You might remember, back in February, Arika announced an adapted Nintendo Switch edition of its cult fighting title Fighting EX Layer, with the promise of further news on April 1. Well, it seems that "further news" is the game's actual release - at least in Japan - as Fighting EX Layer: Another Dash is now available on the Japanese iteration of the Nintendo eShop, with a western release to follow on April 15.
Fighting EX Layer: Another Dash is a free-to-play "stripped down" edition of the 2017 fighter, which features an overhauled control scheme, as well as the removal, or replacement of certain mechanics within FEXL's "Gougi" system. The free-to-play edition of Another Dash includes four characters - D.Dark, Darun, Kairi, and Shirase - while a paid DLC pack adds all remaining members of the FEXL roster, as well as online play. This will be the same delivery system for the western release, with the paid edition retailing for around $25.
Fighting EX Layer struggled to find its place in the crowded fighting game market, and while it has never really taken off as much as Arika might have been hoping, it's a solid little fighter, with am old-school cast of characters and solid and generous support from its developer. Perhaps this new Switch edition will help the game to find a new audience in handheld form.
When Sony and Microsoft launched their next-gen consoles last fall, you foolishly assumed they were better. As you waited in online purchase queues, you said, “Oh, it’s totally okay that there are basically no new or exclusive games for these systems I am trying to pay hundreds of dollars for!” But as a gaming journalist, my standards are a bit higher than yours, and this so-called “next generation” is a colossal disappointment.
Look, I don’t care if all the new and old games on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S have better graphics, performance, and gameplay. That’s not what being a gamer is about! We all know that new experiences trump good ones. Sony and Microsoft’s failure to immediately deliver breathtaking new IP and surprising exclusives has already doomed the new systems.
I’ve already played every good game from the last generation (like most people), so I don’t care about optimized versions of them. So what if God of War, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, or Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are amazing games made better by the use of the next-gen technology? They are ancient history now! And don’t even get me started on the lack of console exclusives; if a title releases on multiple platforms, my excitement level plummets. Games are art, and by definition, art is better and more important when it is accessible only to a limited audience. Letting everyone experience a piece of art only cheapens it.
Christopher Eccleston transformed Doctor Who forever. Sixteen years ago, the actor—headlining a bold reboot of the beloved British sci-fi classic that had been off screens for nearly a decade—presented a tortured, compassionate take on a Time Traveler without a home. Then, as quickly as we met him, he vanished,…
Chris Parnell reprises his role as investigative journalist Trip Westhaven and players reprise their role as Big Honkin’ Shark in Maneater: Truth Quest, a fresh batch of conspiracy-driven downloadable content coming to PlayStations, Xboxen, and PC this summer.
D3 Publisher announced the western release of its upcoming action game Earth Defense Force: World Brothers.
The game is coming to North America, Europe, and Asia on May 27, 2021.
It’ll include English voice acting and will come with the voxel graphics that we have already seen before its Japanese release last winter.
Below you can check out the announcement trailer and a bunch of screenshots.
Maneater, a game that in itself feels like an April Fool’s joke (in a good way), is getting its first story expansion this summer. Truth Quest picks up where the original game’s story left off and sees players unravel a dark military conspiracy.
Your bull shark hero protagonist returns as does journalist Trip Westhaven, who has been driven a bit mad since the events of the base campaign. He's on a mission to prove to his fans that the wacky shark abilities players put on display are the result of a massive government cover-up and falls down rabbit hole of conspiracies to do it. Truth Quest opens a new region of Port Clovis for players to explore and gives them a new bag of tricks as players once again eat and evolve their way through the plot.
Click here to watch embedded media
Chinese police have reportedly shut down a cheat seller in collaboration with publishers Tencent, arresting 10 people and seizing sports cars in the process. The operation, named Chicken Drumstick, sold subscriptions to cheats for games including Overwatch and Call Of Duty Mobile. The police claim this was the "world's biggest" cheat operation, though that's a tough one to quantify or verify. But hey, another cheatmonger shut down, that's good.
The first-person view minigame tasks you to clear a city from zombies and resurrected enemies.
The post Celebrate April Fools With Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan of the Dead appeared first on Siliconera.
Magic: The Gathering Arena is getting ready to host the Strixhaven expansion very soon, and it seems like it's going to shake up the meta pretty hard.
I mean at that point you'll have to deal with seven different sets in standard, including Strixhaven itself. Deckbuilding is going to be interesting! Or people will continue to use a lot of busted Eldraine and Ikoria cards in standard. Such is life! But before that happens on April 15 in Arena, there's card sleeves for the set that are already live.
In short, each sleeve represents the accompanying school for Strixhaven, and includes an image of one of their followers, as well as the seal of said school. As a reminder, you can input them inside of the game itself in the store.
Wondering where these are from? They're part of the official BuzzFeedy "what school are you" quiz on the official Wizards of the Coast site. But given that it asks for your personal info, you can just input the codes below and wash your hands of it all.
5 new sleeves already on MTGA [Reddit]
Microsoft has signed a contract with the US Army, worth up to $21.88bn, to deliver 120,000 custom Hololens augmented reality headsets.
The deal comes after a previous $480m contract in 2018 to develop prototype versions for the army, CNBC News reported. The IVAS (Integrated Visual Augmented System) concept used the headset's display to show map and thermal imaging systems, as well as the aim for a weapon.
That agreement was criticised by Microsoft employees in an open letter, in which staff said they "did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used". These concerns were dismissed by Microsoft boss CEO Satya Nadella, and the contract went ahead.
Certain Affinity has appointed industry veteran Dan Ayoub as VP of Canadian operations and general manager of its Toronto studio. ...
Earth Defense Force spin-off EDF: World Brothers will show up outside Japan in May, and there will even be a PC version.
The post EDF World Brothers Will Appear Everywhere in May appeared first on Siliconera.
Monster Hunter Rise released just last week, and serves as the direct successor to the very impressive Monster Hunter World that launched three years ago. Rise is made up of the same, core bones of gameplay that series fans will be very familiar with, but both games feel like different experiences as well.
We’re going to attempt to discuss both games in a few different categories and ultimately decide which is the better Monster Hunter game.
The newest chapter is now live in Behavior Interactive's asymmetrical survival horror title Dead by Daylight. The "All-Kill" event brings with it a new survivor, record producer Yun-Jin Lee, and the psychopathic, mass-murdering K-Pop megastar Ji-Woon, better known by his stage pseudonym of "Trickster."
Recounting the backstory from our previous report, Ji-Woon was part of a super-successful boy band, who were indirectly killed on account of his actions. Finding a taste for death gave him an appetite for art, Ji-Woon began abducting and murdering fans and industry pundits, recording their death throes as samples to be worked into the young star's music. Swiftly abandoned by his record label, Mightee-One, the now-reinvented "Trickster" is out at large and out for revenge.
Voxel soldiers battle the giant voxel insect aliens invading their voxel planet in Earth Defense Force: World Brothers. This colorful new take on the beloved budget shooter series is launching across all regions on May 27 for PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC.
Capcom is latching onto your love for the tall vampire like one of the oversized leeches from Resident Evil 0. In Resident Evil IX, Lady D is back to cause some trouble. Better yet, our favorite vampire (sorry Paul Rudd) is bigger than ever, and you won’t believe all the hats she’s going to wear. You can see her upcoming exploits in this month’s Game Infarcer.
Utawarerumono: ZAN 2 will feature a unique skill board system.
The post Utawarerumono: ZAN 2 Combat Details and Online Co-Op Revealed appeared first on Siliconera.
If you played the Pokemon Trading Card Game as a kid, you remember those classic backgrounds. You know, the plains, or the trees? The things that looked like they were straight out of Digital Blasphemy? Well, they kind of were! Or at least, something like it.
Twitter user Fanamel recently put out an incredible video that details their hunt for Pokemon card background art, and the results are astounding. According to them, the art comes from a series called "Datacraft Sozaijiten," which is allegedly "used in a lot of Japanese media and Nintendo games." It all just sort of came together over time: finding them on a stock photo site.
The comparisons are obvious, and even if you look directly at just the background out, Pokemon first edition fans will recognize them instantly. This is not only a blast from the past, but still extremely relevant! Pokemon cards are doing better than ever, as Wizards of the Coast just had their best financial report recently. The trading card market is really taking off due to the state of the world in the past year, and Pokemon is booming.
I'm always looking for more people to play kitchen table matches with! Hopefully Wizards of the Coast eventually gives this game the proper Magic: Arena treatment, with a modernization of the UI.
Fanamel [Twitter]
Final Fantasy XIV for PS5 boasts improved framerates, beautiful 4K resolution, incredibly fast loading times, haptic feedback features, and 3D audio. For those looking to take to the online world of Final Fantasy XIV on this generation, an open beta is dropping later this month.
Square Enix updated its EU blog to show fans how they can get in on the PS5 action. The Final Fantasy XIV PS5 open beta is set to arrive on Tuesday, April 13, and will be launching alongside the anticipated 5.5 patch update.
For those interested in trying out the open beta, there are a few steps you need to follow:
New content inspired by Digimon will appear in the Medabots mobile game, and vice versa.
The post Medabots Digimon April Fools Joke Became a Real Crossover appeared first on Siliconera.
Sony Pictures has announced that its upcoming big-screen adaptation of Capcom's Resident Evil will no longer meet its September 3 release date. The clunkily titled Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is now expected to launch in theaters on November 24.
While no reason was given for the movie's delay, the original release date would see the survival horror flick collide with Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. It would stand to reason that Sony is uncomfortable going up against any major comic-book movie, particularly after such an extended drought of MCU films. The new date does, however, mean that Resident Evil will miss the thematic Halloween season.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is a reboot of sorts, and is expected to follow the narrative, characters, and locations featured in the classic video game series a little closer than previous Resident Evil movies. Fans will see iconic heroes such as Chris & Claire Redfield, Jill Valentine, and Leon S. Kennedy in action, along with appearances from femme fatale Ada Wong, doomsday scientist William Birkin, Raccoon City police chief Brian Irons, and the series' long-time antagonist Albert Wesker.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City premieres in theaters November 24.
Planet Zoo is a deeply warm-hearted game. While it’s set up to give you as much freedom as possible in every aspect of your zoo’s design, it still steers you firmly towards being good to the animals which live there. Unlike Frontier’s other animal husbandry game, Jurassic World Evolution, where everyone knows the management layer is just a way of killing time until the inevitable monster deathmatches, Planet Zoo does absolutely nothing to signpost “nightmare animal supermax” as a valid playstyle. Personally, I think that’s a good decision.
But as I already mentioned, it puts a genuinely phenomenal range of construction tools at your disposal: if you can think of a habitat concept, the chances are you can build it. And inevitably, when a game gives me that much freedom to do my own thing, it’s only a matter of time before I move things into deeply unsettling territory. This week, I had Planet Zoo’s new Southeast Asia DLC pack to play with, featuring eight new beasts and a huge bundle of new construction assets. I made a new zoo, in sandbox mode. And while it was pleasant enough for the animals which lived in it, I did everything I could to inflict profound psychic damage on the visiting public. Come take a tour with me.
A lovely thing about sifting through heaps of text at your own pace is you get to luxuriate on the details and flourishes that catch your personal fancy. A drawback is that sometimes such fixation comes at the expense of pertinent detail. For example, in my previous runs of Disco Elysium, I think I may have gotten distracted by talk of tightrope walkers and hand grenades, and completely glossed over a line telling me that the game takes place in spring.
That's no longer an issue thanks to Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, a free update that adds voice acting to the game's dialogue.
Take a look at some of the characters that will appear in Utawarerumono: ZAN 2 through the opening movie.
The post Utawarerumono: ZAN 2 Opening Movie Released appeared first on Siliconera.
Fallout 76 is still happening, and it will be happening through at least the end of 2021. As a reminder Bethesda posted a road map, and there's plenty of things on the horizon. The recent AMA reconfirms it.
So what's new? Well, the development team explains that Expeditions are indeed "slipping" out of the roadmap for 2021, which soft confirms more work to be done in 2022: far longer than I ever expected this game to be supported. Expeditions are a new mechanic that allow players to "go outside of the current map," and the team is "very committed" to making them.
Another big takeaway is that mod support is being talked about for private servers in the fall. A "hint" involves server setting options and toggles, but this is "just the beginning." Unfortunately, it seems to be staying a "Fallout 1st" (subscription service) feature. New allies are coming too, as are new pets (different dogs at first, then cats, then they'll "go from there").
If you're keen for more PVP elements, "Q3" will have additional concessions for it, as well as "hardcore survival elements" on the aforementioned private servers. The alien threat later this year is reconfirmed (the Zetans), as are more shelter styles, more ceiling wallpapers (though those are "farther out"), and expanded social features. For the latter, "guilds, clans, text chat, and mail systems" were all specifically asked about in the AMA, and the team says "we're going to add new functionality." So maybe a mixture of that?
Either way, the info about private servers is huge, and could potentially change the game. If mods are truly allowed, the community may have the ability to fix Bethesda's sandbox for them. And it's at that point, a few years removed from launch, some people might be interested finally.
It's that time again.
We had a good run with a few brand new games, but now it's back to re-releases. Well, this one isn't quite the same! It's not a port of a six-month-old title that was released on every platform but Switch. No, it's Star Wars: Republic Commando, the 2005 classic; and one of many, many Star Wars re-releases. The force is strong with the brand, they'll never stop until the husk that is LucasArts (Lucasfilm Games) has a real-life money bin.
Alas, you can download it on April 6! And Breathedge is coming too to Switch on that same date. And a bunch of other stuff! You can read all about them below. You really have to give it to a title like "Press A to Party." I mean, I followed it to the listing! And that concept sounds pretty fun on Switch.
Call of Duty: Warzone appears to finally be getting its much-anticipated map change, but the news seems to have arrived a little earlier than intended: leaked footage of the map is currently circulating online, and Activision is battling to contain it.
The leak was first shared by Twitter account On Thin Ice, showing footage of a work-in-progress TV advert for the new map. According to VGC's sources, the new map is due to arrive in a live event on 22nd April, with nuclear warheads blowing up current-day Verdansk. Although the original video has been removed, multiple mirrors have popped up across social media, showing what appears to be an 80s-themed overhaul of Verdansk rather than an all-new location. It includes changes to various points of interest - adding an under-construction stadium and replacing the dam with a bridge - and generally giving Verdansk more of an '80s look.
While there's been no official confirmation from Activision, the publisher has been cracking down on the leak: at least one video has been taken down from YouTube, and news site Charlie Intel says it has received a DMCA notice from Activision.
A Resident Evil Village puppet show has been announced for "domestic" distribution
The post Resident Evil Village April Fool’s Announcements Include Puppet Show appeared first on Siliconera.
"There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, 'Fool me once, shame on... shame on you. Fool me... you can't get fooled again.'"
- George W. Bush.
PlatinumGames has announced that Sol Cresta, its April Fools' Day shmup from last year, is now actually in development for PS4, PC, and Nintendo Switch, and will launch at some point later in 2021 as the first release in the publisher's new "Neo-Classic Arcade" range.
Sol Cresta was revealed on April 1, 2020 as one of the Japanese developer's "Platinum4" announcements. Ostensibly a sequel to both 1980's Moon Cresta and 1985's Terra Cresta, Sol Cresta was supposedly a joint production between Platinum and the retro-loving Hamster corporation, before the former ultimately revealed that the title was merely a cute gag made in the spirit of the season.
Last month, Kotaku reported that yet another producer departed from the Japan Studio. And this month, we’re reporting that the exodus continues.
After rinsing the generous dollop of content that was the Outriders demo, I was left with a question: soldier on when the game comes out, or leave it there?
"I see potential in Outriders' endgame...," I wrote in March. "But it's just so... old-school, I'm not sure I'll be able to suffer it long enough to get to that point."
Yesterday, after downloading the full game on PlayStation 5 and picking up my Devastator where she left off at the end of the demo, I ventured forth from the brown sludge of Rift Town to see if Outriders got more interesting.
Police seized millions in assets, including luxury cars and cheat platforms.
The post China and Tencent Shutter ‘Biggest Ever’ Game Cheating Ring appeared first on Siliconera.
Going back to Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a treat. As is learning all the lingo that the community comes up with.
It was crazy playing it pre-launch in a complete bubble, talking to no one. Slowly but surely, after that embargo lifted, I saw people doing a lot of the same things I did. And very quickly, and completely unexpectedly, folks started sharing some crazy clips.
By the time the makeshift boat and airship clips hit, I was completely hooked at delving into the unknown oddities of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I don't just like chronicling them, I like trying them out for myself. This one, shared by Independent_Regular8 on Reddit, explains why.
The clip itself can be quickly summed up: a player glides through the air and shoots an explosive at a cave to uncover a shrine. But the term "wind bombing" is key here in terms of how great this video is. Did you know about it? The practice of leaping up into the air, selecting a bomb really quick, blasting yourself off into space, then gliding?
A lot of people are going to go "I know this already!" And some of you are going to have your minds blown.
Last year, Control developer Remedy announced it had signed a two-project publishing deal with Epic Games, and then re-introduced its fan favourite hero Alan Wake via Control's excellent second expansion, which wove the story of both games together as part of Remedy's wider narrative universe.
Was Wake being teed up to tease a full sequel to his Xbox 360 cult hit? After Epic's publishing deal was announced - for a big "AAA multiplatform game already in pre-production" and a "new, smaller-scale project set in the same franchise" - fans' hopes were high that Wake would also appear in one of these games.
Now, chatty but reliable Venturebeat journalist Jeff Grubb has announced via his Twitch he had heard "Alan Wake 2" was one of Remedy's Epic-funded projects.