Roadhog is one of Overwatch 2’s quieter heroes. Where some characters like Tracer and Junkrat are real chatterboxes, the chain-slinging, shotgun-toting Tank is a man of few words. That changes with the game’s latest limited-time mode, which makes him the announcer. Not only is he the one to declare your team the…
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Microsoft has unveiled the Xbox Developer Sustainability ToolKit.
The kit aims to help creators reduce energy consumption and measure carbon emissions during game development.
Contrary to Seto Kaiba’s claims, it’s not impossible at all to assemble Exodia. Bandai Spirits will release a model kit of Exodia the Forbidden One from the Yu-Gi-Oh series. It will cost 5280 JPY, which is around $39.90, and will come out in August 2023. [Thanks, Hobby Watch!]
The Figure-Rise Standard Amplified Exodia the Forbidden One model kit will stand at around 210 millimeters tall. There are ball joints in the neck and chest area, so you’ll be able to move them. There are shafts in the waist and shoulders as well, which will increase the variety of poses you’ll be able to have Exodia strike. The chains consist of multiple parts linked together, making them fairly flexible.
Here are some more pictures of the Exodia model kit. Please note that these pictures may be different from the final product:
[gallery columns="6" link="file" ids="956629,956628,956627,956626,956625,956624"]
In the Yu-Gi-Oh series, Exodia the Forbidden One was technically speaking Yugi’s first ace monster before Dark Magician. During his first duel with Kaiba (in the show), he managed to put together Exodia and defeat him. However, Exodia more or less disappeared from Yu-Gi-Oh after Weevil Wormwood (Insector Haga) tossed all of the cards into the ocean.
The Yu-Gi-Oh Exodia the Forbidden One plastic model kit will come out in August 2023.
Gamers have finally had a chance to test drive the highly anticipated next entry in Blizzard’s action RPG series, Diablo IV. While the game offers up some contentious changes and sees balance concerns that will be debated furiously in the days to come, first impressions reveal a game that’s perfect to zone out to,…
GameStop shocked investors, and anyone else who’s been paying attention to the meme stock video game retailer, when earlier this week it reported its first profitable quarter in over two years. It’s all the more surprising considering that everything else about the business, from botched pre-orders to employees just …
Netflix’s take on chonky soldiers vs. equally chonky underground aliens is, excuse me, gearing up. Last November, the streaming service announced plans to adapt Gears Of War’s chainsaw-swinging into an animated series and a live-action film. The latter has now tapped a writer. Jon Spaihts is the Oscar-nominated screenwriter behind Dune, Prometheus, and Doctor Strange, and he’s now writing the Gears Of War film, Netflix announced today.
Hi-Fi Rush, our inaugural RPS Game Club game, sets its on-the-beat beatdowns in some pretty interesting places. Glistening sci-fi skyscrapers. An underground volcano lair. A Smaug-pleasing gold hoard, conveniently adjacent to a finance executive’s office. Who’d have guessed, then, that its absolute best fight – not just a thrilling brawl in itself, but the point at which a stumbling adventure plants its feet back in greatness – would take place in a canteen?
A launch title for the PlayStation 5 in 2020, Young Horses' Bugsnax very quickly become an indie darling thanks to its silly critters and fun mechanics to catch them, its compelling story, and its great cast.
At GDC yesterday, Young Horses' studio head John Murphy looked back at Bugsnax's six years of development, the challenges to follow up on the success of 2014's Octodad: Dadliest Catch, and the lessons it's taking to its next project.
While Bugsnax ultimately overtook Octodad in terms of success, Murphy shared, the process leading up to it took a lot of pitching and prototyping.
Splash Mountain’s closure is just the most recent attempt to rewrite Disney history
Yozo Sakagami, or “Gami-P,” has retired from his position as the executive producer for the The Idolmaster franchise. His retirement will go into effect from the end of March 2023. In a letter to his fans on the official The Idolmaster website, he explains his reasoning for his sudden retirement, as well as thanks all of the players who have played and enjoyed the game series. [Thanks, Denfaminico!]
Sakagami has worked on The Idolmaster for 18 years. But he had planned on leaving three years earlier in 2020. This is because if he had retired in 2020, then he could’ve left after working on the series for 15 years, which was a fairly good number. But the COVID-19 pandemic delayed or completely obliterated certain plans and projects that they had been working on.
As he continues in the letter, Executive Producer Sakagami discussed all of his memories with The Idolmaster. He stated that he was impressed when he saw the passion of the players for the arcade version of the game and thanks everyone for their support over the years. He concluded his letter with stating that he will watch over everyone—from the fans to the staff for The Idolmaster—as they walk towards their future. For the time being, there will be no executive producer to replace him just yet.
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Amazon's cloud-based gaming service Luna is now available in the UK, as well as Germany and Canada.
Until now, Luna has only been available in the U.S., but now more Amazon customers will have instant access to stream console-quality games using Luna enabled devices.
Amazon is offering multiple Luna subscriptions as well as Twitch integration. The Luna controller is also now available.
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Update: Amazon has confirmed it has launched Luna in the UK, Germany and Canada.
A blog post offers an introduction to the cloud gaming service for new users, including links to buy the Luna console in the three territories. (The service is also compatible with keyboard and mouse, as well as Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gamepads)
In a game all about vampire slaying it’s pretty important that killing your blood-feasting foes feels like an event in and of itself. That’s exactly what Arkane Austin has done with Redfall; much like how assassination-sim Dishonored had gloriously bloody backstab animations, Redfall revels in the act of plunging a wooden stake through a vampire’s heart. There’s weight in the blow as you knock your foe backwards and slam them into the floor, pushing a boot into a jaw that quickly evaporates into fiery dust. Yeah, killing vampires in Redfall feels good.
At a recent hands-on event I played around 90 minutes of Redfall, which gave me the first taste of something akin to a Far Cry game made by Stephen King. It’s an open-world shooter set in modern day Massachusetts, filled with gothic small-town vibes, fanged horrors, and a buffet of activity types.
That means Prey and Dishonored developer Arkane Austin is operating in uncharted territory. Redfall is very different to the studio’s other games and initially feels a lot more conventional. A freely explored map with safehouses, enemy camps, side errands, and tier-graded loot? Check, check, check, and check. But the more I played, the more I saw of what I’d expect from the historically ambitious developer. The island town of Redfall has clever environment design that’s engineered to compliment your skills. The enemy AI is there to be toyed with, allowing you to bait your foes into traps. And every second room I entered felt staged to tell a story. Redfall definitely is an Arkane game, just not the one I expected.
The latest Fire Emblem Engage DLC trailer revealed the Four Hounds antagonists from the base game will become playable characters known as the Four Winds in Fell Xenologue. At about the one minute mark of the new trailer, this alternate world’s version of Zephia appears. At this point, the new versions of the characters, in some cases their new names, and gameplay involving them appears.
The first of the playable Four Hounds Fire Emblem Engage DLC characters is the Four Winds heroine Zelestia. In the original game, she was known as Zephia. After that, we see the alternate version of Griss, known here as Gregory. Marni is known as Madeline in this alternate storyline. Mauvier’s name remains the same.
In case you missed it, you can see the alternate reality, playable versions of the Four Hounds in the Fire Emblem Engage DLC trailer below. At around the 58 second mark, Zelestia begins explaining the situation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_oeDuN3i6M&ab_channel=NintendoofAmerica
And here are some screenshots from the trailer showing the four characters in the DLC. In some cases, their outfits look different in the alternate world. For example, Gregory lacks Griss' tattoos and Madeline's outfit is a different color than Marni's.
[gallery columns="2" size="full" link="file" ids="956663,956664,956665,956666"]
Remember when Arkane said their co-op vampire 'em up Redfall is more akin to Far Cry than Left 4 Dead? I do! I remember a chill ran down my spine as I cast my mind back to Far Cry 6, where the tutorial island itself was longer than anything else I'd played that year. I was scared Redfall might succumb to a similar fate. I imagined it filling my head with map markers until my head swelled, popped like a balloon, and dropped grey rarity brain matter.
Well, having given Redfall a go for 90 minutes I was, perhaps, being a bit dramatic. The game may be open world, and may have some slightly jarring open world-isms, but I felt like Arkane's magic wasn't diluted by it all. Their talent for storytelling and level design bubbled to the surface constantly, making exploration a genuine joy. Sure, I have some reservations, but I can't deny that I'm itching to play it again.
Hands-on with Arkane’s new vampire game for Xbox and PC
Where to get each edition of the co-op vampire shooter when it comes out on May 2
Redfall developer Arkane is "working actively" to remove the game's always-online requirement when playing strictly in single-player mode.
The vampire shooter's always-online restriction raised eyebrows when it was spotted last month.
Now, speaking to Eurogamer, game director Harvey Smith has revealed his team are now working to change how the game worked to make offline single-player possible.
Redfall is a silly game about shooting vampires, but also not. Yes, it's about clearing a town of a supernatural nuisance using flashy powers and souped up weaponry - and there's much more on how it plays in Aoife's video below - but, just as with Arkane's previous series Dishonored, there's also much more going on beneath the surface.
After time with the game myself, I was surprised to find Redfall's combat pitted my character against actual living, breathing humans just as often as the undead. Two human factions stand out: true-believer cultists who have thrown their lot in with the vampires as our new gods, and then members of Bellweather, a Blackwater-style private military contractor. These groups help keep combat varied, and offer a somewhat easier experience than the game's fast-moving recently-deceased. In Redfall, vampires can zoom up and quickly swarm you, and require not just bullets but also a final stake to put back in the grave.
Perhaps more interesting, however, are the reasons why any of these groups are enemies at all - and it's down to the way Redfall's world has been brought to life by creator Harvey Smith, designer of Deus Ex and creative director of both Dishonored and its sequel. As a recent story trailer for Redfall makes clear, this game's brand of bloodsuckers were born from the capitalistic vampirism of Aveum Therapeutics, a money-minded Big Pharma corp left to experiment unchecked. Its schemes gone awry led to the New England town being taken over by actual vampires (as well as those two human factions seeking to profit from the undead's presence).
Get ready to shreddy! Shredder (yes, the supervillain from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) has made his way into Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0.
Admittedly, Shredder is not exactly known for his use of guns, with the leader of the Foot Clan generally preferring his metal blades over firearms.
However, here he is suited and booted, with a rather deft use of a rifle, and ready to take on any Operator "who stands in his way of victory" (although, doesn't he keep getting one-upped by four turtles? Hmm, maybe he will have better luck here).
March 21th is now officially Beyblade Day in Japan. As well, a new Beyblade project, Beyblade X, will go live in Summer 2023 in commemoration of the 25th anniversary it. Beyblade X will be the fourth anime adaptation of the spinning top toy, featuring a new generation and stadium. [Thanks, Hobby Watch!]
To begin with, let’s start with why March 21th is Beyblade Day. In the Japanese version of the Beyblade anime, matches preceded with “3, 2, 1, go shoot!” When you write out March 21 in numbers, you get 3/21, like the “3, 2, 1” in the above saying.
Beyblade is not the first franchise to have its own special date. January 31st, for example, is officially Final Fantasy VII Day in Japan. That is because that was the date of the game’s debut in 1997.
https://twitter.com/Hiromorita_/status/1638060492978790400
In terms of the Beyblade X anime, there is not much concrete information about it so far. We know that it will begin in Summer 2023. However, it’s unclear what the new gears and new stadium will look like. There is also little information on the cast and characters. Takara Tomy will update people via its official social media channels.
https://twitter.com/takaratomytoys/status/1637990579459043330
Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters. It's a series about highlighting some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also a series about you having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!
Oh and you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.
For a long time, games didn't look, how shall I say - lifelike? That's not to trash them but to remember that the graphical grunt wasn't always there. They still managed to find a way to give us glimpses of what their game worlds might look like in real life, though, by way of short cinematics. And just to see a moving 3D depiction of some characters and worlds was enough - for a while. But as technology improved, standards rose, and today, computer-generated animations fill cinemas. So here's to cinematics and all the fantasies they've helped realise. But the question is, which cinematics are the best?
The wave 4 Fire Emblem Engage DLC will arrive rather soon, as there’s a release date for the Fell Xenologue story. The expansion will arrive on April 5, 2023. Nintendo shared a new trailer specifically looking at the add-on. At the very end, it noted it will arrive in two weeks.
Here’s the new footage. It begins with a gravestone for the Divine Dragon. A voice over notes that it is “your grave.” It is then that the male version of Alear meets some new attendants. They are Nel and Nil. They note there are seven Emblem Bracelets. Alear asks where the other four are. Once again, the four nations of Elyos possesses them. We then see alternate versions of the royals and from the original game. However, here they are more antagonistic towards both Alear and each other. After that, we also see different versions of the Four Hounds, the antagonists of the original game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_oeDuN3i6M&ab_channel=NintendoofAmerica
As a reminder, past add-ons for Fire Emblem Engage focused on adding Emblem Bracelet characters, rather than adding to the story. Wave 3, for example, added Awakening's Chrom and Robin and Heroes' Veronica.
Zachary Levi’s reactions to the box-office flop stir more DCU drama
Even Scream is focusing on superhero franchises
When Resident Evil 4 launched on Nintendo GameCube, it was a revelation.
The title jettisoned the gameplay that the franchise had become known for – no more fixed camera angles, and goodbye the older 'tank' controls – and in its place was a new third-person action horror experience. It not only re-defined the Resident Evil franchise, but most of the third-person action games that followed.
Fourteen years later and Capcom decided to start remaking some of its classic Resident Evil games. Yet with Resident Evil 2 and 3, the developer didn't just improve the visuals and tweak the controls, it took the story and characters and changed the gameplay into something decidedly more modern. They basically gave those two games the 'Resident Evil 4 treatment', and it worked.
Spike Chunsoft announced the Anonymous;Code release date. It will launch on September 8, 2023. It will be out for the PS4, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC (via Steam) and feature English voice options. The SteelBook Launch Edition (featuring art from character designer Haruhisa Nakata) is now open for pre-order via the Spike Chunsoft official website while supplies last. The game will cost $59.99.
You can watch the trailer for Anonymous;Code here:
https://twitter.com/SpikeChunsoft_e/status/1638299764746797058?s=20
Anonymous;Code is the sixth mainline game in Mages and Chiyomaru Studios’s Science Adventure series of ADV games. It originally came out in 2022 in Japan. The story takes place in an Earth Simulator that supercomputer GAIA created in order to prevent a Y2K38 problem. Pollon Takaoka, who possesses the ability to save and load reality, finds himself wrapped up in a myriad of wild adventures after he runs into the mysterious Momo. For those curious about the gameplay, Mages's president Chiyomaru Shikura streamed over three hours of the game in 2022.
As for the English cast, we know of:
Miasma Chronicles, the next game from the brains behind Mutant Year Zero, will launch digitally across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC (via Steam and Epic) on 23rd May.
A retail version will then follow in the summer: on 9th June in Europe and 20th June 2023 in North America, to be precise.
In Miasma Chronicles, players will take on the role of a young man named Elvis. No, not the king of rock and roll. Rather, someone who has been abandoned by his mother in "the wastelands of America". Elvis will not be alone on his travels, however. He will also have his robot 'brother' Diggs by his side.
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A judge has ruled against a class-action lawsuit which aimed to brand loot boxes in EA games like FIFA as "unlawful gambling".
However, the judge has allowed a separate part of the lawsuit to go ahead - one which seeks to claim that EA games adopted "deceptive and unconsionable acts or practices" under a Canadian consumer protection act.
Responding to the news via GamesIndustry.biz, an EA spokesperson stated: "We're pleased that the trial court rejected, as a matter of law, the allegations of unlawful gaming. The court's decision reaffirms our position that nothing in our games constitutes gambling."
MSCHF Product Studios Inc announced its Tax Heaven 3000 dating sim. The Steam page has gone live, and it will come out on March 31, 2023. It will only be available in English and it focuses on the US federal tax return for 2022.
As you go on dates with Iris, she’ll also help you with your tax return. Tax Heaven 3000 will allow you to seduce Iris and teach you how to charm the US federal government into maximizing your returns for 2022. According to the Steam description of the game, Tax Heaven 3000 will actually teach you how to file your taxes yourself so that you won’t need to hire an expensive service for that.
You can check out the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO7kBVOEp_A
Some screenshots from the game show the player and Iris on normal dates. However, there are also some scenes of Iris asking you to fill in your SSN or asking you about additional forms. The game is suitable for “singles without dependents,” so if you’re filing your taxes and you have a dependent, you might need to do some outside research.
Tax Heaven 3000 will come out on March 31, 2023. It will be free-to-play.
The post Dating Sim Tax Heaven 3000 Helps You File Taxes appeared first on Siliconera.
Resident Evil 4 Remake is just over the horizon - coming March 24th - but Capcom are remaking the action-horror classic in a cheerier form, too. Over the past few days, Capcom have released two 1-minute episodes of the Resident Evil 4 anime Masterpiece Theatre called Leon And The Mysterious Village, a childlike take on the classic gothic journey. It’s beautifully animated and hilarious, even without context for Resi4. The only problem? These shorts are too damn short!
Editor’s Note: This story’s headline has been changed to better reflect that a voice actor from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 hinted at a September release date, even though developer Insomniac Games has only said the game will be released this fall.
News on Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the highly anticipated follow-up to Insomniac Games' Marvel's Spider-Man from 2018 and 2020's Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, has been light since the game's reveal in 2021. But back in December, PlayStation did reveal that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 would be out sometime this Fall.
According to the voice actor for Venom in the game, Tony Todd (who we heard briefly in the game's reveal trailer), Marvel's Spider-Man 2 could be out this September. Strangely, Todd responded to a fan excited about the game and spilled the beans.
"Looks like September! Massive publicity coming in august. Commercials start dropping in august so I'm told. Hold on to your...and hold breath! Gonna be necessary"
With Atelier Ryza 3, Gust tapped Reche, who formerly appeared as Chelly with EGOIST, to perform the opening theme song “That Summer Hideout” and Suis to sing the ending music "Travelers." Siliconera got a chance hear both singers' thoughts on the experience and game.
Jenni Lada: How did you feel when you found out your song and music would be featured in Atelier Ryza 3?
Reche: As I was still in the early stages of my solo career, wondering if I was well-known even among my fans, I was surprised and happy to be offered this opportunity. It was one of my dreams to sing the theme song for a game.
Suis: For me, summer adventures are a strongly ingrained theme, so I was thrilled at the opportunity to resonate in Ryza's world!
How much backstory and information were you given ahead of time?
Reche: The synopsis of the story, or any other core part of the story, was not shared with me. So I recorded the song while imagining the story from the lyrics I was given.
Suis: I knew it was a summer story, a story about boys and girls growing up, and it had some alchemy. I didn't get to the play the game before recording, so after I finished recording I've been relaxing and enjoying the world of Ryza.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USUNt3cClck&ab_channel=KOEITECMOEUROPELTD.
Epic Games has released updated facts and figures from its growing PC marketplace, and given some insight into what developers and publishers can expect this year.
In addition to revealing that $820 million was spent on the Epic Games Store in 2022, the Fortnite firm also promised support for third-party subscription services and new 'content hubs' to help companies promote their titles.
Here's what you need to know:
Ubisoft has sparked debate by showing off its new Ghostwriter tool, an "AI" designed to aid its writers create dialogue for in-game NPCs.
Ghostwriter was demoed on stage at GDC this week by Ubisoft researcher Ben Swanson, who stated the tool was designed for use with background dialogue, barks (generic lines from NPCs triggered by the player), and descriptions for the game's user interface.
According to Game Developer, which attended the GDC session, Swanson described the tool as like a "30,000-sided die" which could be rolled to build sentences based on an initial input combined with a modifier, with machine learning built in to ensure responses varied.
The Last of Us Part 1's PC release is just around the corner. In anticipation of this, Naughty Dog has released a short video showing off some more of its upcoming features.
On its PC launch, The Last of Us Part 1 will include unlocked framerate, FSR Support, a speedrun mode (although, depending on which edition you buy, some story progression may be required before this mode is unlocked) and a permadeath mode.
Here is a little trailer showing how it all looks in play:
Update: Seems the agents have come a-knocking. Tax Heaven 3000 has been removed from Steam, although the dating sim and/or tax software is still incoming on Itch.io with a new release date of April 4th.
Doki Doki Literature Club was already scary enough for a dating sim, but our Graham has found something just as creepy. Tax Heaven 3000 is an upcoming dating sim that apparently prepares your US federal tax returns and asks you for personal information like your social security number - all while giving you a cheerful waifu to romance. Her name’s - wait for it - Iris. As in the IRS, aka the government branch responsible for taxes. Sigh.
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UPDATE 23/03/23: Capcom has released the next episode of its Resident Evil 4 anime shorts.
This one is known as "Help us, old man!" and features a seemingly helpful village resident. As ever, though, things don't go quite to plan for Leon and Ashley and soon there are pitchforks and chainsaws aplenty.
You can have a watch below:
