It's a wonderful thought to picture new players falling in love with the Yakuza series on Xbox One.

The next game on the list, Yakuza Kiwami 2, is a major milestone – and it's launching real soon. Sega is bringing Yakuza Kiwami 2 to Xbox One, Windows 10, and Xbox Game Pass on July 30, 2020.

If you aren't going the subscription route, you can buy the game for $19.99.

The story – a tale of impending "all-out war," eternally retold – kept my attention the whole way through with a compelling antagonist (the fun-to-hate Dragon of Kansai, Ryuji Goda). The more modern Dragon Engine took me a bit, but once it clicked, I felt even more immersed in this wacky underworld.

If you missed this dramatic, silly, endearing-as-hell street-brawling saga in its original form and you've only recently gotten into the series starting with Yakuza 0, hang in there and pace yourself. Everyone has their personal ranking and every game has pros and cons (especially when we're talking about the remakes), but I'll say this much: Yakuza Kiwami 2 is an all-around better package than Kiwami 1.

How many games let you deck a tiger in the face mid-jump? Not nearly enough.

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Fans love leaves in hair, tattoos, and other small tweaks

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Microsoft Flight Simulator

has been cleared for takeoff. The giant simulated world of planes will launch on August 18th. Microsoft have released a new trailer and some information about what’s included in the three differently-priced versions of the game.

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It turns out Call of Duty: Warzone cheaters can headshot new player spawns out of the sky.

Warzone cheating is one again a hot topic within the Call of Duty community after a recent unannounced banwave ended up with some innocents caught in the crossfire.

Despite developer Infinity Ward's best efforts, cheating in the mega-popular battle royale is still significant enough for it to appear often in Call of Duty subreddits, on social media, and during high-profile players' livestreams.

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Yakuza hero Kazuma Kiryu is about to go to Osaka on new platforms soon with the Xbox release of Yakuza Kiwami 2.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 is the remake of Yakuza 2, originally launched in 2006 in Japan for PS2. It’s also arguably the best Yakuza game ever made (and I’ll fight you for it), so it’s definitely a great chance for players on Microsoft’s platforms to experience it.

It’ll launch for Xbox One, Windows 10, and Xbox Game Pass on July 30.

The game uses the latest engine created from the franchise (Yakuza 6’s Dragon Engine), which also means that it looks a lot better compared to the first Kiwami, which was developed on an older engine.

You can read a list of features below, in case you’re unfamiliar with the game.

I’ve only ever played bits and pieces of the Half-Life games, but it’s been a delight learning the ins and outs of their creation from Half-Life: Alyx – Final Hours. It’s a multimedia documentary on all things Valve – their (many) cancelled games, a close look at life during Alyx’s development, and the ups and downs the developers went through in making sure Half-Life returned in the best way possible. I’ve pulled out some of my favourite snippets of info from the doc, so read on to hear all about Alyx’s invisible headcrab, and why I now believe that G-Man’s actor might actually be G-Man in real life.

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If you’re looking to build a team to stop people hacking your game, why not reach out to the people who are trying to hack your game? That’s an idea Riot Games had with Valorant and League Of Legends, hiding a little recruitment message inside part of their anti-cheat system. If you’re poking around in their gameguts, they might be interested in your skills.

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Asus have shaved over £140 off some of their [cms-block]s in the UK at the moment, making it a good time to pick up one of their RGB-laden gaming screens. Indeed, there are four such gaming monitors on sale at various retailers at the moment, with two ultrawide mega screens and two of their 165Hz, 2560×1440 displays discounted to some of their lowest prices ever. The cheapest one can be had for as little as £319, too, which is really quite the bargain after months of stock shortages and inflated prices.

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The Ghost of Tsushima launch trailer has appeared, and it shows the different tactics Jin can use while fighting to protect his home.

The post Ghost of Tsushima Launch Trailer Shows Jin in Action appeared first on Siliconera.

Lord Jin Sakai’s quest to repel the Mongol invasion of his beloved homeland is teed up in wonderfully dramatic fashion today in Ghost of Tsushima’s launch trailer. The sequence teases its combat, exploration, and story beats in cinematic fashion to dial up the hype ahead of its launch later this week.

It will mark the release of developer Sucker Punch Production’s first new IP in more than a decade following the success of its InFamous series. Drawing on its experience crafting open worlds for that celebrated franchise, the team has now crafted a beautiful Japanese sandbox for players to live out their Samurai power fantasy.

Fans of the genre will be quick to spot the nods to Akira Kurosawa’s many Samurai movies, many of which inspired the cinematic techniques used in Ghost of Tsushima. Features like the colorful and constantly moving foliage, the sword dueling encounters, and various crossfades and transitions used in polar samurai films are just a few examples.

If you’re interested in watching another impressive launch trailer for the game, a Japanese trailer was uploaded last week that has been composed to appear like a classic samurai film. It’s well worth a look.

Hideo Kojima’s latest labor of love Death Stranding is finally launching on PC tomorrow, and today 505 Games released its launch trailer.

The video showcases the game’s gorgeous visuals and its characters alongside some of the features coming with the PC version.

This also includes the content coming in collaboration with Valve’s Half-Life series.

You can watch it below. 

If you want to read more about Death Stranding’s PC version, you can check out our impressions.

The game is already available on PS4, and if you’d like to know what we thought about it, you can read our extensive review.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, you can read an official description below.

“From legendary game creator Hideo Kojima comes an all-new, genre-defying experience.

This collaboration adds both major and minor characters to the mobile game. You can even get the DMC Motorhome!

The post Devil May Cry Puzzle & Dragons Event Brings Almost Every Major Character to the Game appeared first on Siliconera.

I have watched the Far Cry 6 "Pull the pin but hold the handle" grenade trailer a few times now, and I am confident stating that I'm officially keyed up for this game. Far Cry is a series that goes as its villains do, and Giancarlo Esposito has the chops to be an all-timer. Hell, he already does it on TV.

But there's a lot more to be excited about and these screenshots highlight it all. This will be the first Far Cry that prominently features urban scenarios. That's kinda weird, right?! Every other Far Cry game is an excuse to trek through the wilderness, whether that be a jungle or the Himalayans or the Montana countryside. Actually fighting inside a city -- not just an outpost but a proper city -- is going to feel borderline antithetical to Far Cry. It'll be a big change.

Also, modeling the setting after Cuba is an inspired choice. It has those Far Cry 3 tropical vibes while also depicting a country that's technologically stuck in the 50s and 60s because of the trade embargo. We don't know when Far Cry 6 takes place, but it's crazy seeing those old cars with all the sharp angles.

Last but not least, we have a wheelchair-bound Dachshund. His name is Chorizo and Ubisoft says he's "as cute as he is lethal." I have a hard time buying it -- but in for a penny, in for a pound. Chorizo the deadly cuddle monster.

Check out all the screenshots in the gallery below. It'll help pass the time while waiting for Esposito's next captivating monologue.

Former Ubisoft developers Gabriela Salvatore and Dean Evans have quietly established a new studio called Beans. ...

Ready to take to the skies? The latest and greatest iteration of Microsoft Flight Simulator arrives on PC August 18. If you're just looking for the standard version of the game, that will be available on Xbox Game Pass for PC on launch day. However, Microsoft Flight Simulator comes with three different price points, with the bigger and better editions having more airports and more plane choices.

Standard edition gets you 20 different planes and 30 airports for $59.99 (Or an active game pass subscription). From there, the Deluxe Edition comes with five more planes and five more airports for $30 more at $89.99. The Premium Deluxe edition will run you $119.99, but is the only way to get some of the elite airports, like Denver International Airport, SFO, Heathrow, and more. Several awesome plane choices are also locked behind the premium edition, such as the SR22, Shock Ultra, and the 787-10 Dreamliner. See the handy charts below for details. You can read more about the upcoming release over on the official site.

As far as we can tell, the three-day arts and EDM camping retreat “In My Elements” proceeded as planned this weekend. Ticket buyers were promised a dreamy open-air tea ceremony, a hidden “Air Stage,” yoga in the “wellnest,” a sunrise over a lake—and also, two rounds of covid-19 tests and a team of paramedics. The…

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The show returns on Netflix

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Lin-Manuel Miranda’s super-popular musical, Hamilton, launched on Disney+ last week for subscribers and the internet will not shut up about how good it is, especially the music. And of course, an Animal Crossing player has begun to recreate every major song from the broadway musical and it’s awesome.

We recently reported on another Animal Crossing player that was recreating Hamilton songs, but those were images for each song and not full blown videos like this.

Guitar_Knight14 on YouTube released an Animal Crossing version of Alexander Hamilton late last month as a way to merge two of their favorite things in life. It also came at a good time, since the musical would be debuting on Disney+ for the first time.

And since that first video did so well, Guitar_Knight14 has started to do other songs too, like Aaron Burr, Sir, and My Shot. They plan on doing other songs too, but they mentioned that it can take a lot of time to get these shots done right, so the wait will be long, but I can already tell that it’ll be worth it.

You can watch the three songs that I mentioned down below and also, Raymond plays Hamilton which is just perfect.

It looks pretty good

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There’s just four weeks to go now until Horizon Zero Dawn does a massive electric roar and charges towards us through our PC screens, and as RPS’ resident HZD obsessive, I’m excited. And to my own surprise, possibly the thing I’m most excited about is the chance to just drink in the look of the game again. In fact, no. I don’t want to drink it in at all. I want to chug it down as if it were a protein shake, and my eyes were a pair of totally shredded bros.

Possibly because I’ve spent most of my life with PCs some way behind the curve in terms of hardware, I’ve never been that bothered about how games look. But Horizon Zero Dawn is an exception. It looked a couple of years ahead of its time even in 2017 on PS4, and if Katharine’s experimentation with Death Stranding (which uses the same engine) are anything to go by, HZD’s PC port is going to absolutely batter us aesthetically. With this in mind, then, I thought I’d take you on a little sightseeing trip through some of the things I’m most excited to behold with new, muscly eyes.

Emotional, bleak, and one of the most truly unique games in the AAA space, Death Stranding is as evocative as it is divisive. The PC version is the definitive way to experience Hideo Kojima’s grim opus, but it won’t convert players who bounced off of the original PS4 release.

A truly impressive port, Death Stranding on PC looks and performs better than ever, and the increased visual fidelity and a higher frame rate combine to take an already great game to new and dizzying heights. PC players have had to wait seven long months for the release of this version, and I’m happy to report that that patience has been rewarded.

Key additions to the PC release include crossover content from both the Portal and Half-Life franchises, which takes the form of new quests that are interesting enough in their own right and also reward players with in-game cosmetic items from that universe. Now you can complete deliveries while wearing a gruesome Headcrab hat so that your dreams can instead always be nightmares forever.

In a surprising turn of events, Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II has been knocked off of the top of the UK Charts by F1 2020. As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, the latest entry in Codemasters' annual Formula 1 racing series saw its biggest launch since 2017, with physical sales up over 20% of previous series entry F1 2019.

While not perhaps the most globally successful of sporting franchises, the F1 series is particularly popular in the UK, enough so to knock the mega-selling Last of Us sequel of its perch, for now at any rate. Naughty Dog's grim third-person adventure now sits at number three, just behind Nintendo's cutesy life-sim Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Elsewhere in the charts, Harvest Moon remake Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town debuted at a disappointing number 21. The niche farming title caters to a small-but-devoted fan following, and will likely see the majority of its sales through the Nintendo eShop. The UK has also reignited its love for Crash Bandicoot, as Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy hits the Top Ten once again, bouncing from number 18 to number 10.

This week sees the launch of Sony's samurai epic Ghost of Tsushima, which seems almost guaranteed to take the top spot come Monday. For now, however, the day belongs to Codemasters.

Previously a Sony PlayStation 4 exclusive, Kojima Productions' Death Stranding arrives tomorrow on PC - and it's a port that we can recommend without hesitation. While there's limited scalability beyond PS4 in terms of visual features, performance is exemplary - but what's really exciting is that this is a game that's quite unlike anything else on PC. Known for its state-of-the-art, industry-leading character rendering and beautiful environments and effects, Death Stranding is stunning on PC. As a first taste of what the Decima Engine can deliver outside the bounds set by the PlayStation 4 platform, it's astonishing. Not only that, but the PC edition also delivers the horsepower for Kojima Productions to deliver the game the way it was originally intended.

Asked what kind of scalability the PC port offers over the PS4 original, Kojima Productions technical director Akio Sakamoto is emphatic: "High frame-rate for sure! As we had originally designed the game in 60fps, this is a feature that I must say out loud! Of course, it is not locked to 60fps, and according to your hardware, it can go much higher." Based on our hands-on experience with the game, the studio more than delivers - and in ways that we didn't expect. Upon loading up the game, the first surprise is that we have a Sony-developed engine running on PC under a Microsoft graphics API: DirectX 12. Bearing in mind that older PC Decima engine revisions (for development purposes) ran under OpenGL, we fully expected Vulkan as the API of choice.

This week, Ghost of Tsushima releases. This is one of the last big PS4 exclusives left before the PS5 comes out.

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Remember Babylon’s Fall by PlatinumGames and Square Enix? We finally hear something about it, even if it’s just the promise that development is going well.

Both the developer and the publisher have kept footage and details about the game close to their chest, so we don’t yet know much about it.

Yet, according to an announcement made today on Twitter, development is going well but the wording seems to indicate that the information previously planned for this summer will have to come at a later date.

You can check out the announcement below. The Japanese version of the announcement mentions specifically that the developers “would like to wait a bit” before they provide further news.

We haven't seen Babylon's Fall in a while, but Square Enix and PlatinumGames say things are going well and developers are working from home.

The post Babylon’s Fall Development ‘Is Continuing to Progress Well’ appeared first on Siliconera.

On Friday Hasbro launched a crowdfunding campaign for one of the most requested big-budget X-Men toys ever—a large-scale version of the iconic mutant-hunting sentinel robot. The company was looking for 6,000 backers to pledge $350 each to get the 26.34-inch figure made. It was funded in a day.

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Blizzard have released an Overwatch album, so now you can bop along to your favourite in-game tunes even when you’re not playing. Overwatch: Cities And Countries is a collection of soundtracks from the game, all based on the global locations of its maps. You know when you first load into a match, and it plays that short riff of music symbolic of the setting? These are basically just the full versions of those, and they’re actually really good.

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GungHo hit another Ninjala download milestone. Over three million people snagged a copy of the free-to-play game.

The post Ninjala Downloads Pass 3 Million appeared first on Siliconera.

Babylon's Fall is one of those names that doesn't come up enough in conversation, but don't take that as a sign of disinterest or insurmountable development hurdles – Platinum has just been quiet lately.

After catching a glimpse of the knight-slashing action game in a December 2019 State of Play presentation, we have a status update: Babylon's Fall isn't canceled or delayed further (yet).

As the team shared on Twitter, "While we had hoped to reveal more about the game this summer, we can share that development of Babylon's Fall is continuing to progress well, with the team working safely from home. Square Enix and Platinum Games are committed to delivering an exhilarating experience and we look forward to showcasing much more on Babylon's Fall to you as soon as we can."

It's easy to overlook this game since we've seen so little of it and Bayonetta 3 is occupying so much headspace, but I like the vaguely Devil May Cry-meets-Souls aesthetic the gameplay trailer gave off.

Next time, I'd expect to see a much more significant showcase, and I'm ready for it.

Babylon's Fall [Twitter]

This was supposed to be Japan’s year. The Olympics were to be held in Tokyo, and the whole world was going to turn its eyes to Japan. Things didn’t work out that way. The anime Japan Sinks feels like a reminder of that fact.

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Three editions available

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Mobile studio Animoca Brands has acquired social casual gaming platform Gamee for $6.53 million in shares. ...

Today Microsoft and Asobo announced a release date and more details for the PC version of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

The game will launch on August 18 on Windows 10 and will also be available on day one on the PC version of Xbox Game Pass.

It’s worth mentioning that the previously-announced Xbox One version does not have a release date yet.

Below you can read a list of features we can expect.

For a limited time, Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia players can redeem free Multi Draws from the Summer Incursion event.

The post Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia Summer Incursion Event Includes Free Multi Draws appeared first on Siliconera.

XSEED Games has announced that its period tale of farmin' and fightin' Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, will be receiving a physical launch on PS4 and Nintendo Switch later in 2020.

Developed by indie studio Edelweiss, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is a spiritual adventure that sees the titular young Goddess of Harvest attempt to cultivate crops for a meager town and its people, while simultaneously fending off demon attacks in side-scrolling platform action. Steeped in Japanese mythology and featuring lavish visuals and character design, Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin looks like its shaping up to be a charming experience.

Chinese website VJ Gamer (via Resetera) has uploaded a series of photos of what looks like Lego set 71374, a 2,646 brick recreation of a Nintendo Entertainment System complete with controller, cartridge, and a retro TV set that plays Super Mario Bros. when a crank on the side is turned. I’d buy it.

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Elaborate 2,646-piece Lego set comes with a TV, cartridge, and more

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NieR Re[in]carnation got its latest trailer, screenshots, and details from Square Enix.

The post NieR Re[in]carnation New Trailer and Screenshots; Closed Beta Test Starts in Japan on July 29, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.