Today Microsoft Flight Simulator developer Asobo released a development update including a new video focusing on VR.

We get to hear how the developer implemented virtual reality support in the popular simulator, and the confirmation that it’ll be implemented with the next large update on Dec. 22.

The update will also bring free liveries and real-time snow and icing all over the globe.

You can check it out below and see if tempts you to grab a headset to try immersive flight.

If you want to learn more about the game, you can read our review that will tell you everything you need to know about Asobo Studio’s game.

The Mandalorian on Disney+ is killing it. It feels like each episode released makes the show even better and now that the Star Wars spinoff is even easier to watch with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, that Mando love is at a new peak. To celebrate the show's success, Microsoft is teaming up with Lucasfilm Games to giveaway two special-edition The Mandalorian controllers for one lucky winner. 

Team Green took to Twitter to reveal the special designs, announcing the giveaway and letting fans know what they need to do to try to score this exclusive loot drop. The giveaway is live now and will run until December 28 at 7 PM PT: 

This is the way.

Follow @Xbox and RT with #TheMandalorianXboxSweepstakes for a chance to win controllers inspired by @TheMandalorian.

No purchase req. Open to residents of 50 US (+D.C.), 18+. Ends 7pm PT 12/28/20. Rules: https://t.co/D9Dbrd2Kty pic.twitter.com/gzFNW1CSQn

Epic Games are the Fortnite company, sure. But on the developer side of things, they’re the Unreal Engine company – and while Fortnite is obviously made using that base, the two rarely overlapped if you weren’t actively employed to work on the battle royale. Next year, however, Fortnite players will be able to spice up their creative maps with custom models, bespoke scripts and editable maps using Unreal’s toolset.

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Geno's finally in Smash! Final Fantasy VII and Super Mario RPG #SSBU Mii Fighter costumes are on the way. You can dress up as Aerith, Barret, and Tifa too!

The post Aerith, Tifa, Barret, and Geno Mii Fighter Costumes Are Heading to SSBU appeared first on Siliconera.

It’s been yet another long 24 hours for Twitch—the latest in what’s shaped up to be an agonizingly long year for the company (and also everybody on Earth). Yesterday afternoon, Twitch held a live town hall with the goal of illuminating recent policy changes and features around DMCAs, sexual harassment, ads, and other…

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Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai shared more details on the game's next DLC character, Final Fantasy VII's Sephiroth, during today's video presentation, but that wasn't all he discussed. Sakurai also revealed a new assortment of Mii Fighter costumes that are coming soon to the game.

Five more costumes are being added to Smash Bros. Ultimate next week, all of which are based on Square Enix characters, including three from Final Fantasy VII: Barret (Gunner), Tifa (Brawler), and Aerith (Swordfighter). On top of that, there's going to be a Chocobo Hat and a Gunner costume based on Geno from Super Mario RPG. Each costume will cost 75 cents.

As for Sephiroth, the new fighter joins the roster next week, on December 22, but you'll be able to unlock him a few days early if you can beat him during a limited-time event. He'll arrive alongside a new stage, music tracks, and Spirits. You can get the One-Winged Angel as part of the game's $30 Fighters Pass Vol. 2 or pick his character pack up individually for $6.

Top Pick: The Matrix (4K UHD Blu-ray) | $25 | Amazon

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The Outer Worlds co-director Tim Cain tells Gamasutra about the thinking behind the game's unique "flaw" system, and how its design entices players to develop their characters in an organic, non-linear manner. ...

The action movie makes fun of everything from sexist tropes to meathead heroes

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Assistant game director Joe Blackburn talks adding raid perks to non-raid weapons

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A new update for Sackboy: A Big Adventure, which should be available today to all PS4 & PS5 owners, will allow for online multiplayer for the first time. It will feature crossplay between both consoles.

Alongside the new update, developers Sumo Digital has released a new music video trailer to celebrate. Check out the trailer first, then we’ll go into a bit of the actual details of what you can expect.

The whole game will be playable now with up to three teammates which now includes new multiplayer exclusive “Teamwork Levels” that require friends to get through. There will be two Teamwork Levels in each world. Scores are earned as a team, not individually.

You’ll be able to mess with your friends (slap, grab and roll into them) and the developers are also adding co-op emotes that you can do with a friend.

In addition to all of the multiplayer additions, Sumo Digital has also added a cross-save feature that will work between PS4 and PS5 versions of the game.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure is available now on both PS4 and PS5.

Keep your pennies

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I’m sure we all have our fond memories of playing through Left 4 Dead and its brilliant sequel. But fun as they are, there’s no hiding the pair are getting on a bit, and it’s time enough something stepped in to carry on that co-op carnage*. Fortunately, Turtle Rock’s own Back 4 Blood entered closed alpha today, and while it’s not Left 4 Dead 3 by name, early reports suggest the devs have delivered a rock-solid successor to Bill and the gang’s zombie-smashing classic.

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Anna Megill--the lead writer of Control and narrative lead of Dishonored: Death of the Outsider--has moved over to Playground Games to spearhead Fable's writing team.

Megill shared the news on Twitter, announcing that she will be the project's lead writer. Megiil's due to make a move to the studio's stomping grounds in Leamington Spa, England, where she said she will "live in an English country cottage and write fairy tales."

Megill briefly touched on her relationship with the Fable series in a Twitter thread announcing her new position. "Fable holds a special place in my heart," Megill wrote. "It came out the year I started in [game development], and it's the first game I played with a developer's eye."

This year's all-remote Game Awards got a lot of attention. Receiving over 83 million livestreams last week, the annual award show increased 2019's 5.2 million livestreams by over 83%. Globally, 8.3 million viewers tuned in at peak time, an increase from 2019's 7.5 million viewers.

According to Stream Hatchet, live hours watched increased more than 129% across Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook Gaming. Over 2.63 million concurrent viewers tuned in at peak time on Twitch, doubling 2019's numbers. The number of YouTube viewers also reportedly doubled, but numbers were not disclosed.

Audience participation in both voting and tweeting increased during 2020's Game Awards. Vote count more than doubled from 2019 on The Game Awards' website and Bilibili in China. People on social media also discussed The Game Awards at a greater volume than in 2019. On Twitter, there was a 31% increase in conversation volume year over year and a growth of 65% unique authors.

Nintendo is giving away another free item pack for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. For a limited time, Switch Online subscribers can grab the free Spirit Board Challenge Pack 7, which includes an assortment of helpful items for the game's Spirit Board mode.

This particular pack contains items that will make it a little easier to battle tough Spirit Board foes. You'll receive the following:

• 3,000 Spirit Points
• 5 Rematch
• 5 Damage 50%
• 5 Weaken Minions
• 5 Health Drain

To claim the free item pack, select the Nintendo Switch Online icon from the system's dashboard and highlight Exclusive Offers on the left sidebar. You'll see the item pack listed among the other freebies. Alternatively, you can go into the Switch Online tab in the eShop and find the item pack listed there.

Today South Korean game developer ShiftUp released a few new screenshots, renders, and details of its upcoming game code-named “Project EVE.”

We get to hear about the techniques used by the studio to create lifelike characters and creatures directly by the studio’s CEO, the famous artist Hyung-tae Kim.

The studio utilizes high-density 3D scan and performance capture. Creature designers first sculpt characters out of clay by hand and then scan them to turn them into 3D models.

“Our process of 3D scanning ensures that characters in Project: Eve explode with distinct realism. We can not wait to share more details about what makes this game especially unique.”

You can check out the new images below, also showing the clay models mentioned above.

If you’re unfamiliar with ShiftUp, it’s the company behind the popular mobile game Destiny Child and its CEO is the popular artist Hyung-tae Kim, also known for his gorgeous character design in the Magna Carta series and in Blade & Souls.

This year's Game Awards, despite COVID-19 restrictions, ended up being the biggest showcase in its history, in terms of viewership, due to Geoff Keighley's evolving drive to take the show to new heights. From big-name celebrities like Tom Holland, Keanu Reeves, and Gal Gadot to out-of-the-blue surprises like the Mass Effect reveal, The Game Awards 2020 was a massive success. We sat down with host/producer Geoff Keighley to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes, especially during these unprecedented times. 

At the start of the year, the world saw the beginnings of a global pandemic. With each passing month, COVID-19 continued its spread, effectively changing daily life as we know it. Gaming thrived in comparison to other industries that struggled, but that doesn't mean that organizing this year's Game Awards was an easy feat.   

The Game Awards 2020 showcase broke even more records this year and had no shortage of surprise reveals and guests. We recently sat down with the man behind it all, Geoff Keighley, to learn more about what goes on behind the scenes of a showcase of this size and some of the backlash that comes along with it. 

The gaming community is never without controversy, and The Game Awards is not exempt from that. Last year, one conversation surrounding the showcase involved a perceived personal bias towards Death Stranding; this year, it's about The Last of Us Part II, both in terms of the awards it won and developer Naughty Dog's approach to crunch. 

When speaking with Keighley, I asked what he thought about the recent conversation centering on the Last of Us sequel and how the public may perceive its sweep as a "celebration of crunch."  

The Square Enix Switch sale has games from Final Fantasy, SaGa, Dragon Quest, Mana, and many more. Don't miss these great JRPGs!

The post Square Enix Switch Sale Discounts FFVII and Other RPGs appeared first on Siliconera.

Thursday’s Best Deals | Kinja Deals

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The One-Winged Angel comes to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate soon

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Today Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games released Alpha 3.12 to all backers, titled “Assault on Stanton.”

As usual, the new update brings plenty of new content and features to enjoy, including the framework for adding dynamic events within the universe, as the title certainly suggests.

You can check out the trailer below and find the patch notes here.

Among the features included in the patch are refinery decks in space stations, improved security response from the UEE Navy, gas clouds, the new Esperia Talon and Esperia Shrike ships, the portable tractor beam, new weapons and the ability to zero sniper rifles, environmental reworks for planets and moons, a new mining UI, eye-tracking support, and the aforementioned dynamic event functionality.

Just today we saw another spectacular cinematic short providing a good look at the developers’ ability to deliver high-quality storytelling.

Dragon Ball FighterZ has gone off the rails. I can understand, on some level, the thousands of Goku variations that make up its cast. I’ll even overlook the two Brolys, if only because both versions are so popular. But recent reports that the Arc System Works fighting game is getting Super Baby 2 are where I draw the…

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Wait, what? Epic have made some rather bold moves since setting up their own storefront – chasing exclusives by the dozen, firing at Steam with aggressively dev-friendly revenue shares, using Fortnite to take trillion-dollar tech companies to court. Now, they’re branching out of the games bubble, adding monolithic music streaming service Spotify to their platform earlier today.

No, really. It’s right there, just below Hyper Scape.

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In a year where movie theatres have closed down and our options for entertainment outside the home have dwindled, many people have opted to improve their home entertainment setups. Whether that's buying a new TV or improving a sound system, the home theater experience has been adopted by the masses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. But if you already have a great entertainment center, there are still a number of ways to spice things up in your living room. I've been testing the Hue Play HDMI Sync Box for the last few months, using it as a way to sync my Philips Hue lights with my games and movies, and I've found it to be a great way to enhance the experience of watching movies and playing certain games.

The Hue Play Sync Box is an HDMI splitter that features four HDMI-in ports and one HDMI-out port but can also be synced to any compatible Hue lights. That means you need the Sync Box, Hue lights, and a Hue Hub, the latter of which makes it possible for all of your Hue devices to communicate with each other. It's a lot to ask for in both setup and cost, but if you want a great lighting experience to accompany your movies and video games, this is an excellent way to get it.

Among Us is among everything now it seems. Okay that was bad, but you should know that the hit multiplayer game landed on Xbox Game Pass PC today after launching for Switch earlier this week. Among Us is also coming to the console version of Game Pass, but not until 2021.

The popular game tasks 4-10 players to work together to prep their spaceship for launch. The problem? One or more of the players is an imposter who must sabotage the mission by killing their crewmates without raising suspicion. The fun comes in working as a group to deduce the imposters, which often leads to hilarious (and sometimes heated) discussions filled with wild accusations and attempts at framing others. If the correct imposter(s) gets voted off, the crew wins. If imposters whittle down crewmembers to nothing, they walk away victorious. Make sure you have a sharp mind and a good poker face before gathering friends together for this one.  

The Valkyria Chronicles 4 Stadia port makes sense, because its nature and design direction are particularly well-suited for a streaming service.

The post Valkyria Chronicles 4 Is a Good Fit for Google Stadia appeared first on Siliconera.

If you haven’t already brought Baby Yoda/Grogu/The Child into your home for the holidays—whether in the form of a giant stuffed animal, a walking toy, or just obsessive rewatchings of The Mandalorian—there is another... option (to borrow Yoda’s dramatic phrasing from Return of the Jedi): Use your Android phone to drop…

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There have been a lot of harsh, dour video games this fall. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla centered on conquest and amputation. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War featured history’s most cynical dirtbag. Cyberpunk 2077 is Cyberpunk 2077. If it’s all been a lot to stomach, consider a change of pace: the delightful Call of the…

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The Callisto Protocol was announced at this year's Game Awards ceremony. Glen Schofield, the creator of Dead Space, is helming the project with his new development company, Striking Distance Studios. Concrete details about the game's narrative and mechanics haven't been revealed yet, but if the new red band trailer is any indication, it'll probably be just as terrifying as the Dead Space series.

In the trailer, a prisoner wakes up to find that his bunkmate has become some grotesque abomination. I'm sure you can guess what happens next: He gets brutally murdered - tentacles ripping through his eye sockets; the whole nine yards. Dead Space remains one of the scariest sci-fi franchises I've ever played, and The Callisto Protocol looks to keep Schofield's body horror tradition alive. The Callisto Protocol is slated for a 2022 release. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons, like previous entries in Nintendo’s popular simulation series, had always been intended to provide a relaxing escape from reality. After all, nothing says “getaway” like setting up shop on your own private island for all of your fun animal buddies to live on. In an unfortunate and amazing bit of timing, however, New Horizons’ arrival became more vital than ever by launching at the brink of COVID-19 lockdowns, giving a now-confined player base the perfect mental distraction. That’s not to say that serving as a great coping mechanism is the only reason we love New Horizons so much. Global pandemic or not, it’s one of the most charming, entertaining, and engrossing titles of 2020. 

But it’s available for Xbox Game Pass for PC subscribers right now

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The saga of Cyberpunk 2077 continues to move in new and unexpected directions as Sony has announced it is pulling the game from the PlayStation Store and will begin issuing refunds to people who purchased a copy directly from Sony. The announcement comes days after developer CD Projekt Red said it would offer refunds on PS4 and Xbox One without any clear direction on how unsatisfied buyers were supposed to go about getting their money back.

Sony originally told people looking for a refund to wait for a future patch but has now reversed course and is offering refunds to those who purchased the game through the PlayStation Store. Anyone interested in getting their money back can visit the Cyberpunk 2077 Refunds page and fill out the request form. While the game is no longer available on the PlayStation Store, anyone who bought it and wants to keep will still be able to access their purchase.

[Update: Since this post went live, the link to the refund request form has been removed from the Cyberpunk 2077 Refunds page. If you are interested in a refund, I suggest you contact the @AskPlayStation Twitter account as it seems to be assisting people.]

[Update #2: The link is back and working. Click it to claim.]

‘Tis the season for snowy weather, holiday parties, and drunk vikings. The latest update for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla adds a new holiday-themed event to the game and covers your settlement in snow. But while the new free update is a bit of festive fun, adding new armor and decorations, it’s also got some annoying…

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UPDATE: Raven Software has pulled the attack helicopter from Call of Duty: Warzone as a temporary fix for the invisibility glitch that has plagued the game since Season One went live.

The attack helicopter has been temporarily removed from both Warzone maps: Verdansk and Rebirth Island. It will return once the invisibility glitch reported below is fixed. Normal helicopters remain in the battle royale.

ORIGINAL STORY: Call of Duty: Warzone now has Black Ops Cold War integration, a new season, a fresh battle pass - and a game-breaking exploit.

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With the launch of PS5 and Xbox Series X now behind us, we’re turning our attention toward what we’ll be playing on our shiny new hardware — as well as last-gen consoles, Switch, and PC — in the months ahead. From flagship console exclusives like God of War: Ragnarok and Halo Infinite to third-party blockbusters like Far Cry 6 and Hogwarts Legacy, there’s a lot to look forward to in 2021.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

features some absolutely stunning weather. But as far as the ground’s concerned it’s always the height of summer, with even the northernmost parts of Scandinavia left remarkably snow-free. That changes with next Tuesday’s free update, which adds a sprinkling of snow, ice, and virtual reality goggles to the planet-sized flight ’em up.

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While Mojang continue to work on Minecraft‘s massive Caves & Cliffs update, the latest Java snapshot build has introduced its very best feature: axolotls. These adorable aquatic amphibians won’t be live in the main game until the update’s full launch in mid-2021, but folks on the bleeding edge can now befriend them. More like amfriendians.

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