I'll be honest, friends: I'm thick with cold and I'd like this day to end. Maybe you can help me make that happen. Once I'm done here, I'm going to crawl under a blanket and play something comforting that will distract me until bedtime.
So I'm here to ask: what's your comfort gaming for when you're sick?
Welcome to Snapshots, Kotaku’s weekly round-up of the best and coolest screenshots from around the web. This week I got a ton of emails from folks and it was hard to pick the best of the best. And our first screenshot from Resident Evil Village. I can’t wait to see what folks do with that game in the coming weeks!
Steam players will receive a bundle of in-game items as consolation for the online servers' outage.
The post Bandai Namco Offers Compensation for Steam Jump Force Outage appeared first on Siliconera.
The 1980s action movie heroes are coming en masse to Warzone. After this week's tease that Rambo will be added to the battle royale, Activision has indicated Die Hard's John McClane is on his way, too.
Activision even created a website for a fictional air conditioning repair company called Nakatomi Duct Cleaning, offering its services in Verdansk.
The website says "A NAKATOMI CORP DIVISION MASTERING A/C DUCT CLEANING SINCE 1988", but the current Warzone map is set in 1984. Nah... I'm applying too much logic to Call of Duty here.
Synthesize to your heart's content when Atelier Online opens up its pre-registration.
The post Atelier Online English Pre-Registration Coming Soon appeared first on Siliconera.
This week, if you pottered along to the Mendip Hill near Cheddar, Somerset, you'd probably have caught a glimpse of something a bit off: a huge chalk artwork of a lycan.
Local press reported the strange image on Monday, 3rd May after it popped up overnight - and seemingly had no idea what it was about or who made it.
Its true nature was revealed when Resident Evil Village came out on Friday - it was a Capcom PR stunt. And a pretty cool one, I'll admit.
TWEWY The Animation could be a great show once it moves past its expository episodes.
The post The World Ends with You Anime Introduces a Promising Show appeared first on Siliconera.
Ethan is the main protagonist of Resident Evil Village. He has a rough life, what with all the dangerous monsters trying to kill him. Ethan’s hands seem to be the main target. They get treated so poorly that I’m starting to suspect someone at Capcom hates Ethan’s hands and wants to destroy them as much as possible.
A modder has released their final Nier: Automata HD texture pack after four years of development.
GPUnity's texture pack mod began life soon after Nier: Automata launched on PC in March 2017. They've continued to work on the mod since then, and now, four years later, released the final version.
Nier: Automata's PC version is infamous for a raft of technical issues that were fixed by modders, including a constant stutter tick due to the game running at around 59 frames per second (this is something explored in the Digital Foundry video below).
A big, heavy statue based on Fate/Stay Night is up for grabs.
The post Fate/Stay Night ‘The Path’ Statue Will Cost Fans Nearly $3000 appeared first on Siliconera.
This week, Sega announced Lost Judgment for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X and S, and Xbox One - but there was no word of a PC version.
It seemed an odd omission - Tojo Dojo noticed the Yakuza spin-off sequel was briefly listed as coming to PC on the official countdown website that was home to the Lost Judgment announcement. Even after mention of PC was removed from the website, fans spotted mention of the Steam logo in the Lost Judgment website source code.
Unfortunately, it appears Lost Judgment will not come out on PC when the game launches on consoles on 24th September 2021.
The Phantom Thieves will steal hearts on stages in Osaka and Yokohama.
The post Persona 5 the Stage 3 Announced for December 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.
The internet’s favorite Skyrim-playing grandma, Shirley Curry, now has her very own Skyrim mod which adds her to Bethesda’s RPG as a companion. And Shirley voiced the character herself.
Resident Evil Village is a horror game at heart, and it builds on the return to the classic, slower-moving horror of Resident Evil 7 that was also a signature of the early games. However, Capcom took a slightly different approach to how it handled scares this time around, as it didn't want to overwhelm the player with terror like it sometimes did in Resident Evil 7. After all, what good is having scares if people quit before they see them?
Speaking to Axios, producer Tsuyoshi Kanda said Capcom received Resident Evil 7 feedback and some players felt it was actually too scary. Scary is obviously the goal in horror, but not if it means players don't want to keep playing it for fear of an unexpected bowel movement.
"In one regard, that's exactly what's we're striving for, so it's a huge compliment for us," he said. "But at the same time, it's always our goal to create something that anybody can feel comfortable jumping in and playing, so we eased up on the tension curve [in RE Village] relative to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, so players aren't in constant fear."
That constant fear was especially noticeable during the early portions of Resident Evil 7, which often found Ethan Winters chased through a large house by terrifying family members. These moments weren't always scripted, requiring constant vigilance as players tried to unlock doors and progress the story further. Similar moments appeared in the two recent remake games with Nemesis and Mr. X, who would routinely track you down and force a quick-thinking escape to avoid death.
Last month, Wolfire Games - developers of bunny kung-fu game Overgrowth - filed an antitrust suit against Valve. In the suit, Wolfire Games and two other plaintiffs allege that Valve have employed "anti-competitive practices" to "protect its market dominance."
In a new blog post published May 6th, Wolfire Games co-founder David Rosen writes that he felt he had "no choice" in bringing the suit, after Valve told him "that they would remove Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere."
So here’s a weird thing. The next entry in the Sniper Ghost Warrior series was supposed to come out next month on PS5, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. But now the PS5 version has been delayed with no new release date given for vague technical issues. All other versions, including PS4, will release as planned.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance's re-release on Nintendo Switch was delayed at the last minute.
The re-release of the much-loved 20 year-old action RPG went ahead as planned yesterday on Xbox One, where it costs a pricey £29.99, and PlayStation 4, where for some reason it costs a fiver cheaper at £24.99.
But even though the official Black Isle Studios Twitter page said yesterday that the Switch version would arrive in a couple of hours, the game failed to materialise on the Nintendo eShop.
Videogame awards are good for three things: they encourage people to continue creating new work; they direct attention towards particular pebbles among the otherwise amorphous landslide of new game releases; and they give bystanders like me something of mercifully little consequence to gripe about when nominations don't align with our personal tastes.
I'm sad to report that the Independent Games Festival has delivered only two out of three in 2021. The nominations for this year's IGF Awards were announced yesterday, but they have left me little to gripe about.
With Titanfall 2 enjoying an Apex Legends-powered resurgence, so is its superb Gauntlet.
Respawn's wall-hopping assault course tasks players with completing one lap as quickly as possible - and nearly five years after Titanfall 2 came out, speedrunners are breaking world records again.
In October 2019, speedrunner Cash Mayo set an incredible time of 11.7 seconds, shaving a fraction off Mayo's previous world record of 11.9 seconds:
Update: As of May 9, this discount code appears to be inactive. The card has returned to its full price.
Original story follows...
Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S both support expanded storage for playing next-gen games, which the PS5 does not, but doing so requires a proprietary storage card. Right now, that Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S is on sale at Newegg, giving you more than $20 off its regular price so you can install even more games. It's the only one that works right now, so you'll rarely find a better deal.
To take advantage of the 10% discount, all you have to do is enter the promo code 93XQY65 in the code field during checkout. This will give you the discount, which drops the price down to $198. Though that is still nothing to sneeze at, the card is the only one that supports direct play of Xbox Series X|S games other than the consoles' own internal storage. Currently, other external drives, including other SSDs, only support storing these games, and they must be transferred to the internal drive to play.
Designed in collaboration with Microsoft to ensure compatibility and performance, the Seagate drive is meant to offer the exact same experience you'd get running a game off the consoles' internal NVMe SSDs. That means support for Quick Resume and very fast loading times, and with 1 TB of storage, you can put a whole bunch of games on it.
When I last wrote about Slipways, I called it the best demo of the Steam festival and lamented that it was no longer available. Good news! It's back, and in expanded form. There's now a public beta of this wonderful, pocket-sized grand strategy game which you can play via Steam until May 10th.
The World Ends With You (TWEWY) was a lot of things--an innovative RPG that put the Nintendo DS's touch screen to good use, a stylish experience that demonstrated youthful expression through fashion and music, and one of the most experimental games in Square Enix's history. But despite the game's cult status, TWEWY has not had an official follow up in the 14 years since its release. Until now, that is, with the upcoming NEO: The World Ends With You.
The original TWEWY came back around with the Switch remaster in 2018, dubbed Final Remix, albeit with mixed results from the retooled controls to accommodate the platform change. However, this upcoming sequel, NEO: The World Ends With You, is a sort of rebuild of what made the original special. I recently had a brief interview with its key developers, which included Tetsuya Nomura (creative producer and character art designer), Tatsuya Kondo (series director), Hiroyuki Ito (director), and Tomohiko Hirano (producer). And from talking with them, I have a clearer picture of how TWEWY is being modernized not just in a gameplay sense but also in its attitude.
Do you remember the film The Adventures of Milo and Otis? I don’t. It was based on a 1986 Japanese film called Koneko Monogatari. It’s not bad, I guess, if you think you can trust critics. It’s about a kitten getting lost in the wild and a pug puppy that chases after him. Both have misadventures in their efforts to not die. Sort of like Homeward Bound with better public transportation and a vending machine on every corner.
In the wake of Super Mario Bros., Koneko Monogatari was adapted into a game for the Famicom Disk System. Let’s be fair here, it was 1986. Chernobyl exploded, Microsoft went public, and developers were still struggling to figure out how to make console games that weren’t just inferior ports of successful arcade titles. There were definitely a good few 1986 releases, but Koneko Monogatari isn’t one of them.
Every Pokemon is interesting and worth talking about. I don’t play a ton of Pokemon, but I do enjoy the universe and I love learning more about the creatures in it. So, Here’s Another Pokemon! It’s Koffing!
In today’s digitally-based world, protecting your sensitive information is paramount. By now, you've undoubtedly heard of compromising data leaks or cyber thieves who can pull credit card, bank account, or even social security numbers from your laptop or smartphone just using shared public Wi-Fi.
A common solution for combating the perils of cybersecurity is a VPN, but often these are not fully effective. In fact, it's been reported that as much as 84% of user data is at risk of theft or leakage when protected by traditional VPNs. Thankfully, there's a solution to take control of your cybersecurity and surf the internet comfortably with the Deeper Connect Nano Decentralized VPN Hardware, available for only $255 when you use the coupon code GSDEALS15.
The Deeper Connect Nano is the next generation of the Deeper Connect Mini, a hardware VPN that's highly rated for its security and ease of use, with all of the same features in a more portable package. It's a decentralized VPN that works without a subscription. Simply buy the hardware, plug it in, and surf the internet with confidence that your sensitive information is secure.
The Deeper Connect Nano is more than just peace of mind in a seven-layer firewall — it also enhances your web experience. A web filter effectively blocks ads, trackers, and malware, and there's no bottlenecking as more users log on to your network. Plus, it offers seamless connectivity to worldwide IPs, meaning no regional content is blocked.
Take-Two has been a fairly big supporter of the Nintendo Switch, with multiple big-name franchises available on the console. Many of those games are currently on sale via the Nintendo eShop, offering enormous discounts, and many of the titles are actually bundles containing a few games. BioShock, Borderlands, and XCOM are among the games with their prices slashed, so don't delay if you want them.
BioShock: The Collection is one of the biggest deals during this sale, with its price dropping from $50 down to $20. The bundle includes all three BioShock games, with the first two being remastered versions, and it also has all single-player DLC--the multiplayer from BioShock 2 was omitted from the collection. If you prefer to get BioShock, BioShock 2, or BioShock Infinite on their own, you can do that, too. They are $8 each, down from $20.
After going a little shmup-happy in recent weeks, the retro-loving folk over at Hamster have returned to the world of fantasy platformers for this week's Arcade Archives release, having re-released Jaleco's hack 'n' slash adventure The Astyanax on PS4 and Nintendo Switch.
Originally released in arcades back in 1989, before being ported to the NES one scant year later, The Astyanax tells a typical tale of a super-macho, axe-wielding barbarian, Roche, chopping their way through a fantasy world packed out with strange, mythological creatures. Players can also pick up a host of power-ups to increase Roche's command of lightning as he battles his way through the game's six stages. A second player can join in the fun as a palette-swapped version of the muscle-bound hero.
Check out the action in the video below, courtesy of YouTuber World of Longplays.
Is it ever a bad time to replay your Resident Evil favorites? Not really, no!
But those crucial last few weeks leading up to a new mainline game, especially one as collectively attention-grabbing as Resident Evil Village, can heighten that urge to revisit. I've been there — I've pregamed Resident Evil with more Resident Evil — and I know plenty of you have too.
It's always fun to chat about our ongoing experiences with these games — how certain moments or details might stand out in one playthrough compared to prior runs, or how old stances can soften in light of current gaming trends and player sensibilities. Our takes are always gaining nuances.
So let's do it. With Village just days away from launching, let's recount our recent RE outings.
The Yakuza series remains a turn-based RPG, whereas the Judgment spin-off series is where the action's at, developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio has said in a new interview.
Speaking to IGN, Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi and producer Kazuki Hosokawa confirmed the plan for the two series:
"The Yakuza series has been transformed into a turn-based RPG. On the other hand, over the years, Ryu ga Gotoku Studio has accumulated resources and know-how of making flashy and exhilarating action games that are effortless to enjoy. We decided that we should let our signature action gameplay live on through Lost Judgment."
Resident Evil Village is off to a flyer on Steam.
It saw 101,726 peak concurrents on launch day, 7th May.
That makes Capcom's latest comfortably the biggest PC launch for any Resident Evil game. According to SteamCharts, Resident Evil 7 managed an all-time peak of 18,211 concurrents, Resident Evil 6 peaked with 11,836, and the most recent release, the Resident Evil 3 remake, hit 32,635. Only the Resident Evil 2 remake, which saw a concurrents peak of 74,024, comes close.
We're just over a month away from the next release in what could prove to be Square Enix's magnum opus, Final Fantasy VII Remake. The publisher has released a "final" trailer for the incoming Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, which launches on PS5 June 10.
It should be immediately noted that the trailer opens with ending spoilers for Final Fantasy VII Remake, as well as featuring plenty of footage — of both characters and events — taken from the all-new Episode INTERmission side-chapter. So consider yourselves warned, friends.
Call of Duty: Warzone developer Raven has said it is close to a "balance homeostasis", where most weapon options are "at the very least viable" - leaving it to focus on raising the skill ceiling of the game.
The developer shared its balance change philosophy as part of the patch notes for a Warzone update that went live this week.
Raven spoke openly about the difficulty it faces making sweeping changes to the Warzone meta, as popular guns are inevitably affected.
Closed Hands is a game about a fictional terror attack, a bomb, and about how the lives of five unconnected strangers become connected by it. But it's also about the society they live in. It's about the years before and the years after. It's about context and about how they got to that point in the first place. Closed Hands is a game about understanding.
And to understand it, you need to understand a bit about where it comes from. Closed Hands is created by Dan Hett, a man who lost his brother in the Manchester arena bombing in 2017. This game is the culmination of years of many smaller projects and knee-jerk experimentation as he processed why.
But it's not anger that fuels this game, it's questions. Questions Hett sought to answer as he became swept up in the aftermath of the event, speaking at schools, speaking to the press, and finding himself in the public eye. Closed Hands, in a sense, represents his answers, and so much of his personal experience can be felt across the game.
Apparently in the UK May is National Walking Month, neatly coinciding with me being in a tiny village with no wired internet, where the chief entertainment is "going for a walk." Well, I refuse. You can't make me, dammit. Instead I shall stay as inside-sitting-still as possible, and play games while ignoring my mum periodically coming in to tell me I'm going to get blood clots because that's the sort of thing she routinely does.
Let's find out what the rest of the cheery ol' RPS gang are playing this weekend, eh? I predict a few mentions of Resident Evil Village.
Hello, friends, welcome to the weekend! I hope it has been a pleasant week for all of you. Whatever it is you have lined up for the next couple of days, I hope you are able to find the time for a little R'n'R, some good company, some good entertainment, some good food, or whatever is needed to lift your spirits and keep you smiling. Keep pushing, folks, we're doing great.
I've struggled to stay focused on a single title this week. Having hit NieR: Automata a mere couple of weeks ago, I've also fired up Housemarque's Returnal — a title I've been waiting on for many moons. These two hefty releases offer more than enough gameplay to keep me occupied, but I'm still struggling to stay away from Juri and Rose in Street Fighter V, Outbreak mode in Call of Duty: Cold War, and the Apocalypse event in Rainbow Six Siege. If that's not enough, I'm currently hovering over a store basket containing, of all the games, Fire Emblem: Three Houses!
It was so much easier in the '90s when I was a kid and only got access to two console games a year. This problem that I'm facing right now is the single biggest problem being faced by any human being on the planet. Break out the violins, friends.
Well, I might be struggling to stay focused, but I'll bet y'all are not. Jump into the comments below and fill us in on the video games that are currently occupying your free hours. I don't care whether they're old or new, good or bad, on the PS5 or on the Atari Jaguar — please share with us your current gaming obsessions. Once again, thank you for making this article such a pleasure each and every week.
Have a wonderful weekend, from all of us at Destructoid.
