Among the madness and mayhem of this weekend's Devolver Direct presentation, one of the quieter announcements was the collaboration between the zany publisher and new indie studio Beans Team, an outfit created by two former Ubisoft developers.

Based in Toronto, Canada, Beans Team (or simply "Beans") was put together this year by Gabriela Salvatore and Dean Evans. Salvatore worked at Ubisoft for four years, performing game design, narrative writing, and motion capture production on titles such as open-world adventure Far Cry 5 and multiplayer battler For Honor. Evans previously worked at Ubisoft for a meaty 12 years, during which time he acted a designer on Splinter Cell: Conviction and, most interestingly, was the creative force behind wild Far Cry spin-off Blood Dragon.

"A lot of people have been complaining about the AAA business and the lack of risk-taking, that I'd be a total fucking hypocrite if I moved forward and didn't take any risks," said Evans in a previous interview with GamesIndustry.biz. "So fuck it, I think I might go out and set up my own studio and see where that goes."

Beans has already begun development on its first title for Devolver Digital, and is currently looking to hire programmers, artists, animators over on its delightfully old-school website. Given the hyper-kinetic tone of Far Cry: Blood Dragon, it seems like Beans and Devolver are already set to be a match made in heaven/hell (delete as applicable).

So, paid DLC - new levels, modes, etc - specifically those made for PC games on Steam. It's way better for devs than you think, and here's why! ...

LEGO has officially unveiled their next Nintendo themed set. Later this summer, you will be able to build your very own LEGO Nintendo Entertainment System.

The announcement comes after LEGO teased the set on Twitter on Monday with the message “Are you ready to play like never before?” along with a flashing silhouette of the set. This morning, the set was officially shown with a video.

The set includes 2,646 pieces in total. Included with the set is the Nintendo Entertainment System console with a controller, a Super Mario Bros. cartridge, and a retro TV with the game shown on it.

The NES console has authentic details in the design, such as a slot for a buildable Game Pak that includes a realistic locking function.

The retro TV even has a handle that you can move to make the screen scroll through a Mario level.

And that’s not all—the Nintendo Entertainment System LEGO set is designed to interact with the LEGO Super Mario sets that are launching separately later this summer. By placing the Mario block on top of the console, the TV will come to life to make sound, no batteries required.

Perhaps LEGO and Nintendo saw how popular an NES set would be through their Ideas program, especially since this year is the 35th anniversary of the console.

If you have your eye on this collector’s item, you’ll want to know that it will go on sale for $229.99 beginning on Aug. 1.

Greninja/Electabuzz Mega Construx | $20 | Amazon

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The official Corpse Party Twitter is letting everyone know that they're back.

The post Corpse Party Twitter Updates For the First Time in Three Years With An Ominous Message appeared first on Siliconera.

Google is back with another Stadia Connect: their quick and easy 15-ish minute stream format to occasionally update us on all things Stadia.

It's just as laid back as it was in the past, as Google kind of just dumped it all at once, without the need to slowly get through each announcement bit-by-bit. One of the new features shown off in the stream is "Click to Play," which allows you to click a link from a content creator to play (that's literally it). The previously $129.99 premiere edition kit has also been reduced to $99.99.

As for games coming to Stadia, Super Bomberman R Online was announced for the platform, which is coming "this autumn." Dead by Daylight is coming in September with exclusive "vote" features (the Twitch interaction stuff you've seen these past few years) and Serious Sam 4 still exists, and still doesn't have a date beyond a current August window. Outriders is re-confirmed for the platform, Sekiro and Outcasters are coming in the fall and the Hitman trilogy is arriving in the future. Hello Neighbor is slated for September and One Hand Clapping, a cute indie, was announced.

Official details on Lego and Nintendo’s 8-bit collaboration

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No, this isn't the Chucklefish simulator with witches and wizards (that's Witchbrook!), but the "witch sim" subgenre is definitely becoming a thing, if it wasn't already.

Developed by the cutely named Sunny Side Up, Little Witch in the Woods is an even indie-er affair than Chuckefish's micro-empire at this point, and deals with protagonist Ellie as she serves as an apprentice to a bonafide witch. 

It'll feature very simmy mechanics like exploration, reagent gathering, NPC growth and city development. It's due out next year on PC for sure, but is slated for PS4 and Switch as well. It was announced in mid-2019, but thanks to the new trailer below, we're getting an updated look at it.

Is this...a Kiki's Delivery Service game? I'm so in.

In Spider-Man, Peter Parker invented devices worn on his wrists known as web-shooters. Twitter user Tsukasa-3D invented his own shooters, but for shopping bags.

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The space-a-thon MMO, Eve Online is wrapping up its current invasion story arc that’s taken place over the last year or so. Those pesky Triglavians have been up to no good – first they invaded and now they’ve just gotten far too powerful, and it looks like it’s up to you to deal with them once and for all – or join them and assist said invasion, up to you really. The culmination of this story kicks off today, and with it comes a big makeover for the Abyssal Proving Grounds as well.

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As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has forced the cancellation of a huge string of industry events this year, publishers are finding ways to continue their annual traditions via online experiences. Case in point: Bethesda Softworks, who has announced that its annual event QuakeCon will, for the first time ever, be a digital-only affair.

QuakeCon at Home 2020 will take place from Friday, August 7 until Sunday, August 9 and will host a weekend of fun events and activities all over the world. The "Global Super Stream" will feature news, previews and chatter of various Bethesda products - including guest appearances from community members and superfans - while the QuakeCon Twitch Team will be playing games, chatting with the community, and raising money for a selection of charities. Registration for these games is expected to open soon.

For Pro-Play fans, the QuakeCon Pro League will culminate in the QuakeCon World Championships 2020. This event will see the 24 best players in the world challenge each other from the safety of their own homes in a day of hard-hitting action, with a grand prize pool of $150,000 up for grabs. The tournament will take place on Sunday, and can be watched live via the Global Super Stream.

It’s summertime. In Japan, right now, it’s the rainy season. Wherever you are, it might be hot and maybe even humid. So let’s stay inside and watch some anime!

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GOG are having a big sale celebrating French game devs and publishers this week, offering up to 90% off loads of games made in the region. Running from now until July 20th, that means big savings on the back catalogue of Focus Home Interactive, which includes games like A Plague Tale: Innocence, Vampyr, The Surge and Call Of Cthulhu, as well as tasty discounts off titles from Dishonored dev Arkane and loads more. Read on for our top deals picks.

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As we so recently learned, Crytek's Crysis Remastered project is coming to Switch, and only Switch, in the near future.

Although the previous PC, PS4 and Xbox One platforms are still in play the publisher deferred those editions to a later date, with the Switch port launching on July 23 for $30. So what does it look like? Well, we're finally able to get a glimpse at the Switch edition in the video below, thanks to a tweet from the official Crysis account.

The video showcases the "improved destructible environments and vegetation bending features," and boasts that gameplay was "captured directly from Nintendo Switch." I'm definitely going to need some hands-on accounts for this one, folks.

If your PC is in need of some new peripherals at the moment, then Amazon US have slashed up to 50% off a load of Razer gaming mice, headsets and keyboards today, including one of my current [cms-block] recommendations, the Razer Naga Trinity (pictured above), which is now down to $62. There are also big savings to be had on various models of Razer’s Blackwidow Elite and Blackwidow TE (tenkeyless) keyboards, their Kraken headsets, and you can also save $200 on their ultra slim Razer Blade Stealth 13 gaming laptop as well.

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A lot of people are going to describe Rocket Arena as “Quake meets Smash Bros”, and they will be accused of being lazy while also being 100% right. The concept and the name started as a Quake mod, after all, although it’s now it’s own separate thing published by Electronic Arts.

This modern incarnation is a 3v3 shooter, out now, with class abilities and rocket-based weapons that Sin somewhat disappointingly describes as “functionally much like regular guns”. You win by knocking your opponents out of the arena, rather than making them explode. Sin enjoyed doing this several weeks ago, though, and I think I probably will too. Even though my brain insists this should be free-to-play and it actually costs £25.

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City Connection is spoiling shmup fans with a marvelous array of genre classics, currently spilling out all over the Steam platform. Having released Samurai Aces III: Sengoku Cannon just yesterday, the publisher is already queuing up the great Psikyo release Dragon Blaze, which will launch on July 30.

Originally released in 2000, during the height of the shmup renaissance, Dragon Blaze is a fantasy-themed, vertically scrolling affair that allows one or two players to choose one of four brave dragon riders before taking to the skies for a bout of bullet-dodging mayhem. A fun feature allows the player to dismount their dragon for brief periods, with the mighty beast shooting ahead to deliver devastating, wave-clearing special attacks. Dragon Blaze is a visually splendid title, well worth checking out.

You can preview the arcade action in the video below, courtesy of YouTuber STG Archive:

The PC remaster of Halo 3 is another beautiful, robust polish job that shows just how well Bungie’s bombastic shooter series has aged. I recommend it heartily. Yes, it’s marred with some baffling narrative choices, bungled ally AI, and a few instances of phoned-in level design, of course. But then, in the immortal words of that astronaut meme, “always has been”. And at this point, the whole Halo experience is so firmly bound up in nostalgia, at least for me, that its flaws have long since become endearing quirks.

But as much as this is a good moment to talk about Halo 3, what with it being out today and all, I’ve realised this post is just as much about the Master Chief Collection, the compilation/launcher… thing which now contains the whole of the classic Halo trilogy, plus Reach. I’d assumed the MCC was basically an electric version of a cardboard box with games in it. But now my four favourite Haloes are in it, the MCC seems to have reached a critical mass, and I’ve had something of a revelation.

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Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro, director and writer of Deadly Premonition 2, has taken to Twitter to apologise for the handling of a transgender character in the game.

Following the release of Deadly Premonition 2 last week, players and reviewers criticised the way a transgender character had been depicted, with USgamer's Mathew Olson highlighting that the character was sometimes misgendered and deadnamed (using a transgender person's old name from before their transition).

"I realised by pointed out from friends, I might have hurt transgender people in my scenario," Suehiro said on Twitter (with the help of Google Translate). "It wasn't intentional. I am really sorry for that."

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Long-lost Ubisoft pirate game Skull & Bones is being reworked to offer a live game service, according to a new report.

Originally unveiled back at E3 2017 for release the following year, the repeatedly-delayed Skull & Bones is a spin-off from Assassin's Creed series' naval gameplay, developed by the same team at Ubisoft Singapore.

According to VGC, the game is now intended to tell an ongoing story influenced by the actions of its players, with a shifting cast of quests and characters and a greater emphasis on co-operative play.

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Throughout the past several years, Zelda: Breath of the Wild players have learned some hard lessons. Things like "don't get too close to dragons" or "don't play with rocks next to a family of wolves." Now, Reddit's brenrob has a lot of time to reflect on why you should never roam around any Zelda game with less than one heart left.

Sharing their recent conquest on reddit, brenrob noted that it took them "ages" to catch a specific bonus chest in a shrine: smaller micro-dungeons of sorts with various puzzles. But just as they are slowly reeling it in and dump their prize on the ground, the chest has a mind of its own, jumps out, and kills Link dead. It's straight out of Dark Souls: this is Mimic behavior.

For those who are curious, the scene is from the Champion's Ballad DLC, where you're tasked with a quarter of a heart until the challenge is completed. They had no choice!

13 years after its Xbox 360 debut, Halo 3 is finally out on PC. While the first two games came over from Xbox, the conclusion to Bungie’s first-person shooter trilogy stayed home. After 13 years, you’ll finally be able to see what became of Master Ian Chief. Did he, as he vowed at the end of Halo 2, finish this fight? You’ll have to play it to find out.

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It's the insidiousness of Spankles that bothers me at first.

It's a small thing at first, of course. It almost always is. Even before you breach Union City's walls, there's a kiosk giving away free cans of the stuff - actually, there's a lot of vending machines that give away the stuff. "Wow!", you think, dispensing a can for gratis for the first time. "A benevolent government that gives away free refreshments? I'm in!"

And then you'll spot another ad. And then another. The Spankles mascot - a nightmarish hybrid of Ronald McDonald and the terrifying clown from Poltergeist that haunted my early years - leers at you from... well, everywhere. You start pondering why there are advertisements at all given they're issuing cans for free, anyway. Later, you might realise the tagline - "Explodes your mind!" - is a tad sinister. You wonder why they're pushing it so hard. A health scanner will eventually recommend it, and that's when it becomes impossible to ignore the distant alarm bell chiming in the back of your head.

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For a while there, it looked like the future of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was on hold; or at a bitter end.

The unfortunately-named Tony Hawk 5 was a new low for the series, and left us hanging for nearly five years as we anxiously awaited the fate of this once-beloved franchise. Just a few months ago, Tony Hawk let us in on 2020's worst-kept secret: Vicarious Visions and Activision were creating a remaster of the first two games called Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2.

Due out in September on PC, PS4 and Xbox One, the revival bundles together the two classic entries, with tons of input from Hawk himself and several other skaters. Based on a statement he's made in the latest issue of Game Informer however, he doesn't want to stop there.

Speaking to the magazine, Hawk says "this is just the start...with that baseline we're hopefully going to be able to help remaster other titles, Pro Skater 3 and 4 even, and start to work on a new direction. That's ultimately the goal for me." Naturally, money talks (especially with Activision), so this project would have to sell before that happened.

Something tells me though that Vicarious Visions knows what they're doing and folks have been hungry for a "knock it out of the park good" Tony Hawk game since...THUG 2? Some would say THUG 1? So if the quality is there (and that "baseline" Hawk mentions is a workable physics system), the fanbase will follow.

Tony Hawk [Game Informer]

The last couple PUBG season updates have hinged upon fixing what was broken. In Season 7, PUBG Corp took a hard objective look at what was wrong with the snow-covered Vikendi map. It was the map players would insta-leave the lobby whenever they were randomly placed into it. After the Season 7 update, Vikendi is a much better experience, joining the ranks of Erangel and Karakin as maps most people actually want to play.

It's the same idea for Season 8, just more tropical than tundra. Sanhok is the obvious odd man out at this point and PUBG Corp is giving it a facelift. Update 8.1 represents a near-complete reworking of Sanhok, as most locations have been revamped with "extensive design and art upgrades." There are new locations too, like a tourism town labeled "Getaway" and a bootcamp called "Airfield."

The Sanhok Remaster brings some new and fun ideas into the fold too. The major addition is self-driving loot trucks that carry cargo around the roads of Sanhok. Putting damage into the trucks causes them to drop loot (it doesn't need to make sense), so players have to gauge the risk/reward of firing on a truck and giving away their location. Fully destroying a truck results in the best loot being dropped, including "confiscated weapons" which are the first PUBG firearms ever to come with attachments pre-installed.

It seems as though PUBG Corp is finally making good on the idea of fire traps too. Originally planned for an earlier update (and never really fully realized), players will be able to pour gas on the ground to ambush their enemies with a sudden inferno. Gas cans will be throwable items too, like giant molotov cocktails that need a single bullet to spark.

Sky: Children Of The Light, the social mobile game by Journey developers Thatgamecompany, has announced reaching a new milestone of 20 million downloads across Android and iOS, almost exactly a year on from launch.

Sky launched first to iOS on July 18 last year, and picked up Apple's iPhone Game of the Year award in its first six months. The game later came to Android in April 2020.

Thatgamecompany is marking a year of release with a week-long in-game anniversary celebration that started on July 13. The celebration opens up Sky's secret area, The Office, to all players--a zone usually exclusive to players who own the TGC Founders cape or Beta cape.

Popular mobile puzzle game Puzzle & Dragons is getting a fortnight-long crossover with Capcom's Devil May Cry franchise, with the event live now and running until July 26. The crossover features DMC characters including Dante, Nero, Trish, Lady, and more, and they'll help players navigate three all-new DMC-themed dungeons.

The crossover, similar to Puzzle & Dragon's Monster Hunter crossover, will see DMC characters available from the Egg Machine, including five 6-star characters and five 5-star characters. All players who log in to the event will get a free pull from the DMC-themed Egg Machine, with additional pulls able to be earned by playing the Devil May Cry Challenge Dungeon. The other event-specific dungeons include the Special Dungeon with five difficulty levels and the 3-player Multiplayer Dungeon.

Some of DMC's signature weapons will also be making an appearance, including Dante's sword Rebellion and dual pistols Ebony and Ivory, which will be available as Assist Evolution weapons.

Pre-order Far Cry 6 (PS4) | $60 | Amazon
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Death Squared, an indie co-op game that launched in 2017 and has had more success on Switch than on other systems, has gone on sale on the Switch Eshop several times since launch. In a new report by Nintendo Life, SMG Studios CEO Ashley Ringrose has discussed how discounts have impacted the games sales, and has drawn an unexpected correlation between the game's availability on another system and its sales on Switch.

As you might expect, the game's biggest sales came when the price was discounted by 90%, but big discounts weren't the only sales driver. The game joined Xbox Game Pass in February 2020, and Ringrose attributes this with a rise in Switch sales.

Ringrose says that they've seen a slight increase since the game went to Xbox's service, which he think is because, while not everyone has an Xbox, "many people have a friend who does," and have likely discovered it while gaming with them. "You get more coverage and mentions organically now as more people have access to the game," he says.

Call Of Duty: Mobile has launched its new season, The Forge, with a heap of new rewards for both free and premium players. The brand new Juggernaut game mode is also live this week, along with the classic Highrise map from Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The Forge Battle Pass operates the same as previous seasons, with a free and a premium stream. The free stream will unlock the brand new DR-H assault rifle at tier 21, as well as the new Shrapnel perk. The premium stream will unlock new characters including the Wrecker skin for Tank Dempsey at tier 1 and Krueger's Reaper skin at tier 50.

The new game mode for COD: Mobile is Juggernaut--a 1v5 mode where a squad of soldiers faces off against the high-tech XS1 Goliath. The asymmetrical multiplayer mode sees one player take control of the overpowered Goliath fighting machine against five other players.

The Last of Us Part II's lead animator, Jeremy Yates, has shared another neat behind-the-scenes video showcasing how Naughty Dog captured footage of real-world animals for the game.

In this newest video, Yates shows off a recording session for the horse sequences. Naughty Dog brought in real horses and built a special stage, featuring a lot of rubber mats, to have the horses run around on. In this video, we see one of the horses vaulting over an obstacle and another galloping through the stage. Take a look for yourself:

Another picture shows Ellie actress Ashley Johnson and Dina actress Shannon Woodward riding a horse-shaped rig for additional motion capture. The rig was set up to look like a unicorn.

It's a big day for Halo fans. 13 years after the release of Halo 3 for Xbox 360 on September 24, 2007, Microsoft has finally brought the game to PC. Additionally, the big Season 2 update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection has arrived for both PC and Xbox One.

You can get Halo 3 right now on Steam for $10 USD, or you can buy it through The Master Chief Collection for $40 USD. Halo's community director, Brian Jarrard, said Microsoft released the game and the update a little bit early, so you might experience some issues before the "official" launch on July 14.

The big Season 2 update for MCC is 23.4 GB on Xbox One, and you can see the complete patch notes below, as posted by Microsoft. MCC owners on the Microsoft Store and Game Pass for PC will see a 20.84 GB update, while people who have MCC on Steam will have a 17.6 GB update.

Ninjala released as a Switch exclusive on June 24, and since then a lot of people have downloaded it. The game, which is free-to-play, has been downloaded over 3 million times, developer GungHo Online Entertainment has revealed.

To celebrate, every player is being given 100 Jala, the game's currency. As part of the game's launch celebration, every new player who logs in before August 26 will be able to claim these Jala, on top of the other launch benefits previously offered--so if you jump in for the first time today, you'll automatically get 400 Jala.

To claim this Jala, you need to load up the game and progress beyond the character creation screen and tutorial. Once you reach the main menu, you can claim it from your in-game mail. 100 Jala can be exchanged for a single gumball, although if you wait and save up, it's likely that more Jala will be handed out as the game continues to amass downloads.

The Nintendo Switch has received yet another system update, but it's not a big one. This update, 10.1.0, has made a change to the first decimal instead of the second, but that doesn't indicate anything major has changed.

As per Nintendo Support, Update 10.1.0's change log contains a single sentence, and it's one that Switch fans are well acquainted with. Here's what it includes:

• General system stability improvements to enhance the user's experience.

In June, the Switch received an update that actually identified and solved a specific issue--10.0.4 fixed a serious credit card issue. Update 10.0.0 was the most recent major patch, and it introduced control remapping, easier data transfers, and new user icons.