March 2020

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The Elder Scrolls Online‘s next big expansion comes out in May but you can try out its prologue chapter for free. Zenimax Online Studios have also released a new story trailer for the expansion, showing off some vampire baddies and a few vistas from Western Skyrim that you’ll recognize if you played The Elder Scrolls V. ESO is hosting a free play period for over a week starting this Wednesday and say that free players will also be able to try out the Greymoor expansion prologue.

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On the heels of the adored Resident Evil 2 remake, Capcom's sequel had some massive sized shoes to fill. But, according to Ben Reeves' review, Resident Evil 3 lives up to most of the hype with tense, action-packed combat and a terrifying stalker that's worthy of the legacy of the Nemesis. Watch with us as we visually go over the RE3 Remake with a fine-tooth comb and tell fans of the series whether or not it's a must-buy.

Thank you to everyone who reached out with constructive comments on the Doom Eternal review. As this is still our second video review, please keep that feedback coming! You can reach out in the comments below or send me your thoughts on Twitter. Thanks and I hope you enjoy the video!

Shinji will get in the robot this April.

The post Evangelion Battlefields Arrives on Mobile Devices this April appeared first on Siliconera.

Billion Road will come to the PC and Switch soon! We’ve played it! We can tell you about it! Let's start from the beginning.

The post What the Heck is Billion Road and Why Should I Care? appeared first on Siliconera.

Bandai Spirit's PlayStation and Sega Saturn plastic model kits are now available.

The post Get a Nostalgia Fix with Bandai Spirits PlayStation and Sega Saturn Model Kits appeared first on Siliconera.

Sorry, but we have been saying in dev blogs and interviews for years that consoles will come further down the road, as PCs are our primary platform.

Multiple outlets have reported that Nintendo plans to bring a few iconic 3D Mario games to Nintendo Switch, including the all-time-great Super Mario Galaxy, for the series' 35th anniversary. Beyond these exciting Switch remasters, we're also expected to get a new Paper Mario in 2020. (Please be good!)

According to reports from VGC, Eurogamer, and Gematsu, Nintendo was planning to announce a slew of Mario remasters at E3 2020 in June, an option that's no longer on the table due to COVID-19.

It's unclear when we can expect an announcement from Nintendo, especially when events and dates keep drifting away, but here's the rumored list: Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Mario 3D World Deluxe (an upgraded take on the Wii U title with new levels).

Here's another interesting rumor from GamesBeat (including the first mention of Super Mario Galaxy 2):

Square Enix Montreal is offering up its mobile puzzler Lara Croft GO as a free download for a limited time. All you have to do is grab the 2015 title on either iOS or the Android Store between now and April 1 and you can dive into the strategic adventure game for no charge.

Lara Croft GO is a neat little title that takes the typically action-packed adventures of Lara and translates them into 40 stages of turn-based, strategic action. The exploration, combat and puzzle-solving aspects are all present and correct, albeit at a more thoughtful and relaxed pace. The concept works surprisingly well, much as it did in predecessor Hitman GO.

Also available on PS4, PS Vita, and PC, Lara Croft GO is currently only free to pick up on mobile platforms - though the PC version is currently discounted over on Steam.

In its most fundamental change to gameplay yet, Pokémon Go will soon allow you to take part in raid battles with friends from home.

The change is one of several new features in development at Niantic in response to the global coronavirus crisis, detailed today in a lengthy blog post from company founder John Hanke.

The post also touched on the game's annual Go Fest events, which see tens of thousands of players meet up in cities every summer.

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Valorant, the new free-to-play first-person tactical shooter from League of Legends developer Riot Games, will be entering closed beta next week, ahead of its launch on PC this summer.

Originally announced under the name Project A as part of Riot's tenth anniversary celebrations last year, Valorant is a character-based shooter, with a focus on tactical play, inspired by the likes of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Crossfire, and, yes, Overwatch.

It's a five-versus-five affair - each playable Agent having their own distinct abilities - in which the attacking team attempts to plant a bomb (the "Spike") behind enemy lines. The defending team, meanwhile, must attempt defuse it or simply last the course of a round in order to win.

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Today Pony Canyon released a brand new video dedicated to the Sakura Wars franchise. 

While the video was specifically released to celebrate the anime, which will debut in Japan on April 3, it works as a lovely introduction to the world even for those who are eagerly awaiting to play the PS4 game.

It provides an extensive introduction to the setting in about five minutes, not only focusing on the “present day,” but also on the past games released in the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast era.

If you’re new to the franchise, it’s a good chance to take a look at those who came before, including the previous Floral Revue which was the focus of the original Sakura Wars and most of its sequel, the Paris Revue which debuted in Sakura Wars 3, and the New York Revue at the center of Sakura Wars: So Long My Love.

You can check out the video below.

Incidentally, during a livestream today, Sega also announced that the old OVA series will be aired on YouTube on April 3 to celebrate the new TV series.

On top of that, a car sponsorized by the franchise will take part in the All Japan Rally Championship. You can see it below.

Niantic has announced via a blog post on their official website today that some pretty radical changes will be coming to Pokemon GO, Ingress, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

Niantic’s suite of games has always been about getting out and exploring the real world. Pokemon GO, Ingress, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite all gave players the motivation like never before to venture around the real world, with the promise of rewards around every potential corner.

However, due to the restrictions and issues posed by the COVID-19 situation, many players of these games are responsibly staying home, limiting their access to some of these titles’ features. In response, Niantic has announced that they’ll be altering some of these key features to make the games more enjoyable in an at-home setting.

Target is currently hosting a buy two, get one free mix and match sale that features dozens of Switch, PS4, and Xbox games. If you happen to be stuck at home for whatever reason right now, this is a great opportunity to get yourself a nice deal on some fantastic video games.

While most of the titles that are part of the sale are not from 2020, there are some gems hidden here like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle.

The sale started over the weekend and you will be able to snag up the deal until this Saturday, which is April 4. You can head to Target’s website to check out the entire list of games that are part of the sale but we’ve also listed some of the highlights down below:

The first few months of 2020 have been a bit lacking when it comes to big AAA releases on the PS4. But as of March and April, things are finally starting to pick up, with some new PS4 games coming out this April.

Capcom’s horrifying remake of Resident Evil 3 is just a few short days away; Square Enix’s much-anticipated Final Fantasy VII Remake will soon be in our greedy little hands, and the PS4 is also getting an exclusive multiplayer shooter in the form of Predator: Hunting Grounds.

We have a full list of every new game coming to the PS4 down below but if you want some more info on some of the more notable releases that we recommend picking up, just keep scrolling down:

New PS4 Releases for April 2020

• Totally Reliable Delivery Service – April 1
• My Friend Pedro – April 2
• HyperParasite – April 3
• Resident Evil 3 Remake – April 3
• Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories – April 7
• Below – April 7
• Final Fantasy VII Remake – April 10
• Hellpoint – April 16
• Obey Me – April 21
• Deliver Us The Moon – April 24
• Predator: Hunting Grounds – April 24
• Trials of Mana – April 24
• Moving Out – April 28
• Sakura Wars – April 28
• SnowRunner – April 28
• Minecraft Dungeons – April TBA

The post New PS4 Games Releasing in April 2020 appeared first on Twinfinite.

The Predator franchise hasn’t had the best of luck in terms of its most recent films, but the upcoming Predator: Hunting Grounds has many hopeful that it can find new longevity in the gaming medium. We had a chance to see what the title has to offer during its pre-release trial period this weekend, and it certainly has some potential for great things.

At its core, Predator: Hunting Grounds is an asymmetrical multiplayer title in the same vein as the Friday the 13th game, but with slightly more polish and a shooter slant. Both sides of the match are armed and dangerous – though the Predator has a clear advantage in terms of firepower – and can pick apart waves of AI enemies while trying to take each other down.

One side plays as a fire team of four players, tasked with completing a certain task and escaping the jungle in a certain amount of time. Each player can take the role of a different type of soldier, and can contribute to the team’s success in a different way.

Assault troops offer a good balance of speed, durability and useful gear, and can lead the charge into fire fights. Support units can tank damage and lay down suppressive fire to keep enemies at bay, while Scouts can zoom in and out of enemy territory quickly to get a handle on what the team is walking into.

I usually check the news on my computer or my phone, but sometimes I’ll tap the New York Times app on my iPad, which is old and slow and prone to displaying headlines from several days ago. Those headlines linger for several confusing seconds before the ones for the current day materialize. This past Saturday, March…

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Let’s call The Room series the Half-Life of puzzle games about locked boxes. It’s the best in its category, and its creators just released a sequel that’s only playable in virtual reality.

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Infinity Ward, developer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, is looking for a talented and passionate QA Manager to join our high-caliber team. ...

If you're stuck at home with not much to do and looking for an online game to get into, we've got some good news for you: Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls Online is offering free access to its base game on PS4, Xbox One, and PC in April. From April 1 to April 13, you can play The Elder Scrolls Online for free on PS4 and Xbox One, while Steam's free play event runs only until April 6.

The Elder Scrolls Online's free play event includes the game's Greymoor Prologue, which is a preview of the game's Greymoor Chapter. The upcoming DLC releases May 18 for PC and Mac and June 2 for Xbox One and PS4.

This free play period also coincides with the game's Anniversary Jubilee event, which offers opportunities for double XP, exclusive rewards, and delicious cake to celebrate the game's sixth birthday. If you've played The Elder Scrolls Online in any previous free events, you'll be able to continue your progression as normal. Additionally, new ESO accounts will receive 500 crowns to spend in the game's premium currency shop.

If you've spent any time with Animal Crossing: New Horizons over the past few days, you've no doubt had a few run-ins with your island's most hostile residents. No, we're not talking about Tom Nook or any of your delightful animal neighbors, but rather the stinging wasps that you accidentally unhouse when you're gathering tree branches for your zillionth fishing rod that day.

Well, if you're tired of having to use medicine to treat those wounds, we have good news for you--you can use party poppers to scare them away, as revealed by embedded Tweet above. To be clear, the timing is pretty tight, and you have to make sure to shake the tree from the front in order to line it up, but it does work. You can buy party poppers from the Nook's Cranny store.

Alternatively, you can use your net to catch the wasps before they descend on you. But hey, this is a much more festive solution, if nothing else. If you need help gathering any other bugs, read our guide to catching them. If you haven't picked up New Horizons, check out our review-in-progress to see what our critic Kallie Plagge liked and didn't like about the game.

With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic forcing many parts of the country into lockdown, Pokemon Go developer Niantic has been tweaking the hit AR mobile game to make it easier to play while social distancing. As part of the changes, the studio has recently begun offering 1 PokeCoin bundles in the in-game store and removed the walking requirement to take part in the Go Battle League, and it will soon let players participate in Raids from afar as well.

In a new blog post, Niantic outlined some further changes it will make to Pokemon Go. One of the most notable is that you won't need to leave your home in order to join Raids. "You'll soon be able to team up with friends and take on Raid Battles together in Pokemon Go from the comfort of home," the developer wrote.

This is certainly a welcome change, as players previously needed to physically travel to a Gym where a Raid was taking place in order to join the battle. Raids are one of the few ways you can catch rare Legendary Pokemon, which are typically only available for a limited time, and this adjustment will ensure that everyone will have a chance to capture these monsters while they're in the game.

Card game is about to make a comeback

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I don’t know where to begin with this—literally, figuratively, existentially? It’s a new browser ARG thing by Nathalie Lawhead who has made many odd things wot RPS folk have enjoyed like Froggy and Cyberpet Graveyard. Mackerelmediafish.com, which I suppose is the website and also the name of the game(?), is another such clever oddity.

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Square Enix surprised us with a Bravely Default II demo last week, and Team Asano wants to hear your thoughts on it in a user survey.

The post Square Enix’s Team Asano Wants Your Feedback on the Bravely Default II Demo appeared first on Siliconera.

Beginner's Guide

• How to Restart or Reroll Your Island

This is a guest column from Juha Vainio, an Executive Producer at Remedy Entertainment, the development team behind our 2019 Game of the Year, Control. [poilib element="accentDivider"]

I've never been one to chase achievements or trophies in games. I usually play the main storyline, some side quests, and that's it. Prior to launching Control, I had zero Platinum trophies on PS4. But, Control being my game, I decided well in advance that Control will be the first game I platinum - to collect all the trophies.

So I got to it and played the game diligently, finished the main storyline, all the side quests and started hunting all the trophies. Control is not the hardest game to platinum so the progress was decent. I believe it was October 2019 when I got all the trophies but one, the "Master Parautilitarian", awarded for unlocking all of Jesse’s abilities.

[ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/the-first-17-minutes-of-control-the-foundation-dlc"]

I had still a few powers missing, so I went on getting them and was pretty excited when I was enabling my final ability, supposedly triggering the trophy. But... the trophy didn't trigger – meaning neither did the Platinum.

Clearly a bug, I asked our QA if they had bumped into anything similar. They hadn't. I then went to our community management and asked if they had noticed anyone complaining about something similar - they hadn't, either. So it must have been quite a rare bug.

Nintendo will be bringing a new Mythic Hero to its mobile battle title Fire Emblem Heroes this week, as the mysterious Bramimond the Enigma (a name they blatantly gave himself) will make their presence felt in the latest summoning event.

Appearing in 2003's Game Boy Advance release Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Barmimond is a hermitous master of the dark arts, and one of the few remaining Eight Legends - a party of powerful fighters who once fought back a siege of dragons in a battle known as "The Scouring". Bramimond now lives in Bern's Shrine of Seals, happy to spend life in the shadows until they are called upon once more.

Players dipping their toes into Star Wars: Jedi Academy for the first time over the weekend, following Thursday's PS4 and Switch release, have come up against an unexpected obstacle in their quest for Jedi supremacy; long-time PC players are intentionally invading console games to wreak nefarious havoc, thanks to a seemingly unintentional cross-play feature.

Star Wars: Jedi Academy initially launched for PC all the way back in 2003, giving players on the platform a massive 17 years head-start in which to hone their lightsaber skills. Throw in the mouse and keyboard advantage of PC, and players of the freshly launched console ports (as spotted by PC Gamer) weren't exactly thrilled when they ventured into Jedi Academy's multiplayer mode this weekend, only to be utterly obliterated by invaders from the dark side.

"I was excited to play this game online, so I picked it up immediately", wrote a clearly disappointed May Payment on Resetera, "I joined a game where 1 player was absolutely mopping the floor with us and he had .twitchtv in his username. Sure enough, I looked him up and he was playing on PC in a switch server absolutely decimating everyone."

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been out for only 10 days at this point and players continue to blow my mind with just how creative they can get. One Reddit user that goes by Tetraterra uploaded a video to the Animal Crossing subreddit over the weekend, showing them and their friends playing high stakes musical chairs and it’s incredibly adorable to watch.

The video starts off with the group of players discussing how much the pot would be for the winner of the game. In this case, the winner of this round of musical chairs would win a whopping 105,000 Bells –Tom Nook would be proud.

You can then see the group complete multiple rounds of musical chairs with each one taking place in a specified location on the island.

It’s absolutely adorable to see all of the players running around the island together like a group of toddlers causing mischief at a local playground or something. Just watch them use their ladders and vaulting poles — it’s utterly wholesome!

You can see the entire video down below that cuts to all of the best parts of their musical chairs-filled night.

Just days after launching on Steam, the massively multiplayer online game Last Oasis has already gone offline following widespread reports from players about issues trying to log on and server crashes.

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I’ve never had any grand aspirations of being an astronaut, even as a kid. But in playing Moons of Madness, the latest first-person adventure from Norwegian studio Rock Pocket Games, I was given definitive proof that I just couldn’t hack it in outer space, long before the eldritch abominations started showing up.

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Like in previous Animal Crossing games, special visitors may come to your island on any given day in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Many of these visitors are random, while others show up at specific times of the week or day, and all of them offer rewards on top of their smiling faces and dazzling conversation. We've rounded up all the visitors in the game so far, when and where you should look out for them, and what they offer when they visit.

For more Animal Crossing tips, be sure to check out our guide to hybrid flowers and our guide to the deserted island Mystery Tours. We also have lists of all the fish and bugs in the game, when and where they appear, and how much they sell for.

Random Visitors

These visitors will show up at random throughout the week, though you may need to progress a bit before some will visit your island. You'll have to look for them each day, as their visits won't be announced ahead of time. You'll usually only see one visitor per day (if any), but Celeste or Wisp may show up at night even if another all-day visitor is around. Note that Harvey is a one-time visitor and will not visit again once he's told you about his island early in the game.

After revealing the game earlier this month, developer Metalhead Software has dropped a brand-new overview video for its upcoming arcade sports simulator Super Mega Baseball 3.

The two-minute video goes into the "big picture changes" between Super Mega Baseball 2 and the upcoming sequel, which is coming to Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in April 2020. Namely, the studio focused on some of SMB3's new accessibility and customization features, allowing configurations for "new players to just sit down and hammer [homeruns] all the way up to a level that only the game's very best players will be able to handle."

You can check out the game's overview video below. Metahead also confirmed that more videos are coming in the future that will discuss SMB3's "various new features and changes."

Elder Scrolls Online is preparing for a trip to Greymoor, and you can start to get a taste for the new content with a special prologue quest. The prologue is free to all players and available starting today.

The free chapter will take you into Blackreach to face the Icereach Coven, helping to wrap up the Dark Heart of Skyrim storyline as it segues into the new Greymoor story. You can find it by selecting "Prologue Quest: The Coven Conspiracy" from the Crown Store, and then finding Lyris Titanborn in your alliance's Fighter's Guild. A new story trailer helps set the spooky stage for things to come as well.