February 2020

If you’ve been keeping up with news updates regarding the annual Game Developers Conference for this year, you’ll know that multiple companies and developers have been pulling out of the event over the past couple of weeks. Because of that, it’s unsurprising to hear that GDC 2020 has officially been postponed from its original March start date.

Over on the official site, it’s been announced that the event will be pushed back to some time in summer. While the reason for the postponement wasn’t explicitly stated in the announcement post, it seems fair to infer that this was primarily due to the Coronavirus concerns from Wuhan, China, along with the fact that so many companies have pulled out of the event.

“We want to thank all our customers and partners for their support, open discussions and encouragement. As everyone has been reminding us, great things happen when the community comes together and connects at GDC. For this reason, we fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer. We will be working with our partners to finalize the details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.”

The post ends by stating that more information on GDC 2020 will be shared in the coming weeks, and we’ll keep you updated as more news comes our way.

In addition to that, if you’re a developer originally intending to go for the event, gamedev.world has launched a relief effort to help alleviate travel costs and losses.

This year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco has been postponed, the organisers announced tonight. GDC 2020 was was due to run March 16-20 in San Francisco with hundreds of sessions and tens of thousands attending. The organisers say it is postponed, not cancelled, and they “fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer.” This is not a big surprise. Companies including Blizzard, Microsoft, Epic Games, Sony, Unity, Amazon, and Facebook/Oculus had already pulled out of GDC as a precautionary measure against the new coronavirus going round. The mayor of San Francisco has (unrelated to GDC) declared a local emergency too. GDC pass refunds are on offer, and a grassroots effort is forming to help marginalised developers who’ve blown precious money on attending.

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What has felt like an inevitability has finally happened. The Game Developers Conference has been postponed, as the convention's organizers try to avoid a full-on cancellation.

GDC sent along the following statement:

In today's contest, we're giving away a Mega Modz PS4 Macro Remap Controller!

You know how you get stock controllers and they're great and all, but offer little by means of customization and modding? Yeah, it totally sucks. That's why Mega Modz takes controllers and makes them more suitable to gamers' various whims and needs.

They're confident in their product -- as they should be -- so they decided to provide a PS4 Macro Remap Controller to give away to the lovely people at Destructoid. It's got like a zillion widgets and gizmos on it, so it's going to take care of that itch to have the ultimate gamepad.

It’s a running gag in my household that we have too many dipping sauces. Specifically mustards. To me, there’s no such thing. But to my partner, well, let’s just say the words, “More mustard!?” come out of her mouth like a catchphrase.

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The Game Developers Conference, which was set to take place March 16 to 20 in San Francisco, Calif. has been postponed by its organizers Informa due to concerns surrounding the global spread of the coronavirus COVID-19. The conference, which started in 1988, draws attendance from an international pool of developers, publishers, press, and more.

You can read the statement from the organizers of GDC in its entirety below.

Following a 2019 beta release, the full Berwick Saga English fan translation has been completed and released online.

The post Fire Emblem Series Creator’s Berwick Saga English Fan Translation Is Complete appeared first on Siliconera.

From high fantasy to legal episodes of Xena

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When you were growing up, how often did you wish a game did something a little differently? I had that urge a ridiculous amount of times. To an extent, it was probably because I grew up with a Commodore 64 for a long time and those games were frequently delightful, yet also extremely limited compared to the options we have now. Throw in a lack of money and I was simply grateful for whatever came along, but that didn't stop me dreaming of how I wanted games to play out.

The dream was an RPG where you played a footballer working their way up to glory. I tried coding it in BASIC, mostly by writing it down in a notepad rather than actually sitting in front of the Commodore 64. Predictably, it was not a huge success, but I liked thinking it through. It was a similar case for many an adventure game, too. I think I realised at that young age that graphics weren't going to be my forte so I focused on storytelling and the text-based side of things. I just wanted to make something. Anything.

This was the opening for the Shoot-Em-Up Construction Kit. Sure, it wasn't about storytelling but it was about creating your own levels, creating enemy bullet patterns, changing the behaviour of enemies, and essentially setting yourself up for a spectacularly tricky bullet-hell experience. You could even export your games for others to play and yup, they did. Commodore 64 magazine, Zzap!, showcased many SEUCK (as it was affectionately referred to) games on its cover tapes.

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Happy Leap Day, everyone! It’s February 29th so you can do things today that NOBODY CAN HOLD AGAINST YOU until 2024. I think that’s how it works. Go wild! But maybe it’s best you stay home and wait out this Purge situation.

What are you playing this weekend? Here’s what we’re clicking on!

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Bandai Namco released more new screenshots of its upcoming MMORPG Blue Protocol.

The screenshots have been shared on the game’s official Twitter account (sources: 1, 2, 3).

First of all, we get to see a Neko character. The tweet mentions that differently from those shown before, which had white and black ears, this one has golden ears.

The second picture showcases the environment out in the field, looking really vast and majestic.

The third image portrays a raid boss, which is designed to be fought by up to twenty players.

It's Saturday! Not only that, but it's the end of the month, and 2020 is now a thing that is fully underway. How're those new year's resolutions and targets going? Y'know what? It doesn't matter. Time is an arbitrary construct. You can be whoever you want to be, improve whatever you want to improve, and you can do it on January 1, or March 1, or June 14. There's no rules, pal. Just be you.

I'm being me. That means I'm working too much and not getting enough games played. I'm finally back with Miriam and rocking the gothic glamour of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. It's still early days, but I'm definitely digging it, even if the horrifying imagery coming out of World of Horror is trying desperately to distract me... Maybe next week.

But I bet you've been playing much more than I have, so drop a few lines below and tell everybody in our awesome community what games are taking up your time. I know I sound like a broken record, but it's a very quiet release period right now, so hopefully you found the time to delve into your backlog, or maybe revisit an old favourite. Give us the good word.

Have a wonderful weekend, from all of us at Destructoid.

Talk about taking the enemy by surprise. After a 16-year march, Blueside’s action-RTS hybrid Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders stormed Steam’s gates this week. Like long-delayed sequel Kingdom Under Fire 2, the once Xbox-exclusive original’s heavy metal battles straddle the line between strategy and slashing – executing grand tactical manoeuvres with the same direct control you’d use to hack off a goblin’s head.

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I love a stylish game. Style, as so many fashion icons like to remind us, is an enduring sense of individuality and seemingly effortless flair. Of course, it is not so easy to discover one’s own style. It requires a clear conviction in one direction or another, and the consistent dedication to maintain it. Honing a specific style across a video game’s entire development cycle can be difficult, especially when there are dozens of people on an art team. For this reason, allow me to hold up a few slices of the independent games scene as an ineffable example of style.

I’ve been pretty vocal about my love for the stylings of devs like Sokpop, Jenny Jiao-Hsia, Blendo Games, Studio Oleomingus, and Kitty Horrorshow, among many others. Here are some fresh styles — old and new — that I found this week on the ol’ internet. Here you’ll find bubblegum pastels, uncanny environment horror, folktales, 1980s VHS tapes and back again. It’s good.

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PAX East has been a lot of fun this week. Caitlin Cooke and I interviewed Platinum's Hideki Kamiya yesterday after playing Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead, Disc Room, Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon, and a whole bunch of other new and promising games. That said, the show floor seemed a little less crowded than we were used to, and everyone we talked to seemed even more afraid of getting "conflu" than usual. 

That might be because another virus was already on a lot of people's minds. Five mid-sized exhibitors told us yesterday that shipments of their new PAX East 2020 merch was either delayed or outright canceled before the show due to the impact of the coronavirus on their Chinese production partners. One exhibitor, who asked to remain anonymous for this story, told us that they've already made about $2,000 less than they did last year by this point in the show because their new Pinny Arcade pins weren't sent to them in time to sell on the floor.  

A new threat is preparing to take on Warframe‘s interstellar ninjas. Operation Scarlet Spear kicks off next month, pushing the sci-fi stakes higher as The Sentient begin their system-wide invasion. Wait, we’re having visitors? Oh gosh, but the place is a mess. Before the next battle can begin in earnest, developers Digital Extremes have decided to put together a doozy of a housekeeping update, bringing dozens of quality-of-life changes to Warframe early next week.

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The Game Developers Conference has been postponed, its organisers have announced.

GDC said it intends to host a GDC event later in the summer.

"Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we're genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time," GDC said in a statement.

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A terrible week came to a terrible end on Friday when it was confirmed the Game Developers Conference was being postponed as a precaution due to the COVID-19, more commonly known as the coronavirus. On Monday it seemed the show would still go on, but by the end of the week, after most of the biggest names in the industry pulled out, it made little sense to keep the original date as planned. This isn't how I wanted to end February, so let's kick March off right with some great community questions for Podtoid.

If you have a question for Chris, Charlotte, Dan, Occams, or myself, leave it in the comment section below. The more creative the question, the more likely it is to be asked during the show.

A major Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament forced to go ahead without a crowd due to fears over Coronavirus has pulled in a massive live audience online.

IEM Katowice, ongoing at the time of this article's publication, is being played without a crowd at the Spodek arena - and it's making for an eerily quiet viewing experience.

Without the cheer of the Polish crowd to accompany the action, we can hear the players yell at key moments, the occasional clap from a coach and... that's about it. In between rounds the stage is treated to a light show that's now for the benefit of the cameras only.

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A remake of Trackmania Nations is in the works, Ubisoft has announced.

The remake includes an official season campaign, daily track selections as well as new track-creation options with new surfaces and special blocks, developer Ubisoft Nadeo said.

Trackmania Nations came out in January 2006 as a free, standalone game. This remake, simply dubbed Trackmania, launches on PC on 5th May. It was announced at the Grand League Finals in Lyon, France, where Ubisoft Nadeo showed a trailer, below.

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A next generation console with just 4 teraflops of GPU power? Well, that's the rumour. While Microsoft teases and tempts us with the 12TF behemoth that is Xbox Series X, rumours persist that a second box is in development, designed to hit the market at a much lower price-point, undercutting PlayStation 5 while still being able to play each and every next-gen Xbox game. Lockhart is its codename and I find the basic concept behind its creation absolutely fascinating.

While I suspect that there are important nuances in the design that have yet to be revealed, it's safe to assume that the basic premise is based on the theory that graphics are far more scalable than any other component of a particular game with the idea being that Series X targets 4K while Lockhart aims for 1440p instead. This is borne out by the various spec leaks we've seen, which paint a picture of a console that has far more commonalities with Series X than it has differences. Leaks suggest that Lockhart has the same eight-core/16-thread CPU cluster as the Series X (CPU clocks may be very slightly different) while it still uses an NVMe-based solid state storage solution. As it's designed to run at lower native resolutions than Series X, we should also expect a lower provision of GDDR6 memory too: 12GB vs the more capable machine's 16GB seems likely.

PBS’ Antiques Roadshow says face-melting MacGuffin could easily get more at auction

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Weirdly here for the giant wrestling monsters

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Plus a bunch of video games on sale at Amazon

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Fasten your seatbelts and pull out your sick bags, the fastest loop-de-loops on PC are making a comeback. A remake of Trackmania Nations – simply titled Trackmania – is sitting in Ubisoft Nadeo’s garage, the developers announced this week. This year’s model is going seasonal, adding daily tracks and regular tournaments to keep your tyres firmly on Trackmania’s gravity-defying tarmac when it arrives on May 5th.

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EA Sports has given some FIFA 20 players a special in-game button overlay as it bids to improve responsiveness.

Responsiveness - or the lack of - is one of the hot topics within the FIFA community. It's felt FIFA 20 is particularly unresponsive when played online, where it can feel like there's a significant delay between a button press and the corresponding action in-game.

In truth, this has been a long-standing issue with EA Sports' FIFA games, and despite the developer's best efforts over the last few years, community complaints remain.

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Hello! This week we fall asleep while playing games, learn about all the companies skipping GDC, ask how Greninja won Pokemon Of The Year, check out the new GTA Online DLC, fight some Ewoks and crush a Furby.

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Today Koei Tecmo and Sony Interactive Entertainment released a new gameplay video of Nioh 2. 

The video features the Mount Tenno stage and stars producer Fumihiko Yasuda as he walks us through the level, providing tips.

He also mentions that the version showcased here is slightly different than that featured the “Last Chance Trial” demo that’s going o until tomorrow, possibly implying that it’s from the final game.

You can listen to his useful tips and tricks and enjoy the gameplay below.

So a lot of us here at Destructoid have seen the Sonic film, and the consensus seems to be: not-bad to fun. For a feature that looked like it had no hope based on the original incarnation of the character, that's a huge win.

The real question is, were you expecting Super Sonic to show up? It seemed like a sure thing for a final story beat, but it didn't end up happening. Speaking to Comicbook.com, director Jeff Fowler says it nearly made it in, but ended up on the cutting room floor.

Fowler notes: "It didn't make sense to obviously bring in the Super Sonic thing just yet. I mean, there were very early versions of the script and the outlines where... because we knew that's something that's very important in the fan mythology, or the mythology that fans love. And Chaos Emeralds are definitely a huge part, even going back to the first game in '91, and it was definitely something that we were kind of trying to see. Like, Does it make sense to include one of these?"

I mean, he's right. There's a lot of setup needed to just bring Super Sonic in and explain the Emeralds (on top of the rings) for an audience who may not have even played a Sonic game before. I think that's partly why the film is so successful at what it is: there's plenty of Easter eggs for hardcore fans, but the general plot is accessible.

Sonic Director Reveals They Had Plans For Super Sonic [Comicbook.com]

Arc System Works' stunning fighter Granblue Fantasy: Versus has announced the coming of its second DLC character, the friendly-but-fearsome swordswoman Narmaya, who will be made available to purchase worldwide on March 3 - incidentally launch day for the game's North American release.

Narmaya's charming presence and diminutive stature belie her incredible skills in battle. As part of a family whose goal is the mastery of every fighting style known to man or woman, Narmaya's sword technique is above reproach, allowing her to deal huge damage at close range, or fend off her assailants with stylish ranged jabs. Despite her frighteningly effective abilities, Narmaya is a delight to know, with a personality bursting with warmth and friendliness - almost to a fault.

I will sleep in the tent and eat fruit for sustenance

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It will be closed from March 1-15, 2020, but the event will run until April 22, 2020.

The post Final Fantasy VII Remake Skytree in Midgar Closed Amid Coronavirus Concerns appeared first on Siliconera.

Jason Blundell, one of the chief creators of Call of Duty's popular zombies mode, has left Treyarch after 13 years.

In a statement published to Twitter, Blundell said his time working on zombies had been "special", and thanked the zombies community for helping to create "memories I will cherish for a lifetime".

Blundell began working on nazi zombies - 1-4 player bonus mode in which players fought against waves of enemies - back in 2007 for 2008's Call of Duty World at War. World at War was the first game in Activision's blockbuster shooter series to feature a zombies mode, although it was only playable once the campaign was completed. It would go on to gain huge popularity within Treyarch's Black Ops games as a fully-fledged mode separate to campaign and traditional multiplayer.

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Every Pokemon is interesting and worth talking about. I don’t play a ton of Pokemon, but I do enjoy the universe and I love learning more about the creatures in it. So, Here’s Another Pokemon! It’s Malamar!

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Seems we slipped up, y’all. Apparently Rock Of Ages 3: Make & Break was announced last August but, looking through our archives, it seems we haven’t actually talked about it yet. Whoops. Clearly, we were just holding out ’til we got some good, heavy footage of ACE Team’s boulder-bothering threequel. This week the cardboard pantheon delivered, with 13 minutes of boulder-smashing Rock Of Ages 3 action coming hot out of PAX East.

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