A new PlayStation Blog interview with the FFVII Rebirth Producer Yoshinori Kitase and Creative Director Tetsuya Nomura discussed the fate and death of Aerith in both the original Final Fantasy VII and remake. However, it also doesn’t explain what will happen to her in this retelling.

When Kitase discussed what will happen with Aerith in the second part of the remake trilogy, he noted it is “one of the most important themes.” In a following comment, he also said “it was essential to keep the majority of the elements from the original game.” However, he also noted that the Whispers and other elements are designed to “shake up” events.

Here is Kitase’s full statements in Sony’s PlayStation Blog regarding what may happen to Aerith in FFVII Rebirth.

I bought Baldur's Gate 3 shortly after its release as a need than a want, when I was a year-and-half into my gender transition and hormone replacement therapy. Gender transition is not just an arduous journey of self-discovery, but also a profound and constant engagement with one’s own reality. I was desperate for some escapism, and Larian Studios’ much-anticipated new entry into the Baldur’s Gate fantasy RPG franchise offered the perfect rabbit hole to fall down.

As a child, my gaming habits were relatively stereotypical for a closeted girl: select female characters wherever possible, especially in RPGs. But the immersion almost always wears off. The trans inclusion in games like Dungeon Siege, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and others is effectively non-existent, and the result for transgender and transsexual players is a feeling that, even in fantasy worlds, we are invisible at best. Nocturne, a trans supporting character in Baldur's Gate III played by Abigail Thorn, has changed that experience for me. In an interview, Thorn shared some of her thoughts and experiences regarding Nocturne and trans representation in games.

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Videos of a cancelled Call Of Duty game from the early 2000s have surfaced on Xwitter, with the name "NX1". In the footage, you see classic CODisms like explosions and a first-person view of a character wearily making their way through a disaster. While the accounts sharing the videos are anonymous, a former Neversoft developer has stepped in to authenticate them and share a few details about the project, a "futuristic CoD game" that was in the works prior to the development of 2013's Call of Duty: Ghosts.

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Following a report by Video Game Chronicle, early access servers for the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League have been taken offline due to a bug that automatically completed the game the first time it was launched. Developer Rocksteady is performing maintenance and expects a delay of several hours before the game becomes available again. [Thanks, VGC!]

While the game is not set to launch until February 2, 2024, players who pre-ordered the deluxe edition would be able to enter a 72-hour early access period. Due to timezones and the launch schedule, New Zealand was the area this launched in first. However, players soon discovered that they had been awarded game completion status when they logged into it despite not having played before. The servers were taken offline soon afterwards.

You can find Rocksteady's official response below:

When a new console comes out, it’s often a hellish endeavor trying to get one in the first year. So, with the Switch 2 rumored to drop later this year, prospective buyers will be happy to know that Nintendo is reportedly looking to ensure that if you want a Switch successor, you can get one. Most new video game…

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Koei Tecmo confirmed that it will produce and release a Dead or Alive Xtreme Venus Vacation Marie Rose figure based on her "Steamy Venus" skin from Azur Lane. The figure will be part of the company's own figure brand KT model+.

Marie Rose was one of the characters included in the roster when Azur Lane had a crossover event with DOA Xtreme Venus Vacation in late 2020. Yostar later held a re-run of the collaboration in the iOS and Android mobile game between April 2023 and May 2023.

While the re-run event had the new additions of Tamaki and Luna as the main highlights, it also brought in "Steamy Venus" as a new optional purchasable skin for Marie Rose. This skin depicts the character in a hot spring with fully integrated Live2D animations and interactions when the player sets her as one of the home screen Secretaries.

Koei Tecmo's announcement tweet, which includes the image of the skin in question, is available right below via the official KT model+ social media account:

The surprise gaming hit of 2024 so far has undoubtedly been Pocket Pair’s Palworld. Storming the Steam charts and generating more than its fair share of social media discourse, the game has grown hugely popular in the weeks following its release.

As a fairly in-depth survival game, Palworld isn’t the easiest game for newcomers to dive into. With mountains of hard-to-find crafting materials and even more unique Pals to harness at your base, a few handy tips certainly wouldn’t go amiss. That’s exactly what users on the Palworld subreddit have done, pouring their expertise into a number of handy hints.

This week's DF Direct Weekly - perhaps inevitably - kicks off with extended discussion on the Palworld phenomenon, while much time is spent mulling over the Horizon Forbidden West PC features trailer Sony 'dropped' last week. However, what caught my eye in putting this piece together was our discussion on input lag in the wake of John's Tekken 8 coverage, where it emerged that Namco had delivered the most responsive Tekken game in the modern era. We don't focus too much on input lag, but really we should, especially as we enter the next era of graphics technology.

Put simply, input lag is usually defined as the time taken between input from the player on his device of choice and that input playing out on-screen. Typically, the longer the delay, the more noticeable it is and the less enjoyable a game can be to play. Basic methodology in measuring it - in basic terms at least - has not changed since 2009, when ex-Neversoft (now UFO debunker) Mick West posted an article where he measured input lag by using a 60fps camera pointed at both joypad and screen. By moving frame by frame, you can see the precise frame where input is made and then you simply count the frames until the result is visible on-screen.

HoYoVerse started the 4.5 Genshin Impact drip marketing, with the next new character in the game revealed to be Chiori. While she runs the Chioriya Boutique in Fontaine, she is originally from Inazuma. 

Chiori is a Geo character known as The Thundering Seamstress. Her splash art shows her wielding a sword, but it isn’t confirmed if this will be her weapon in the game yet. The initial announcement also noted her Constellation is called Cisoria. However, it doesn’t note if she will be a four-star or five-star unit.

Here’s a closer look at the full-body art for the 4.5 new Genshin Impact character Chiori. 

Amidst the recent flurry of information about Obsidian’s forthcoming RPG Avowed, one crucial morsel of information went under the radar. We learned that the first-person role-player would have lively combat, a classless main character exploring large, sprawling levels set in the same universe as Pillars of Eternity,…

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During the Dragon Ball Games Battle Hour January 2024 event, Dragon Ball Z Kakarot DLC 6 was revealed to be a Goku and Uub adventure. It is called “Goku’s Next Journey,” and it will launch in February 2024.

The initial video highlighting the add-on revealed what people can expect. The Dragon Ball Z Kakarot DLC 6 trailer begins with Goku and Kid Buu fighting, before even getting into the Uub reveal. It begins with Goku saying he wants to fight the opponent again after being reincarnated. It then shows Goku with his granddaughter Pan and family. He is heading to enter the world tournament to face a particular strong opponent. It’s then that Uub is reveal and we see Goku and him start to fight.

Bandai Namco has announced the Global console release date for the English version of Spy x Anya: Operation Memories. It will release the game for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch in Southeast Asia on June 27, 2024, and in the West on June 28, 2024.

Spy x Anya has been available in Japan on Nintendo Switch, which had a much earlier release date of December 21, 2023. Bandai Namco also announced that it will release the PlayStation versions in Japan on the same day as the Southeast Asian releases on June 27, 2024. It will only release physical PS5 copies in the country, as the PS4 version will only be available digitally.

Bandai Namco has also uploaded a new trailer to mark the global release date announcement:

Final Fantasy 6 is one of the most beloved Final Fantasy games in the series, so much so that even staff at Square Enix keep hassling series producer Yoshinori Kitase about when they're going to remake it and give it the full Final Fantasy 7 treatment. Alas, the prospect of such a project has had fresh water poured over it this weekend, with Kitase explaining that, given it's already taken them ten years to make Final Fantasy 7 Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (with a third entry to complete the trilogy yet to come), a Final Fantasy 6 remake would likely take twice as long as that to actually make. And you know what? I'm good, actually. The Final Fantasy 6 Pixel Remaster is good enough for me in this lifetime.

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Sunrise announced that the Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom movie grossed over 1 billion yen within the first three days of the film's release in Japan. A total of 634,182 people came to watch the movie in 353 theaters across the country from January 26, 2024, to January 28, 2024. The exact box office revenue recorded by the studio is 1,065,983,130 yen (~$7,204,050).

Sunrise has also published a new trailer to accompany the box office announcement. It features the new See-Saw song "Sarigiwa no Romantics." While the YouTube version is geo-restricted to Japan only, the trailer is readily watchable worldwide via X:

There’s a certain rarified echelon of video games that have birthed entire genres based on their innovation, and their fingerprints can still be spotted all over many games today. Super Mario Bros. defined the concept of a side-scrolling platformer, DOTA made the MOBA mainstream, and Doom is the benchmark for…

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In a conversation with Eurogamer's Bertie Purchie, game director Carrie Patel and gameplay director Gabe Paramo drilled down into some details on Obsidian's upcoming first-person fantasy RPG Avowed. Part of the Pillars Of Eternity universe, Avowed is set in a place called the Living Lands, an island continent with, I infer, very sedate night life, because Patel confirms you can't romance your companions.

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When times get tough and winter seems endless, just remember the wise words of many a mesh-back cap: keep on trucking. What welcome news, then, that yet another expansion is in the works for Euro Truck Simulator 2. The 'Nordic Horizons' expansion will offer new routes including through Finland's Lapland, Sweden's Norrland, and up through Norway all the way to the Arctic Ocean, with pretty things to admire ranging from bridges and tunnels to cute fishing villages and reindeer. That'll keep you trucking when daylight dips below six hours in Norway, though you might need to wait a few years for it.

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AMD's first Ryzen 8000 desktop processors are here: the $329/£309 8700G, $229/£219 8600G, $176/£169 8500G and OEM-only 8300G. These 4nm APUs look to be adaptations of the Ryzen 7040 laptop processors we tested late last year, with current-gen Zen 4 CPU cores and powerful RDNA 3 graphics capabilities. AMD sent us the top two chips, the Ryzen 7 8700G and Ryzen 5 8600G, which come with dedicated Ryzen AI hardware not afforded to the rest of the stack.

To get the measure of these new models, we've tested their performance both standalone (page two) and when paired with a discrete graphics card (pages three to five). On both counts, we've uncovered some impressive capabilities - which could make a Ryzen 8700G or 8600G a canny pick for straight-up entry-level gaming, media PCs or as a stop-gap solution while waiting for a next-generation graphics card.

Looking at the specs makes for fascinating reading. While the eight-core Ryzen 8700G and six-core 8600G are separated by a sizeable $100 MSRP gap, the two chips are surprisingly similar in most respects, with the 8700G boasting only 2MB of extra L2 cache (8MB vs 6MB), 100MHz higher rated boost speed (5.1GHz vs 5.0GHz) and a beefier Wraith Spire cooler versus the smaller Wraith Stealth provided with the 8600G. TDP, L3 cache size and AI performance are all the same. However, greater differences are evident in GPU performance, with the 8700G getting a more capable 12CU Radeon 780M graphics solution versus the 8600G's 8CU 760M.

Bandai Namco revealed more playable characters for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero. While the company listed 24 characters in this announcement, multiple versions of Goku and Vegeta throughout Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball Super will be appearing as separate characters. The Sparking Zero roster will also include unique variations, such as the gigantic Great Ape Vegeta that appeared in the early parts of Dragon Ball Z.

The list of newly announced characters in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is as follows:

Playable Goku Versions in Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero

1. DBZ early stage - Regular
2. DBZ middle stage - Regular
3. DBZ middle stage - Super Saiyan
4. DBZ late stage - Regular
5. DBZ late stage - Super Saiyan
6. DBZ late stage - Super Saiyan 2

Publisher Bandai Namco and developer Spike Chunsoft Co., Ltd. have revealed 24 fighters for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero, and they're all Goku and Vegeta. Unsurprisingly, considering Goku and Vegeta are the two main characters in the Dragon Ball Z saga (amongst others like Gohan, for example), Spike Chunsoft is giving players the chance to fight using their various forms. This includes Super Saiyan, Super Saiyan 2, Majin Vegeta, and more. 

Bandai Namco first revealed Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero at The Game Awards 2023 back in December, which is where it was confirmed that, despite the different name, this fighting game is the next Budokai Tenkaichi game in the storied series. We got our first glimpse of gameplay and Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero's flashy fights, but little else beyond that it's coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Now, thanks to this new trailer, we know of 24 new fighters, with a tease at a massive roster still to be revealed. 

Check out the new Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero trailer for yourself below: 

As you can see in the trailer above, there are plenty of Goku and Vegeta forms to fight as in the game. Here's the full list of fighters revealed: 

Some games can take forever to finish. Hours upon hours can be put into any given title, as players make their steady way to victory. When those credits ultimately roll, the sense of achievement can be a wonderful feeling.

But, this isn't the case with Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, at least right now. In fact, many are finding they have 'completed the game' even before they take their first step. This is thanks to an issue that has seen those already with their hands on the game logging in to find they have full story completion from the off.

Developer Rocksteady is aware of this unexpected narrative fast track, and is now in the process of sorting it all out.

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VR is at its best when it makes you feel like you're living in the actual future. Given how everything new and exciting ultimately becomes normal and mundane, this is perhaps an unfair expectation of technology that is now a decade old. Nonetheless, if you want me to sit with a shoebox pressed uncomfortably against my eyes for two hours like an ocular gom jabbar, then what's inside the shoebox better be pretty darned transformative.

Which is to say that LEGO Bricktales provided one of those moments. I was sat in my living room, with all its clutter visible through the Quest 3's coloured passthrough, and hovering above my table was a great big LEGO diorama of a jungle. All of it was rendered perfectly to scale, as if I could pick up the minifigs between my thumb and forefinger. Yet all of it was moving of its own accord, as if I'd somehow stumbled into a child's dream.

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Rocksteady and Warner's much-disparaged live service superhero snuff fantasy Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League goes into Deluxe-preorder-only early access today, Monday 29th January, at 9pm, or if you're from the UK or US east coast, Tuesday 30th January at 12am ET and 12 GMT. Non-Deluxe peons get to play it from Friday 2nd February. With just a handful of hours till the initial release we still don't have review code, which is generally a good sign that a publisher thinks the game in question is going to get a mild-to-severe kicking.

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Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth has become the series' most successful launch on Steam over its launch weekend.

Infinite Wealth continues the stories of protagonists Ichiban Kasuga and Kazuma Kiryu as they make their way to Hawaii, and since its release on 26th January has recorded a peak concurrent player count of 46,161 on Steam (recorded by SteamDB at time of writing).

This makes it by the far the biggest Steam launch for Like a Dragon. The next best Steam launch for the series was Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name which peaked at 13,737 during its launch weekend on 11th November.

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A new update for Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 will finally make Metal Gear Solid 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, and the bonus content compatible with Steam Deck.

As shared on the official Japanese Metal Gear social media account, Version 1.4.1 is available for the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 on Steam from today (29th January).

"The main changes are that MGS2, MGS3, and bonus content will now be compatible with Steam Deck," the account stated (via Google translate). It noted that other Metal Gear games are already compatible with Valve's portable PC.

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Fighting and fantasy fans are desperate to see Final Fantasy 7's Tifa in Tekken 8, so much so Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada acknowledged it.

Plenty of fans have noted how well suited Tifa would be to the fighting game series, but Harada's X (formerly Twitter) post about Rebirth and Tekken 8 booths being next to each other at the Taipei Game Show spurred on fan desires.

"All I'm gonna say... is what everyone else here is saying... but I'm gonna say it anyways... because 'Tifa Lockhart' would be absolutely INCREDIBLE if she made it into 'Tekken 8' this time Harada-San!!!," replied one fan.

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Edmund McMillen has discussed a potential Fortnite collaboration with Epic Games, the celebrated indie designer has said.

The maker of Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac, The End is Nigh and The Legend of Bum-bo confirmed in a post on X that he had chatted with the maker of Fortnite about a possible team-up in future.

It's unclear from McMillen's response how far talks have got, though it wouldn't be the first time Fortnite has collaborated with an indie developer on some form of crossover.

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Footage from a cancelled futuristic Call of Duty sci-fi game in development by Tony Hawk's studio Neversoft has leaked online.

The footage was spotted by Call of Duty insider account CharlieIntel, and seemingly comes from a cancelled Xbox 360-era Call of Duty game known as Future Warfare (or "NX1" internally). The game was originally in development at Neversoft, which was ultimately merged into Infinity Ward in 2014.

Confirming the footage as legitimate, former Neversoft developer Brian Bright said this cancelled Call of Duty release would have launched in place of Ghosts. "Neversoft pivoted from Guitar Hero to make a futuristic COD game," Bright wrote on X. "I believe this would have been in place of Ghosts, trying to remember. We had two to three campaign missions, and a bunch of [multiplayer] work done (I was lead MP on this) before cancellation."

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UPDATE 5pm UK: Sony has now confirmed its PlayStation State of Play broadcast this week, on Wednesday 31st January at 10pm UK time.

The show will last 40 minutes, and feature"guest appearances from some of the most talented minds in gaming", according to PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst. Expect your seasonal dose of Kojima, then, and perhaps a sighting of the lesser-spotted Ken Levine.

Stellar Blade and Rise of the Ronin are among the games set to be shown, alongside many more set to launch on PS5 and PSVR2 this year and beyond.

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Visions of Mana, Square Enix's forthcoming action-RPG, will reportedly release on Game Pass on day one.

The game was recently shown at the Xbox Developer Direct as a surprise feature and welcome indication of Square Enix supporting Microsoft's platforms.

According to Idle Sloth on X, formerly Twitter, a number of users have spotted references on the Xbox Store to the game arriving on Game Pass day one.

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Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, I'm wondering what we're going to do with RPS once the games industry realises there's no point making or releasing any other games after seeing the ability to parry-counter dialogue by shooting that. A problem for later. In the meantime, check out this wide spread of attractive and interesting indie games!

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Publisher Annapurna Interactive has announced a delay to the release of narrative adventure game Open Roads.

Open Roads was announced in December 2020, and was set to release on 22nd February.

The game will now be out on 28th March, which Annapurna said was to "ensure the most polished experience for players" in a statement sent to Eurogamer.

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Have you spotted the Killmonger dreads? They're everywhere these days. What started in Marvel's Black Panther film is now ubiquitous in gaming. And these dreads are not just on the heads of Miles Morales or Tekken's Eddy Gordo. They're in character creators too. The style began as fashion but has quickly become a stereotype.

Black players have noticed. "In general, we get stuck a lot of the time with the afro, the smaller afro, the buzz cut, or the gel braids going back, or nasty dreads that are symmetrical on either side. Or they all love the Killmonger dreads now," Twitch Ambassador and content creator Danielle Udogaranya (aka Ebonix) told me recently, all but ticking the same old options off on her fingers.

The Killmonger dreads are a striking example of how representation in these kinds of expressive tools urgently needs to move away from stereotypes. Character creators are a fascinating part of video game design where players decide how they look on screen, with opportunities for positive representation as well as negative reinforcement. When developers get this stuff right, players can see themselves in a video game and feel fully immersed. But when representation is poor or lacking, it can be a disaster.

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Gamers, non-gamers and those who Walk Between – lend me your ears, eyes and other sensory organs! It’s time for another week of new videogames and videogame news, as sponsored by that extradimensional terror known as the Maw. May our children forgive us.

Here are a few games releasing this week that we think could prove special: Mad Max-ish turn-based roguelike Outcast Tales: The First Journey (29th Jan), 1970s French detective sim Chronique des Silencieux (29th Jan), raunchy gay sci-fi visual novel The Symbiant Re:Union (29th Jan), Overcooked-style workplace comedy Speed Crew (31st Jan), swooping fantasy action-RPG epic Granblue Fantasy Relink (1st Feb), co-open world superhero murder party Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2nd Feb), gilded PS2 RPG remake Persona 3 Reload (2nd Feb).

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Palworld is in its Early Access phase, meaning players are more likely to experience bugs compared to fully released games. Here are the four best Palworld glitches that we've found so far, including some that can actually benefit your own gameplay.

No More Spoiled Food

Keeping your Pals happy and healthy in Palworld is a challenge, especially when food expires because its timer runs out. As shown by YouTuber Tuckie, there's a way to stop this by resetting the food timer infinitely. Simply put your food into any kind of chest or food storage container like the Feed Box or Cooler, and click on "Sort." This is really useful for keeping multiple Cakes on hand for breeding without them going to waste.

Gotta Catch 'Em All... Yes, Even Tower Bosses

The Like a Dragon (or as it was formerly known, Yakuza) series is roughly two decades old, spanning a total of nine mainline entries and several spin-offs. As the series has gained popularity internationally, players worldwide have had a chance to experience some of the most interesting characters the games have to offer. Below, we've provided a list of who we feel is the best character in the Like a Dragon (Yakuza) series!

Oh, it absolutely has to be Goro Majima. He's just such a hilarious figure, and it's amazing the range he has. The Mad Dog can be incredibly serious at times, but then we also have him popping out of garbage cans to ambush Kiryu-chan. I also will never forget his Yakuza: Dead Souls "Get to the Top" performance. — Jenni

The most obvious choice here is Kazuma Kiryu and Goro Majima. After all, there wouldn't be a Yakuza series without these two. However, despite playing the Yakuza franchise for over a decade now, I am going to pick Ichiban Kasuga from Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Infinite Wealth. When Like a Dragon was first announced, I was extremely skeptical about the series taking on a new protagonist. Plus Ichiban just looked goofy in that run-down suit that looked like it had been a holdover from the 80s.

Nexon has announced it is pulling the plug on its free-to-play PvP medieval fantasy game Warhaven just four months after it launched in early access.

Despite initial plans to launch the game in full later this year, Nexon has now revealed that rather than launching the game in early 2024, it's shutting down on 5th April, 2024.

"Today, we are here to announce with a heavy heart that we will be concluding the live services of Warhaven," the team announced on Steam earlier this week.

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Free "interactive study" Interaction Isn't Explicit is now available via the PlayStation Store.

Described as a "short, interactive study" by designer Frank L. Silva, Interaction Isn't Explicit "isn't a traditional game but a debate of different aspects of game design" that aims to explore the "pros and cons" of traditional mechanics and consider which ones are "essential for the language of computer games".

You can see the announcement trailer below, which shows how the interactive piece reflects on the ways we play games, and the visual languages we use to understand them:

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Palworld developer Pocketpair has apologised to fans affected by cheating in Palworld, admitting that "it is currently difficult to completely prevent all cheating".

In a statement posted to X/Twitter, the team confirmed that even though the monster-collecting game has barely been out a week, it has already received reports from players that they have encountered "cheating on official servers".

In a statement entitled "Regarding countermeasures against cheating on official servers", the team said: "Currently, some players have been confirmed to be cheating on the official server.

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Ironmace says a court has dismissed its former publisher Nexon's request for an injunction following the publisher's claim that Dark and Darker has been written with stolen code from a game the team had been developing for Nexon.

In a statement to players on its Discord server, an Ironmace developer – known as SDF – reported that a court has dismissed Nexon's injunction for "trade secret and copyright infringement", "thus rejecting the claims and suspicions that Dark & Darker was developed by using Nexon’s trade secrets and infringing on its copyrights".

The court also reportedly ruled that Dark and Darker's service "should not be suspended based on Nexon's claims and evidence alone", paving a potential return to Steam for the game.

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