March 2020

With Half-Life: Alyx launching later this month, developer Valve is opening the doors to a franchise it has left dormant for years. But even though this latest entry is a prequel to a story we already know, it seems Valve wants to continue exploring its world further in the future.

In an interview with Game Informer, Valve developer Robin Walker explained that Alyx has reintroduced the franchise to developers at Valve, who hope that it won't be the last game in the series they work on.

"There are also people on the team for whom Half-Life: Alyx is their first time working on this series at all--and many of them certainly hope it's not the last," Walker stated. "We absolutely see Half-Life: Alyx as our return to this world, not the end of it."

Konami has been keeping a miserable little pile of secrets. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is available now on iOS and Android, and it's packing in some extra features that make it a worthwhile version of the game.

Surprise-released this week for $3, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night on mobile is an updated version of the game, complete with a new "continue" feature and controller support. The game also supports achievements, and has English, Japanese, German, French, Italian, and Spanish language options.

Konami called the mobile version a "direct port" of the PlayStation original, but it appears to be closer to the PSP and PS4 versions first seen in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles. This version doesn't feature the same voice acting or dialogue as the original.

It's March, and game release season is finally starting on Xbox One. With new game launches come new additions to Xbox Game Pass for Xbox One and PC, including the long-awaited sequel to one of the console's best games.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps will be available on March 11, both for Xbox Game Pass and as a traditional purchase. The game is substantially bigger than its predecessor, with even more detailed art design and expanded platforming and action. During GameSpot's Ori and the Will of the Wisps preview, Alessandro Fillari found it even more charming than Ori and the Blind Forest.

NBA 2K20 is also coming to Xbox Game Pass, but only on Xbox One, and will be available March 5. As the latest in the world's most popular basketball franchise, you shouldn't have any trouble finding opponents online.

Xbox consoles could allow you to pick and choose which games get auto-updated, thanks to a request from a fan. A Twitter user asked Xbox head Phil Spencer to add the feature, and Spencer took the suggestion as a good one and said he'd pass it along to the team.

Specifically, the user cited managing his ISP's data caps, as well as the occasional long wait for an update to a game that had its updates queued behind others that he didn't need. This comes just after some users have been frustrated by large update sizes for games like Modern Warfare and Apex Legends.

Maverick, one of EA’s Star Wars projects, has apparently leaked onto the PlayStation Network. Kotaku can confirm that this is EA Motive’s “smaller, more unusual project” we previously reported on in February.

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Animal Crossing fans are eagerly awaiting the arrival of New Horizons, and aside from drawing wholesome fanart of Isabelle and Doomguy, it seems they now have something else to pass the time, as this week a rather special event is happening.

BrianMp16 is an Animal Crossing speedrunner who's undertaken a vast challenge: to earn one billion bells through legitimate gameplay, and then buy the game's most expensive item - a post office model costing 999,999,999 in savings. To do this, he's been playing the GameCube version of Animal Crossing for over 170 hours and earning bells by "play[ing] the Stalk Market" and shifting massive amounts of turnips. He estimates the entire process will take him about 180 hours, a historic feat he's set to achieve this Friday.

"Since Animal Crossing was released on September 16th, 2002, players worldwide have legitimately acquired every possible item in the game except one - the Post Model," BrianMp16 explained on Reddit. "This item has been considered the holy grail of Animal Crossing games due to the overwhelming amount of time and effort needed to get it by maxing out your bank account."

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“Giving up would have been a betrayal.”

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Sony Santa Monica head Shannon Studstill will lead a new Stadia team

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Daniel Craig’s final James Bond movie will no longer debut in April

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We didn’t start the fire. It’s always burning since the wheel’s been turning. Oh yes, the flames rage on in Sea Of Thieves. Last month’s update added that flamin’ angry chest and ashen skeletons and whatnot. Next week, the silly pirates game is getting another update and yup, things are still hot around here. This time ’round it’s fire traps, a knockback bomb, and new Tall Tale quests setting the course. Rare’s new video gets into some of the details we can expect next week in the Heart Of Fire update.

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I did level four on my first go. That’s my crown and none of you can take it. Level three was a bastard’s hump and I struggled to get through it for hours, before I realised that I already had the supplies I needed to repair my ship. Those same supplies are also a requirement for the best weapons. That’s just mean, man.

Savage Vessels is a top-down roguelike survival game that’s openly inspired by Teleglitch, 2012’s harrowing pixelly survival horror, but it’s doing enough differently do stand out. In fact, I prefer it. (more…)

Nvidia’s G-Sync Compatible monitor list continues to get bigger and bigger every month. At last count, there are more than 80 FreeSync monitors that have been officially approved to meet Nvidia’s strict G-Sync Compatible standards, allowing Nvidia graphics card owners to take advantage of a monitor’s variable refresh rate tech for super smooth gaming even if it isn’t a full-fat G-Sync screen. Read on below to find out exactly what screens meet Nvidia’s G-Sync Compatible requirements, as well as how to enable G-Sync on any FreeSync monitor.

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An unannounced Star Wars title seems to have mysteriously popped up on the European PlayStation Store database. Star Wars: Project Maverick was revealed by Twitter account @psnrelease, a bot that scours the depths of the database for recent additions.

Other than a title image, which features a Star Destroyer and a few X-Wings in flight, very little info is available on the title - which one would assume is coming from Electronic Arts as they currently hold the rights to produce Star Wars video games. As noted by Gematsu, the Content ID listing does suggest that Project Maverick is not a VR title, but that it does feature multiplayer.

Curiouser and curiouser. We will keep you informed if there is any official word on this mystery release.

Unannounced Star Wars Project Maverick PlayStation Store leak [Gematsu]

While trawling through Deku Deals, I found a handful of recent Mega Man games on sale: it looks like Capcom is pushing several deals out on the low.

Perhaps most importantly is Mega Man 11, which is being sold at retail for $19.99 on Switch ($10 off MSRP, which is also the regular eShop price, still) and is currently $14.99 on the eShop. The other big games of note: most of the Legacy Collections are $9.99 now, including the duos for the classic and the X series. All of these are worth jumping on immediately at that price except for the second X Legacy Collection, which comes with a few unfortunate entries that helped seal the fate of the X franchise.

In other Mega Man Switch related news, the Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection is not on sale, but it was just released recently. Capcom is keeping this series fresh in everyone's mind, and is secretly working on another Mega Man project beyond the upcoming mobile spinoff.

Mega Man [Deku Deals]

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) has presented its full list of nominees for the 2020 BAFTA Games Awards, which will take place in London in April.

In a huge list of categories - which includes gongs for Narrative, Animation, Family appeal and Multiplayer quality -  Death Stranding, Control, Untitled Goose Game, Life is Strange 2 and Disco Elysium all find themselves leading the charge, having been nominated for multiple awards.

The BAFTA Games Awards also gives some smaller British titles an opportunity to shine, such as Foam Sword's Knights and Bikes, which is listed in no less than four categories. The winners will be decided by the BAFTA global membership, which is comprised of a body of veterans from various aspects of the video game industry.

You can check out the lengthy list of nominees below. The BAFTA Games Awards will take place April 2 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, hosted once again by comedian Dara O' Briain. The event will also be live-streamed across various social media outlets.

Valve shared a brief look at how the concept for a VR Half-Life game like the upcoming Half-Life Alyx came to be in a recent interview with Game Informer. ...

Google's Stadia Games & Entertainment branch today unveiled a new studio in California which aims to develop "exclusive games" for the company's nascent streaming game platform. ...

Kamiya and Inaba talk about The Wonderful 101: Remastered and their feelings on PlatinumGames revisiting it.

The post Kamiya & Inaba Talk About Game Difficulty & Returning to The Wonderful 101: Remastered appeared first on Siliconera.

Since its January 16, 2020 debut, Yakuza: Like a Dragon sales have passed 400,000 units.

The post Yakuza: Like a Dragon Sales Have Passed 400,000 Units Since Launch appeared first on Siliconera.

Google Stadia has a new first-party studio based in Los Angeles’ Playa Vista and it’s being led by one of PlayStation’s most decorated veterans. Shannon Studstill, who worked as Sony Santa Monica’s studio head during God of War’s development and has been with PlayStation for over a decade, has been named as Playa Vista’s new studio head. The news comes by way of a blog post today from Stadia’s vice president and head of games Jade Raymon, who explains:

“I’ve been a fan of Shannon’s for a long time, and have admired her award-winning work leading Sony’s Santa Monica Studio and the industry-defining franchises like God of War that have won fans all over the world. She has an extensive background in product development and creative leadership, but most importantly, she’s a visionary who, as the Studio Director, will lead and inspire the Playa Vista teams. We’re thrilled to welcome her to the Stadia family!”

Studhill celebrated the new position in a Tweet earlier today, too.

So excited to build and support a new team of creatives @GoogleStadia!! https://t.co/MdhixOdXCu

— Shannon Studstill (@StudstillS) March 4, 2020

After revealing the game at E3 2019, Ubisoft has finally announced what platforms Roller Champions will be coming to when it fully launches.

In a new trailer, which you can see below and shows off a whole host of tricks you can pull off in the game, it’s revealed that Roller Champions will be coming to PS4, Xbox One, Switch, & mobile devices, as well as previously revealed PC.

The release date is still yet to be revealed, but PC will be able to test it out as a couple of beta periods are due to start over the next few months.

First, you can now sign up via the official Roller Champions website until March 11 to take part in the closed alpha. Spaces are limited, so it’s best to register interest as soon as possible to avoid missing out.

However, anyone who doesn’t get in will be added to waiting list for access to the Roller Champions closed beta that’ll follow later in the year.

Anyone who takes part in the closed alpha will get an exclusive outfit once the full game launches and will have full access to the game for five days.

MGM, Universal and the No Time to Die producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, have announced that the release date of No Time to Die has been pushed back to November 2020.

The 25th Bond movie, starring Daniel Craig, was originally slated to release on April 3, with Billie Eilish’s theme song recently releasing and tickets going on sale last week.

However, following recent developments in the spread of Covid-19, the decision has been made to push the release date back. The full statement about No Time to Die, released on Twitter, reads:

MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of No Time to Die will be postponed until November 2020.

They went on to reveal that No Time to Die will release in the UK on Nov. 12, with the worldwide launch following. It will come to US screens on Nov. 25.

The news comes following calls from owners of James Bond fan sites to delay No Time to Die’s release. In a letter to the studios, founders of MI6 Confidential and The James Bond Dossier, James Page and David Leigh, said:

“It is time to put public health above marketing release schedules… There is a significant chance that cinemas will be closed, or their attendance severely reduced, by early April. Even if there are no legal restrictions on cinemas being open, to quote M in Skyfall, ‘How safe do you feel?'”

We will update this piece as MGM and Universal say more on the situation.

There is no denying that Sony has been dominating the recent console wars, selling 105.94 million units lifetime, and controlling 52 percent market share on the backs of fantastic exclusive games. 

Despite the domination, it is still anyone’s game when it comes to the next generation of consoles, as the PS5 and Xbox Series X loom near. 

And while both Sony and Microsoft have been garnering momentum, Xbox has invested a lot into one area that may be the difference-maker for the war to come: video game subscription service. 

Since launching in 2017, Xbox Game Pass has grown from a limited catalog of games to a platform that Microsoft uses to promote its exclusives. 

Comparatively, Sony’s subscription service, PS Now, has also grown quite a bit, drastically reducing its pricing structure and bolstering its library of streamable games. Adding backward compatible PS2 games isn’t going to be enough to help in the upcoming console war, though. 

The real contributing factor these subscription services can add to their respective consoles is in a combination of including recent releases, launches, and exclusive titles on their platforms. 

While most of this shouldn’t be a problem for Sony, since they have almost double the number of exclusives compared to Microsoft, Xbox Game Pass’ library has beaten PS Now on all fronts during the current generation. 

Today publisher Ratalaika Games announced that many of its indie visual novels are coming to consoles. 

Most of the games mentioned below are already available on PC or mobile and they’re coming to PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. 

Syrup and the Ultimate Sweet is the exception, as it released today for the three platforms mentioned above and for the old and beloved PS Vita. 

Update: Ratalaika reached out with an update mentioninthat Blind Men is also coming to PS Vita, making it two.

As for the release windows of the other games, they’re all coming “later this year.”

Here’s a full list with a handy description for each: 

 Long Live the Queen HD:

Being a princess is not an easy job. Being a Queen is even harder. Especially when you’re only fourteen years old. Now power is up for grabs. You may be the official heir, but much of the country’s nobility would love to steal the throne for themselves. Can you survive long enough to reach your coronation?

Blind Men:

As the nephew of a retired super villain, there’s nothing Keegan wants more than to join the League of Evil! All he needs to do is commit a crime to complete his application. Unfortunately, Keegan soon finds himself in more trouble than he could have ever imagined when his plans are interrupted by a couple of spies from opposing agencies.

Will Keegan’s plans be thwarted or allow him to be successful?

Syrup and The Ultimate Sweet:

In a magical town there lives a candy alchemist, Syrup, who one day discovers a candy golem in her basement. Uncover the mystery of where exactly did this candy golem come from on the quest to make the ultimate sweet.

Angels with Scaly Wings:

Get ready to feel old: The PlayStation 2, one of gaming’s most iconic consoles, has officially turned 20. This might depress those who hate time’s constant march forward, but for everyone else, it’s a chance to look back on some of the console’s best titles. To that end, here are the 10 best PS2 games to play for its 20th anniversary.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy still holds a special place in many a gamer’s hearts, and for good reason.

Developer Media Molecule has released a new patch for its game-making toolkit, Dreams. Update v2.06 adds some new content along with a few tweaks, fixes, and improvements to the overall experience.

The Welcome Garden Art Pack is the first new art pack to arrive since Dreams launched on February 14. It contains more than 40 sculptures that you can use to decorate your homespace, utilize in your own creations, or remix to create something new.

The latest patch also adds Community Jam Collections, which highlights specific collections and should make it easier for those who want to enter one of Dreams' Community Jams but don't quite know where to begin. There's also a new online indicator to let you know when creators are online.

Welcome to the latest Gaming Shelf, io9's column all about board games and tabletop roleplaying games. This year’s Toy Fair brought a bunch of surprises and great reveals, like a new Marvel Villainous board game. Check out the latest stash of gaming news, where we’ve got a telenovela RPG, a Scooby-Doo dose of Betrayal…

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One dry October morning in 2019, my father came to my apartment, already in tears by the time I opened the door, to tell me a family secret.

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Kindle with Built-In Front Light | $60 | Amazon
Kindle Paperwhite | $85 | Amazon

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In just a couple of weeks, Sea of Thieves will have reached the grand old age of two; so it seems appropriate that Rare's multiplayer pirate adventure will be celebrating in style, with the arrival of its feature-packed new Heart of Fire update next Wednesday, 11th March.

We already had a tiny taste of things to come in Sea of Thieves' imminent Heart of Fire update when Rare introduced the world to the new ship-smashing Chain Shot. It turns out that's not the only PvP-focussed item on the way, however, and next week will also drop the powerful Blunderbomb into players' eager, outstretched palms.

This throwable explosive is primarily designed to cause knock-back, meaning it's especially useful in foiling the opposition's plans. Attacking players can, for instance, sneakily peer up a ship's boarding ladder and toss the item to push back anyone guarding the top. Conversely, it can be used to knock boarding players off ladders or clean over the side of a boat, and it looks like they can be used to detach players from the likes of the capstan, wheel, and rigging too.

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You can call upon a Marvel superhero for almost any type of game on mobile, be it matching colored blocks or battling villains through turn-based combat. At this year's PAX East convention, Marvel held a mystery panel that revealed Marvel: Future Revolution, the company's first open-world role-playing game for mobile. The game is in development at Netmarble, the studio behind the successful mobile action/RPG Marvel: Future Fight.

At PAX, Marvel showed off a number of videos that give a brief look into the world, combat, heroes, and villains. As you can see directly below, combat is handled from a close-over-the-shoulder viewpoint. The action appears to deliver a mix of hand-to-hand combat with special abilities, but we don't know how players initiate these moves yet, or even handle movement within the sprawling worlds.

I'm famously not much of a fan of boss fights. The way they're implemented so often feels like a low point of my interest in a game. But in the video above, I break down why Outriders' different approach to these gaming staples sold me on the game's approach to them and got me excited to play more.

Enjoy the video, and that's it for our month of Outriders coverage! Thanks everyone for tuning in, I hope we helped you learn about and get excited for the game. To get caught up on our exclusive coverage, check out our now complete hub of video and written features below!

Just wasn’t good enough, developers say

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Robert Pattinson has a sweet new ride

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Coming in June with the PC launch

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Ain’t technology a beaut’? You press one wrong button and suddenly things just leak all over the floor—names and pictures and prices and dates mostly. This leak, courtesy of a Twitter bot that tracks updates and releases added to the PlayStation Network, has two of the four. It’s a (possible) name and an image for a new Star Wars game that we’re probably not meant to know about yet. (more…)