I started this new generation of game consoles with the expectation that I would be playing most games on the PS5, like how I played most stuff on PS4 last gen. But nearly five months later, I’m spending most of my time on the Xbox Series X and now I feel bad, like I’m ignoring my PS5.
Last month, Paradox Entertainment announced that it fired Hardsuit Labs from continuing to work on the upcoming Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 game. This month, that studio is now facing mass layoffs.
The studio in Seattle has downsized tremendously following the news that Hardsuit will no longer be heading Bloodlines 2. A variety of roles were impacted, including the entire narrative team (as confirmed by Hardsuit's Samantha Wallschlaeger and Nicole Standford).
There are two new Fantasian trailers to watch, and each one shows off different elements of Mistwalker's upcoming Apple Arcade game.
The post Mistwalker Fantasian Trailers Look at Its Gameplay and Story appeared first on Siliconera.
Humble, that purveyor of assorted gaming grab bags, has just launched its latest Choice bundle and it's headlined by a pair of excellent PC games: supernatural shooter Control and sci-fi strategy spin-off XCOM: Chimera Squad.
It's worth pointing out that Remedy's Control is already available through Xbox Game Pass on PC, but picking it up through Humble Choice means you'll own it forever and not be at the mercy of Microsoft pulling it from the service on a whim. It looks stunning on PC, too.
Next to these two leading stars, the March Humble Choice bundle is rounded out with ten other games. This includes the likes of side-scrolling strategy gem Kingdom Two Crowns, pyrokinetic stealth platformer Wildfire and tech-infused fantasy RPG Elex. I've popped the full list below:
On Webtoons, lower-stakes stories are more than capable of keeping up with the big dogs of drama
Sony has pivoted quite a bit going into this generation, including going backwards compatible, more PC jumps for exclusives, and changes made to the ecosystem as a whole. Part of that change going forward includes the removal of movie and TV purchases and rentals from the PlayStation Store.
Vanessa Lee, head of video business at Sony Interactive Entertainment, took to the PlayStation Blog to provide the latest update on what's new. In an effort to "strive to provide the best entertainment experience for PlayStation fans," the team has decided that the continued evolution of the PlayStation Store has outgrown both film and television experiences. With so many subscription options available now, including the much-talked about Disney Plus service, the consumer need for movies and TV just isn't there like it has been in the past on PlayStation.
The post continues by saying that the store has seen immense growth through the years thanks to subscriptions and ad-based entertainment services but that Sony wants to focus its efforts on what players want the most: games. Because of this, movie and TV purchases, as well as the ability to rent, will be going away on August 31, 2021.
MLB The Show 21 is establishing several firsts for the franchise. Not only is it the first game in the Sony-developed baseball franchise to appear on Xbox platforms, but it is also the first game in the series to make the leap to the new-gen hardware. Today, the development team at Sony's San Diego Studio released a trailer showcasing the list of upgraded features that new-gen players will enjoy.
We already knew that MLB The Show 21 is coming to both current and last-gen consoles with cross-platform play, but the new trailer also gives us additional details of what to expect from the newer hardware. Those who have a compatible headset on PS5 can enjoy 3D Audio, while all PS5 owners will experience special DualSense controller features. Regardless of which new-gen console you play on, you'll experience 60 frames-per-second performance. But that's not all; in addition to the performance and fidelity boosts, players on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S also get to quite literally build a home for their dynasty in the new stadium creator.
If you'd like to see the new-gen version in action (plus see a couple of puppets, including one voiced by cover athlete Fernando Tatis Jr., in a very silly skit), check out the trailer below.
Click here to watch embedded media
Sony’s giving away the 2016 PlayStation 4 game
Earlier today, the MLB The Show Twitter account dropped some big news for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S owners who plan to pick up the latest edition of Sony’s baseball sim next month. MLB The Show 21 will run in 4K at 60fps on the latest Sony and Microsoft consoles.
But that’s not all they revealed today. A new trailer released by Sony San Diego this morning also detailed a few other features coming to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game.
Of course, this Sony-developed game will include all of the little PS5 bells and whistles that you might expect from a first-party title. That means MLB The Show 21 will have 3D Audio and DualSense support.
It’s not entirely clear what they mean by DualSense support, but this typically refers to the special features of the PS5 controller like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.
The big reveal at the end of the trailer shows off the addition of a stadium creator in MLB The Show 21. However, the text at the bottom of the video seems to indicate that this mode will only be available on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game.
You can check out the full MLB The Show 21 next-gen trailer down below.
Ever since Animal Crossing New Horizons released its Super Mario-themed items last month, fans of both franchises have been flocking back to their islands to deck out their characters and homes with plenty of Mario décor. The crossover has resulted in some super cute and creative creations, including a user that completely re-created Rainbow Road on their island.
Pokemon Sword and Shield players can claim another free item bundle for a limited time. As a reward for defeating a ton of Gigantamax Pikachu during the games' recent Max Raid event, The Pokemon Company is giving away a bundle of free Armorite and Dynite Ore, which are normally hard to get in the games.
The overarching goal of the event was to defeat 1 million Pikachu. If players could collectively hit that total, The Pokemon Company promised to give away 100 Armorite Ore and 100 Dynite Ore. Unfortunately, players fell a little short; only 874,808 Pikachu were ultimately defeated during the event. Although the goal wasn't met, The Pokemon Company is still distributing 87 of each ore to all players as a reward.
To claim the free items, simply open the Mystery Gift menu and select the Receive via Internet option. The free ore will be available until 11:59 PM UTC on March 14, so you'll need to claim it before then. Armorite and Dynite Ore can be used as currency for certain items and services in the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra, respectively.
That isn't the only freebie available right now. In celebration of the Pokemon series' 25th anniversary, Sword and Shield players can claim a free Pikachu for a limited time. What makes this Pikachu special is that it knows Sing, a move that it can't normally learn in the series. Players can also claim a free code for a Shiny Toxtricity at GameStop (US) and EB Games (Canada) stores.
In this 2019 GDC session, Heli Salomaa discusses the design process of creating costumes for the characters in Remedy Entertainment's Control. ...
Today Mistwalker released two new trailers of its upcoming JRPG Fantasian.
The game is a fairly classic turn-based JRPG with some twists set in a world creates with charming dioramas. Perhaps its most exciting selling point is that its creator is Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of the Final Fantasy franchise.
The music has also been composed by Nobuo Uematsu.
It’s coming at some point this year to Apple Arcade, and you can watch the trailers below alongside a few screenshots.
A new hotfix has hit Destiny 2 to fix a number of bugs, including incorrect rewards dropping from the Presage Exotic mission. Update 3.1.0.2 also undoes a previous nerf to Warlocks' Penumbral Blast and fixes a few issues with rewards from the Battlegrounds seasonal activity.
Bungie shared the complete patch notes for Update 3.1.0.2 on its blog, which mostly fix a lot of minor irritations. Players who dove into the Harbinger Exotic mission last season have been annoyed that several Triumphs associated with it were bugged, but this hotfix knocks out those issues--so you can now get Triumphs like "The Lightbringer" for finding all of a week's Penumbral Feathers in the mission, and "Birds of a Feather" for completing the mission with a fireteam of players using Hawkmoon.
Other fixed problems include players launching the Presage mission without its associated quests, which hampered their ability to make progress on them, and rewards not dropping from the mission when it was completed. Bungie also caught some problems with armor ornaments for various Exotic armor and weapons, and fixed the Ticuu's Divination Exotic catalyst, which wasn't progressing properly for some players.
Check out the full patch notes below.
Battlegrounds
A Dead by Daylight K-pop chapter with a new killer and survivor is on the way, with both characters now available to test in the PTB.
The post New Dead by Daylight Killer Is a K-pop Singer appeared first on Siliconera.
So Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade instantly shot up on my 2021 radar.
Yeah, some parts of it are a bummer, like the PS5-specific requirement. And not everyone has one of those! Seeing as they're basically unicorn pieces of hardware. But for those that do, we have more Final Fantasy VII Remake to enjoy sooner than later (whenever Part 2 decides to actually come out).
To that end, folks are champing at the bit for more Yuffie DLC info, and we got it. As spotted on Game Watch (via Nibel), the Yuffice DLC bit will take place across two chapters. Yuffie will also be able to use "ninja-like" abilities outside of combat, and she will be accompanied by her companion, Sonon; who is a "warrior who studied under Yuffie's father Godo."
Both of the latter factoids were intimated in the trailer, but it's nice to see it spelled out. The chapter part is especially useful, so we have our expectations in check when this actually launches later this year. For reference, the base game was roughly 18 chapters, though the length of those varied some.
FFVII Remake Intergrade [Game Watch via Nibel]
Xbox has picked up a new hire: a former journalist at the New York Times. Seth Schiesel, the video game critic for the newspaper's Culture section, is leaving his post there and at the new media company Protocol to join Xbox as the company's director of executive communications.
Schiesel had been a contributing New York Times writer for almost two decades, first joining the paper in 1996 as a business reporter. He transitioned to the Culture department in 2005, where he primarily wrote critiques and commentary about video games and their culture. He more recently was a contributing editor for Protocol, where he focused again on video games and their related industries. But before all of this, Schiesel wrote for The Boston Globe.
He now joins Xbox as its director of executive communications, believing "gamers are a force for good." On Twitter, where Schiesel announced the news, he said that he will "continue to extend the joy and community of gaming to people everywhere" in his new position at Xbox.
Xbox has been on a bit of a hiring spree. Across multiple of the company's studios in 2020, Xbox hired talents like former Crystal Dynamics and Naughty Dog alumni, a developer who worked on Battlefield V and Uncharted 4, and others.
Learn how the Monster Prom developers ignited their passionate fanbase at GDC Showcase! ...
Today Microsoft released a new update for Microsoft Flight Simulator as a hotfix to address issues introduced in the previous patch.
The main fixes solve an issue that caused flaps to generate too much lift and another that spawned a lot of stray taxi lights in airport scenery.
The photogrammetry for Southampton and Portsmouth (which was accidentally removed by the previous update) was also added back in.
The full patch notes can be found below.
General
Developer mode
The update requires launching the Microsoft Store client or Steam and downloading 1.03 gigabytes of data.
Recently, we published our massive interview with head of Microsoft Flight Simulator Jorg Neumann, who provided a lot of new info about the present and future of the sim.
Death Stranding's PC publisher 505 Games has announced a new arcade-style hunting game that adds in some survival elements for a new twist on the genre.
Open Country is in development at Funlabs, the Romanian studio that has been making hunting video games under the Cabela's license for 20 years.
Open Country puts you in the shoes of a "corporate worker drone" who wants to escape their mundane life and head out for a journey into the ... open country. Together with your dog, you trek into the wilderness and must hunt for food, and also use your weapons to defend yourself from the likes of bears and wolves.
The third-person open-world game has more than 30 missions to take part in to help level up your character to unlock better weapons and equipment.
The $15 game launches on the Epic Games Store and Steam for PC on May 18.
Fantasian’s miniature dioramas give the game a distinct visual style
The next Aliens game will be Aliens: Fireteam, a squad-based, third-person shooter with lots of Xenomorphs and Synthetics to fight.
The post Aliens: Fireteam Will Be a Third-Person, Team-based Shooter appeared first on Siliconera.
The Mario and Luigi costumes truly creep me out in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, to the point where I've avoided checking in with my island since the late-February update went out. Actually, no... I've just been too busy with Stardew Valley split-screen co-op hogging 100 percent of my Switch time lately.
If you're more interested in the Mushroom Kingdom items than the costumes, same – and there's a trick for the Warp Pipe that'll come in handy if you find yourself running back and forth all the time.
Well, "trick" is probably overselling it a bit. Players have taken to using the Warp Pipes (known in-game as "Pipes") as a way to quickly hop back home to deposit spare items or redecorate. All you need to do is find a spot in your home (or wherever you frequently travel) for the first Warp Pipe and then hang onto the other one. If you ever need to fast-travel, just pull out the secondary pipe right there and pop in.
Here's a demonstration from Reddit user VictoryRoles. Before you ask: yes, there's a loading screen.
Hironobu Sakaguchi told me that three years ago, he had the chance to replay Final Fantasy VI with some of his peers who worked on the game with him. He was the lead producer on that 27-year-old classic, which is often regarded as the best entry in the storied series. "It really brought me back and reminded me why I love the RPG genre so much," he said, thus, inspiring his latest project, Fantasian.
It's been almost two decades since Sakaguchi had been involved with Final Fantasy, but as the creator of the illustrious franchise, he's still trying to capture the spirit. "I went back to my roots into the pixel art era of RPGs and paid a lot of attention to that nostalgia element in the game's overall construction," Sakaguchi said when I asked him about how the past work of his development studio Mistwalker influenced Fantasian. However, he and the team aren't simply resting on the laurels and relying on our love of old-school RPGs.
When Fantasian was first revealed during the Apple Arcade premiere in March 2019, Sakaguchi was shown working with handmade dioramas--this is how in-game environments are made for Fantasian. The game boasts over 150 dioramas used for scenes, backdrops, interiors, and overworlds to explore, and even the objects and props in these environments were physically created.
The Sinking City developer Frogwares has publicly accused former publisher Nacon of pirating the Lovecraftian adventure game for its recent re-release on Steam, the arrival of which put the Ukrainian studio in the weird position of asking potential customers not to purchase its own game last week.
Fortnite is one of the biggest games in the world, and it appears that the game's Season 5 is set to end explosively. Leakers have uncovered evidence that suggests that Fortnite's Zero Point is about to go kaput.
In the below tweet, Fortnite leaker Mang0e says that it appears that the Zero Point will send out waves of destabilization over the next few weeks, as part of the buildup to Season 6. Apparently, the Zero Point will also disrupt in-game voice chat with strange sound effects, and it's possible that NPCs might even be teleported by the flickering Zero Point.
It appears the Zero Point will send out 4 "waves" of destabilization over the course of the following weeks for Season 6 build up. I expect these to act as "mini-events". pic.twitter.com/5o50DZ5fOb
— Mang0e | Fortnite Dataminer (@Mang0e_) March 2, 2021
Some new "cues" were added for teleporting NPC effects, potentially being teleported to wacky places by the zero point.
This should happen when interacting with them. pic.twitter.com/Dky31WFcAl
The Nintendo Switch port for Apex Legends has been a long time coming. It suffered from delays last year, but it’s finally set to launch next week, on Mar. 9. A gameplay trailer has just been released to build some excitement ahead of Apex Legends’ Switch debut.
Switch players will be joining the fight in the middle of Season 8. Plenty of players on other platforms have had a significant head start when it comes to leveling up the Battle Pass, so Respawn is providing a few boosts and rewards for newcomers.
All new Switch players will get the first 30 levels of the Battle Pass for free in Season 8, and they’ll also be earning double XP for the first two weeks after launch.
It’s also important to note that the game features crossplay between all platforms, but that can be turned off or adjusted in the menus.
Check out the gameplay trailer below to see what you have to look forward to with Apex Legends on the Nintendo Switch:
PlayStation Studios has shared some new details on MLB The Show 21, confirming that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X editions are capable of running at 4K/60fps and that they will have a new mode in the form of a stadium-creator.
These details were confirmed as part of the latest in PlayStation's bizarre Muppets-style video series featuring a puppet version of cover star Fernando Tatis Jr. and the "Coach."
The video also confirms that MLB The Show 21 will feature 3D audio and support for the DualSense controller's unique capabilities on PS5. It also states that to experience MLB The Show 21 at 60fps you will need a next-gen console.
The video caps off by providing a sneak peek at the stadium-creator mode that will only be available on next-gen consoles. The video doesn't provide any details, but it showcases how you can create a variety of different-looking stadiums with the mode. Presumably a deeper dive into the stadium-creator is coming later.
MLB The Show 21 launches on April 20 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, as well as PS4 and Xbox One, though people who buy a more expensive edition can start playing four days early.
Upcoming Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy will feature some customization options related to gender, according to a report by Bloomberg. It’s a step toward trans inclusion in a game mired in controversy, even if it still shows the limitations of video games’ handling of trans people.
Valorant’s next Act is finally upon us, and there’s a new trailer to build the hype as servers begin to go live over the next few hours. As you’d expect, the montage recaps all the new content coming to the game, from Astra the new Agent to some sexy skins with its latest battle pass.
The official patch notes for this latest update haven’t yet been released, though they should be coming in the next few hours. Of course, the big news is the arrival of Astra — check out her character introduction trailer if you haven’t yet already.
A new battle pass is also on the way with 50 new tiers to grind for, offering weapon skins, gun buddies, player cards, sprays, and Radianite points.
The big balancing changes we’re aware of ahead of the patch notes include changes to competitive play that allow a wider range of ranks to play together. There’s also a new system that punishes players for queue dodging and going AFK, too, but we’ll write a separate article recapping the full list of patch notes as and when we see them.
For now, here’s the new trailer:
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has outlined plans for an in-person trial that will require witnesses to travel to Northern California to answer questions before the court. ...
Create your own Chiral Network!
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