Winter survival game The Long Dark was removed from Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming platform back in March after its developer said the game had been added without their consent. Now it’s coming back, following changes to the service that make GeForce Now opt-in only.
The Division 2 will undergo a short maintenance on Tuesday, May 26, starting at 12:30 AM PT / 3:30 AM ET. It's expected to last for three hours. According to the patch notes, this tiny update will stomp out some of the game's bugs, including a mission-breaking issue and one that prevented players from earning progress on Global Event challenges. [Update: The maintenance has concluded and The Division 2 servers are back online, complete with a small new update. You can read about the small tweaks it makes in the patch notes below.]
In other Division 2 news, Ubisoft recently released the delayed Update 9.1. That patch focused on overhauling the game's NPCs, which the developer deemed too powerful in certain situations. The game's upcoming Title Update 10 is now live on The Division 2's Public Test Server, but only on PC. This new update will make several big changes to the game, including buffing most of the game's weapons and adjusting the drop-rate for high-tier loot to make the game's stouter difficulties more rewarding.
Based on the photo alone you can see the classic Mario transportation pipes leading into different Mario-themed buildings. The largest looks like a structure based on Mario’s World 1-1 stages, but there are also some pyramids towards the north end of the compound.
To the east is a series of pink columns which is likely Princess Peach’s castle, and towards the southwest is a pretty ominous structure that could be Bowser’s Castle.
The partnership between Nintendo and Universal Studios Japan was announced back in 2017 when the two companies announced a new theme park attraction based on Nintendo’s popular characters would be coming to Universal parks.
The Super Nintendo World attractions in Japan are set to expand to other Universal parks, including theme parks in the United States.Blair Witch, the video game based on the film series of the same name, is coming to Nintendo Switch June 25.
The developer, Bloober Team, created psychological horror series Layers of Fear, and is also making The Medium which was announced for the Xbox Series X during an Inside Xbox event earlier in May.
Blair Witch, a first-person psychological/survival horror, puts the players in control of Ellis Lynch as he joins the search party for a boy, age 9, who went missing in Burkittsville, Maryland. Burkittsville and the Black Hill forest have been the setting for every Blair Witch film, but the game is set after the first/original.
Ellis, with his own demons, heads into the forest with his trusty canine companion Bullet. As anyone who has seen the film(s) knows, once in the forest, the world can be easily distorted and take you exactly where the titular “Witch” wants you to be. Follow Bullet and reveal clues to find the missing boy while Ellis’ begins to be just as haunted by his own past as any monster the woods has to offer.
The benefit to having Blair Witch on the Switch is the ability to hide under the covers when it gets too scary, but still be able to play. Not, uhh, that any of us would ever do that. No way.
Blair Witch was originally released as a timed exclusive for the Xbox One in August 2019, with the PlayStation 4 version coming months later in early December.
The release date announcement comes alongside a harrowing trailer with a chilling narration. See it for yourself here and below:
Geoff Keighley's Summer Game Fest showcase is now teasing some sort of "console announcements" that will take place sometime in the near future.
In partnering with Twitch, the Summer Game Fest posted a lengthy blog about some of the news viewers can expect throughout the summer. SGF simply said that some console announcements are coming but is keeping whatever this information is close to its chest for the time being.
The Summer Game Fest is slated to run from May to August, with several livestreams happening over the course of the next four months. A look at the schedule shows that none of the announced streams have anything to do with the next-generation systems, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.
Continue Reading at GameSpot
Our long national nightmare is over: As of this writing, Disney+ subscribers can view episodes from the first 19-plus seasons of The Simpsons in the proper aspect ratio, restoring punchlines to visual-information-rich frames like the one above.
ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm’s own immersive entertainment studio, has announced a brand-new action-adventure VR experience set within the Star Wars universe.
Star Wars: Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge is currently in development from ILMxLAB in collaboration with Oculus Studios.
According to Vicki Beck of ILMxLAB, Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge will come later this year and she had this comment to make about the adventure game:
This action-packed adventure not only speaks to the promise of connected and complementary experiences by extending the lore around Black Spire Outpost, it represents another meaningful step in ILMxLAB’s quest to transition from storytelling – one-way communication – to storyLIVING, where you’re inside a world making consequential choices that drive your experience forward.”
The original narrative will feature several iconic Star Wars characters as well as never before seen faces. It’s worth noting that the title will apparently be accommodating a “wide variety of players” with accessibility options and different styles of gameplay.
As for the story itself, the plot will be taking place between the events of Star Wars: The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. It’s set on the planet of Batuu, on the outskirts of Black Spire Outpost of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which is the newly opened attraction at Disneyland and Disney World.
You can see the first concept art for the Batuu landscape down below:
Desperados III has a new character trailer ahead of its June 16 launch date; THQ Nordic is today introducing Kate O’Hara, a hard-hitting country gal whose good looks and charming personality hide a mean streak that her enemies rarely see coming.
Here’s O’Hara’s character bio, sent to Twinfinite in a press release:
She’s got the look and she’s absolutely hitting like a hammer: Kate O’Hara grew up as a Colorado farm girl, dreaming of fame and glamour on the stage in the big city. But she had to learn to get along in the rough wild west, where most men are not natural gentlemen and very often only understand the clear message of a joyfully kick in their … well, crown jewels.
This way, Kate can knock down enemies when she gets close enough – and she’s got many ways to get in melee range. Naturally, she loves to disguise herself with different outfits and of course uses her overwhelming charm to distract opponents. And if these clever tricks fail, she relies on a girl’s best friend: Her Derringer.
It’s been 25 years since the launch of the original PlayStation, and while games have evolved by leaps and bounds in the two and a half decades since, it’s impossible to deny the lasting impact Sony’s flat grey box had on the industry and pop culture at large.
From bandicoots to battle-hardened super-soldiers, the PlayStation is single-handedly responsible for some of the most iconic characters and franchises of all time, and while there are so so many to love, we wanted to look back at the very best the console had to offer. These are the greatest PS1 games of all time.
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Check out the video above for the top 10, and click through the gallery below or scroll down for the full list!
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Before Rock Band, before Guitar Hero, even before Dance Dance Revolution, there was Parappa the Rapper. An unlikely rapping game starring a cartoonishly flat dog and his animal pals, Parappa won us all over with catchy songs and a quirky charm that stood out among other games seeking to posture themselves as “extreme” or “hardcore” on the new generation. Nothing else on the console looked like Parappa (until Um Jammer Lammy arrived, of course). This rhyme-spitting canine is so beloved, in fact, that we named him one of the top 10 dogs in video games. I gotta believe!
A Monolith Soft founder said in a Famitsu interview that one of the goals when creating the studio was to carry on the Xenogears 2 dream.
The post Monolith Soft Was Founded to Try and Make Xenogears 2 Happen appeared first on Siliconera.
May's irreversible slide into June means another batch of games for PlayStation Plus subscribers, and this month they look an awful lot like Call of Duty WW2 and Star Wars Battlefront 2.
Call of Duty WW2 released in 2017 and marked the long-running first-person shooter series' return to its Second World War roots, having zipped all around history (and occasionally the future) in the intervening years. Alongside the series' perennially popular multiplayer modes, it offered up a full single-player story campaign - following the 1st Infantry Division's battles on the Western Front - and a Nazi-themed Zombies mode for co-operative play.
Eurogamer contributor Jon Denton liked what he saw on release, calling Call of Duty WW2 "quite the package" in his Recommended review. "By returning the series to its roots, Sledgehammer has made the series feel relevant again," he wrote, "Call of Duty WW2 isn't just a throwback - it's the best entry in the series for quite some time."
Earlier this month, Natsume announced that its Harvest Moon series is receiving a new entry later this year. At that time, the Switch was the only confirmed platform – but today the company revealed that Harvest Moon: One World will release on both PS4 and Switch this fall.
The story of One World involves exploring an entire world (rather than just your quaint hometown), managing a farm while restoring a variety of familiar fruits and vegetables to the world.
It's worth noting that what we know as "Harvest Moon" in North America is a bit complicated. It was originally the name for the series called Bokujō Monogatari in Japan. Today, that series is called Story of Seasons in North America, while Natsume has continued developing its own farming/life simulations under the Harvest Moon banner.
Even if this isn't the same series as the Harvest Moon you remember from titles like Friends of Mineral Town and A Wonderful Life, One World still has plenty of potential to deliver a pleasant, peaceful simulation on modern hardware.
The Tale of The Princess Kaguya | Image: Hatake Jimusho / Studio Ghibli
Hayao Miyazaki has become a legend, but Takahata’s relentless experimentation is just as remarkable
Epic Games has announced a one-week extension to Fortnite Chapter 2 - Season 2 in preparation to launch Season 3. The season, which began in February, will now give way to Chapter 2 - Season 3 on June 11.
To signal the transition, Fortnite will host a one-time-only live event called The Device on Saturday, June 6 at 2 p.m. Eastern. This event is said to progress the game's story, and will only happen one time, so Epic Games recommends you arrive 30 minutes early since space will be limited.
Prior to the event and start of the new season, you can still complete your Battle Pass challenges to lock in appearance choices for several characters including Brutus, Midas, TNTina, and Meowscles. Once the new season begins on June 11, the Battle Pass characters' appearances are locked in.
Even though it’s been over two months since Animal Crossing: New Horizons released for the Nintendo Switch, it hasn’t stopped hardcore fans from experimenting with the game’s villagers to recreate iconic scenes from television shows and other video games.
If you’re a fan of the popular sitcom that is Parks and Recreation, then you will be delighted to know that the iconic “Ron pulling his tooth” scene from Season 3, Episode (Andy and April’s Fancy Party) has been faithfully recreated in Animal Crossing to a tee.
The brilliant video comes from owoshy on the Animal Crossing subreddit and you can watch it below. We’ve also embedded the original scene from Parks and Rec so that you can watch them side by side for maximum viewing pleasure:
Image: People Can Fly/Square Enix
People Can Fly also take the first deep dive on the Trickster class
Eight years after its original release, scifi MMORPG Phantasy Star Online 2 finally became available on PC in North America yesterday. The only problem? It came exclusively to the Microsoft Store, leading to all sorts of errors and complications for many players.
A PlayStation 4 version of the new Harvest Moon has been confirmed, and its box art teases some of its animals and crops.
The post Harvest Moon: One World Will Come to the PlayStation 4 appeared first on Siliconera.
Arkane's throwing a reverse birthday party of sorts, the kind where it turns a year older but you're the one getting presents.
The first game Arkane Studios ever made, Arx Fatalis, is free on PC right now. The reason for the giveaway is that Arkane's celebrating its 20th year of existence. Kind of. The developer's founding date is October 1, 1999, so the actual anniversary passed more than six months ago. Still, 20 years is nothing to turn your nose up at -- especially when studios get shut down all the time.
There are two minor catches that go along with the free copy of Arx Fatalis. First and foremost, it's redeemed by signing up for the Arkane Outsiders email list. Second -- and this will be a huge deal for some and the most trivial detail for others -- it has to be claimed and played on Bethesda's launcher. If you're fine with all that, here's where you can get your free copy of Arx Fatalis. The offer ends on May 31 at 7am Pacific.
Arx Fatalis isn't as beloved and revered as a lot of Arkane's more recent works like Dishonored and Prey, but it held its own back in 2002. It's an immersive fantasy RPG where you're tasked with destroying the God of Destruction. I don't know how Arx Fatalis ends, but that'd be a pretty ironic and humiliating way for that guy to go out.
When Outriders properly broke cover earlier this year with our first look at this looter shooter in action, there was a fair amount of talk of it looking like something pulled from 2008. The more I learn about People Can Fly's first solo outing since 2013's Gears of War: Judgment, the more I think it's not so much a slur as something to be celebrated: this is a shooter that's proudly, defiantly old-school.
It's loud and brash and gory and completely over-the-top - like every good People Can Fly game in the past has been, really, from Painkiller to Bulletstorm - with all that excess met by some smart ideas. There's an intriguing World Tier system that sees difficulty adapt on the fly and a class system that looks properly malleable with player choice having a big impact on character builds. Oh and, most importantly, shooting things looks like it'll feel just great.
Yes, the art-style isn't exactly inspired, although the fresh look offered in today's extended presentation demonstrates that it's got a much broader palette than first gameplay suggested. "Our goal with this new was content to show that every level in our game has a different colour palette," Outriders director Bartosz Kmita tells us. "It's not only about the brown colours and the World War One feel. It's much more than just a warzone."
The first of a planned series of monthly broadcasts for Square Enix and People Can Fly’s upcoming shooter-RPG, Outriders, released today and let loose a lot more interesting details. Outriders was somewhat of a surprise when it was revealed last year, and any extra details we can squeeze out about this mysterious title is always welcome.
We’re going to go over the broadcast below and as an added bonus, we were able to speak with People Can Fly‘s Bartosz Kmita (Game Director) and Piotr Nowakowski (Senior Designer) whom both chipped in to clarify a few questions that we had while watching. And of course, if you want to just watch it yourself, you can so above. Otherwise, let’s dive into our summary and interview.
People Can Fly and Square Enix have released the first Outriders Broadcast, a special video series designed to give players a deeper look at the upcoming loot-based shooter. Today’s video has nearly 30 minutes of new footage, and a ton of information to digest. Some of it’s new, much of it has been known since our cover story on the game, but it’s definitely worth checking out.
Today Square Enix announced a a new release date for the upcoming Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered.
The game will launch worldwide on August 27, after having been delayed from its previous January 23 date back in December. It was originally announced all the way back at E3 2019.
The press release also includes info on what we can we expect in terms of improvements and new features.
“Alongside updates to the visuals and audio, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition features a number of enhancements to make the experience more enchanting than ever. Character voiceovers, online multiplayer with cross-play functionality, new items, and challenging new dungeons and bosses await as players explore a stunning fantasy world and make new memories, calling upon magic and might as they bond with fantastic characters and team up with friends to take down fearsome foes through fun action-RPG gameplay.
Additionally, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition introduces a brand-new ‘Mimic’ feature which will allow players to take the form of various characters they meet on their journey. By collecting stamps and visiting Moogle Houses, or completing difficult dungeons, players will acquire unique crystals which will allow them to change their appearance to that of their favorite Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles characters and continue their adventure in style.”
We also get a few screenshots and trailer showing off the fresh coat of paint applied to the visual of the game.
Two AAA shooters from 2017 headline PS Plus’ game line-up in June; both Activision’s Call of Duty: WWII (campaign only) and EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront II are free for subscribers to the service from June 2 – July 6.
PS Plus has been fairly consistent in delivering quality free games as part of the service in recent months, but given the perceived value of AAA games from major publishers, this latest lineup is sure to make a big splash with subscribers.
And so it should, really; both games offer some excellent content. WWII is a typically blockbuster thrill-ride, which, while hardly breaking any new ground, is entertaining from start to finish. Twinfinite’s review of the game in 2017 scored the game 4/5, describing the gunplay as “satisfying and punchy.”
While Battlefront II’s single-player offering is less interesting, its multiplayer modes are absolutely worth experiencing; the game has been extremely well supported by EA Dice since launching in 2018.
Twinfinite also scored Battlefront 4/5 in its review, noting that “you’d be hard-pressed to find anything in video games that looks and sounds more like Star Wars, as the game absolutely nails those aspects, and is even visually stunning more often than not.”
Remember, last month’s PS Plus games are still available to download until June 1.
You might not be able to visit Galaxy’s Edge in Disney right now, but you may soon be able to bring a piece of those parks into your home. Oculus Studios, ILMxLAB, and Lucasfilm are working on a new VR experience that ties into the Disney’s Galaxy's Edge theme park at Disney’s resort parks. We don’t know much about the VR experience at the moment, but the studios were careful not to call it a game, which is interesting.
“The rich storytelling in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge has redefined what a Disney park experience can be, and we are thrilled fans will have an opportunity to discover new stories, meet new characters and explore new regions of the planet Batuu in Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge,” said Scott Trowbridge, Walt Disney Imagineering Creative Executive. “Now our guests can immerse themselves in these stories both inside and outside our parks.”
What we do know about this new VR project is that it features an original story starring both new and iconic characters from the Star Wars universe, is set on the planet of Batuu, and takes place between the films The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker.
This all sounds like a fun complement to the Vader Immortal series, which wrapped up late last year, and we’re all for more VR experiences that help us explore our favorite franchise and push the VR medium forward. Hopefully this project turns out well.
In the grim darkness of the near future, there is only De_dust2. But look further ahead and- oh! There it is! Only war. Now look back to the present and find the two have come together in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, with new Warhammer 40,000 stickers now sold to slap on your virtual guns. CS’s stickers have always been a bit ‘teenager bunkbed’ so frankly I can’t think of a better match. It’s only weird that AK-47’s haven’t had “WAAAGH!” stickers all along.
During the Bernstein Annual Strategic Decisions Conference Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick talked about the next generation of consoles and the future.
Zelnick mentioned that Take-Two is “very excited” about the new consoles will allow the publisher’s creative teams to do. They’ve been developing with new tech for some time and they’re very familiar with where that can lead.
Usually, this includes better memory, better graphics, more fidelity, more beauty, more subtlety, more speed, more richness, more depth, and more characters.
Zelnick brought up the example that the increase in background interactivity in Red Dead Redemption 2 compared to the first game is huge. There is way more happening in the world leading to more realism.
He believes that over time tech will be so sophisticated that you won’t be able to distinguish between computer-generated entertainment and live-action. He admitted that we’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer, and a point will come when photorealism will be possible.
This doesn’t mean that it’ll always be used, Zelnick doesn’t think Borderlands is ever going to be photorealistic as it wouldn’t make any sense. Despite that, Take-two’s creative would be thrilled to make something that would look “totally real.”
According to Zelnick, the more engaging a title is, the more people can play it simultaneously, the more there is to do in the world (this especially for open-world games in which Rockstar excels), the bigger the audience is going to be, the more they will engage with the games, and as a consequence, the more they will pay and the more they will be loyal.
It’s been a rough start for GeForce Now. Since leaving beta back in February, we’ve watched publisher after publisher remove their games from Nvidia’s fledgeling streaming service. In an attempt to bring a bit of stability back to their shelves, Nvidia are now asking developers to opt-in before adding GeForce Now support – making their catalogue a little more reliable by only offering streaming support to games that actually want it.
Image: Valve
Image: DreamWorks Animation
Image: Epic Games