full-sized version of the Titanic.

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BioWare has changed a Mass Effect character's race from human to turian - fixing a long-standing issue many (correctly) assumed was a bug.

THERE MAY BE MASS EFFECT 1 SPOILERS AHEAD.

Elanos Haliat, a human-hating pirate and previous leader of the Terminus Systems, appears in Mass Effect 1 on the world of Agebinium. Shepard encounters him when investigating a mysterious nuclear probe which needs to be defused.

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For over a decade, Shinji Hashimoto was the brand director for Square Enix’s Final Fantasy. He has stepped down, and Yoshinori Kitase became his successor last month.

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Eula is deft on her feet and dances around her opponents in the latest character demonstration video.

The post Genshin Impact Eula Character Demo Showcases Her Dance Moves appeared first on Siliconera.

So the Nintendo Switch is on fire. It's so hot in fact that it just hit roughly 85 million units sold this year, and it still has plenty of life left in it.

It'll clear 100 million by the end of the year, which puts it right on pace for defeating the Wii, Nintendo's most successful home console to date. That's huge! The Switch's rise to fame has been more low key than the "my uncle bought a Wii Fit and never played it" obviousness of yesteryear, but Nintendo, like other hardware producers, is struggling to meet that demand.

It's all due to the semiconductor shortage, amid other supply pipeline issues, which have been raging since this past year. And Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa recently shed some light on Nintendo's strategy during these trying times (though he did not offer us an egg).

Speaking in a Q&A for the company's financial results briefing of this past fiscal year, Furukawa states: "As for production, we achieved steady hardware production through the end of last calendar year, and as a result, in the previous fiscal year we set a record for our highest fourth-quarter sales volume. Meanwhile, demand for hardware continues to exceed our expectations even after the beginning of this calendar year, and production has currently not caught up to this high demand due to the tight supply and demand situation for semiconductor materials worldwide."

I heard a strange story a while back about a DOS game passed around California decades ago. And that unlike any of those wild and sometimes sinister adventure games from that era, someone had traced out its instructions towards something unspeakable. This title was allegedly lost forever in a floppy disc.

And it reminded me of an era when games felt steeped in mystery and madness, before guides and trailers and press releases. When starting a new game felt like entering another world and how occasionally you'd find something nestled at the bottom of a bargain bin that gave you nightmares, and no one else had ever heard of it.

Named Pale Luna, this enigmatic game followed '80s text adventure conventions: blank screen, crisp white text characters, in the vein of Zork and The Lurking Horror. You began in a moonlit room containing gold, a shovel, and a rope, then set off to "reap your reward". You then trundled through an incoherent text-based woodland using compass directions.

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Last week saw Capcom release the newest episode of "Let's Play in Bio Village," the infectiously creepy-cute puppet show starring the villains of Resident Evil Village. This episode is particularly special, as it features a guest appearance from another member of the horror sequel's Rogues' Gallery.

The episode begins with Big Sister Dimitrescu suggesting Moreau brush his teeth with a razor-sharp brush, with predictably messy results. While the edict of the entire show is that Resident Evil Village "is not scary," this latest gory happening proves too much for Angie, who admits to being terrified of the whole show. Dimitrescu and Heisenberg then question their recent, kind actions — embracing their dark side and giving in to their murderous intent.

Great news for fans of SNK's great 2019 fighter Samurai Shodown. The one-year exclusivity deal with Epic Games Store is coming to an end, which means that the tense fighting title will finally launch on the Steam platform June 19. In addition, that same day will see the launch of a brand new DLC character: The notorious Shiro Tokisada Amakusa.

Amakusa is a recurring villain in the SamSho universe, having featured in numerous iterations in the decades-long series. Amakusa is a loose interpretation of a legendary revolutionary who was executed in Japan in the late-1600s after leading a band of Catholic followers in an attempt to overthrow the Shogunate. The SamSho iteration of Amakusa started out as an evil, power-hungry monster, but the lore has since pushed a "dual-personality" slant, with two independent spirits battling for dominance of Amakusa's soul.

Shiro Tokisada Amakusa will be the third of Samurai Shodown's Season Pass 3 characters, following on from the recent releases of Cham Cham and Hibiki Takane. The fourth and final character will be a Guilty Gear guest star and is expected to arrive this summer. Samurai Shodown is a fine fighting title, unlike much else on the market. Hopefully the Steam release will open the reboot up to new players.

Roblox is a place where you play games, right? It ticks all the boxes, it’s obvious, we all know it is. So why, I wonder, has one of the world’s most popular, uh, entertainment service platforms suddenly stopped using the word “game”?

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Henry Golding masters the way of the ninja

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The greatest spoiler organization on the planet, The Game Rating and Administration of Korea, are at it again. As spotted by eagle-eyed Resetera users, the board has released a new listing that appears to show Supergiant Giant's much-loved dungeon crawler Hades is preparing to cut loose on PS4.

Launching on PC and Nintendo Switch in September of 2020, Hades won over an army of fans with its compelling story, super-cool style, wry sense of humor, and hot-as-hell (literally) cast of "heroes" and villains. Hades would go on to sell over one million copies by the end of 2020 — winning numerous end-of-year awards — and is still finding new followers all the time. A PS4 port would only add to this Army of The Damned.

For clarification, there has been no official confirmation that Hades is headed to the PlayStation platform, but time has long shown that once a title appears on the Korean listings site, it's more or less all the confirmation that you need. Here's hoping Hades arrives soon, I really miss Dusa... and Zagreus... and Nyx... and Megaera... and...

The Flame Hashira sets hearts ablaze in the newest introduction video for Hinokami Kepputan.

The post Kyojuro Rengoku Makes His Scorching Debut in Demon Slayer: Hinokami Kepputan appeared first on Siliconera.

June 2021 will be a big month for Samurai Shodown, as that's when Shiro Tokisada Amakusa will appear as DLC and the game comes to Steam.

The post Shiro Tokisada Amakusa Joins Samurai Shodown as DLC appeared first on Siliconera.

On June 15, global auction site eBay will be implementing a new “Adult Items Policy,” and it goes a lot harder on mature content than simply outlawing the sale of pornography.

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It wasn’t the biggest of Mass Effect 3's missteps, so you’d be forgiven for having forgotten all about it, but BioWare’s trilogy did us all dirty when it spent 2.9 games building up the mystery of what Tali the Quarian looked like only to reveal...she looked like stock art of a sexy human lady.

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Guilty Gear Strive will be packed with a story featuring important characters like Ky Kiske and I-No.

The post Guilty Gear Strive Story Trailer Teases an End to Sol Badguy’s Storyline appeared first on Siliconera.

Say hello to a new "old" friend.

The post Nelke’s Painting Provides a New End-Game Challenge in Atelier Lydie & Suelle DX appeared first on Siliconera.

The Reaper will feature unique Avatars, but will not be pet focused.

The post Final Fantasy XIV Reaper Job Will Not be Pet-Focused appeared first on Siliconera.

Following the most recent set of violent military strikes by the Israel Defense Forces that have leveled entire buildings in Gaza and left over 180 Palestinians dead, IGN posted an article linking to a variety of Palestinian charities and even gave a Palestinian flag prominence in its masthead. Sometime earlier…

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Additionally, new Final Fantasy XII-inspired glamour items will be added in through the questline.

The post Final Fantasy XIV Save the Queen Update to Add Final Fantasy XII Mount appeared first on Siliconera.

It’s nearly impossible to get a PS5 console these days. But don’t worry, you might be able to snag one of the new PS5 controllers. (Probably not.) However, let’s pretend we live in a better universe.

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If you’re looking for something to chew on until Guilty Gear Strive releases June 11th, look no further than its story. Guilty Gear’s narrative is far from “easily digestible,” so let’s all take a lore laxative and gloss over some of the story’s broader strokes. Below is an overview of every character’s story arc leading up to the events of Strive. It’s the kind of series that uses narrative to justify changes to characters' in-game moves between iterations: a beautiful, if not convoluted, piece of art.

So, what even is a Gear? And why is it guilty? Gears are augmented beings. Originally intended to speed up our biological advancement—and cure disease along the way—the military naturally gravitated toward Gears to use as weapons of war.

Keep in mind, this is a story told across decades of arcade and console games, manga, Japanese drama CDs, literal pachinko machines—it’s a wild ride. But before we get into each character, we must first set the stage.