March 2020

The 2020 BAFTA Game Awards nominations were announced this morning, and the big winners are Kojima Productions' Death Stranding and Remedy's Control, with a record-breaking 11 nominations apiece.

Other widely nominated games were Disco Elyisum (7 nominations), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Life is Strange 2 and Outer Wilds (5 nominations), and Knights and Bikes, Untitled Goose Game and Luigi's Mansion 3 (4 nominations).

There are new categories for animation and technical achievement, while the performance award has been split into two categories, for leading and supporting roles.

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I don’t know what’s happened further down the timeline, but it would appear that the terrifying Acer Thronos mega chair has been overthrown by a new gaming overlord: the gaming bed. Conceived in Japan by gaming desk maker Bauhutte, this cursed concoction is actually a Power Rangers-style amalgamation of all their gaming furniture combined. Only instead of transforming into a mighty-morphin’ humanity-saving mech suit, it’s a mighty-morphin’ gaming prison designed to bombard us with more #content than we could ever possibly consume. The only thing it’s missing is a built-in bog hole.

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The DJMax Respect PC version will leave early access and launch on March 12, 2020. But if you buy it before then, you get free DLC.

The post DJMax Respect V Will Leave Early Access on March 12, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.

Mario Kart Tour multiplayer mode races will kick off on March 8, 2020 at 8pm PT. Both free and Gold Pass options will be available.

The post Mario Kart Tour Multiplayer Races Begin appeared first on Siliconera.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on March 24, 2020.

The post Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution Will Release for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on March 24, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.

BAFTA has announced the nominees for this year's British Academy Games Awards, and both Control and Death Stranding are leading the charge with a record-breaking 11 nominations each. ...

The programming tools that come with Nintendo’s Labo VR Kit are extremely limited, but that didn’t stop one player from using them to try and make dungeon mini-games ripped straight out of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

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The developer of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has ditched a Kickstarter stretch goal four years after it was reached.

In a post on the Bloodstained Kickstarter page, chief developer Koji Igarashi said the Roguelike stretch goal, promised when the Castlevania spiritual successor's crowdfunding drive hit $5m, won't happen.

Roguelike was meant to add procedurally generated dungeons to the game. Here's how it was pitched when it was announced on 11th June 2015, just after the Bloodstained Kickstarter hit $4m:

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If you've ever been fortunate enough to make it to the final few circles of an Apex Legends match, you may have encountered something like this:

Grenade spam has been a bit of an issue since Apex Legends was released last year, particularly in tight final circles where grenades become harder to avoid. The inventory system previously allowed grenade stacks of two, meaning you could store up dozens of explosives and simply unleash them all onto an enemy squad.

Well, it sounds like that tactic will work no longer, as Respawn is rebalancing the entire inventory system as part of the changes introduced alongside the System Override Collection Event.

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Promised roguelike mode incompatible with game engine, according to the developer

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Valorant may not get patches quite as often as League of Legends but Riot will keep them frequent

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The Spider-verse duo put a twist on a familiar story

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The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Even when a game like Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night blows past its funding goals and is released to glowing reviews, not every feature promised during its Kickstarter campaign comes to fruition.

Yesterday, Koji Igarashi revealed via Kickstarter update that Bloodstained’s promised Roguelike mode has been cancelled. The mode, which was a $5,000,000 stretch goal, is no longer being developed because “the code that was created early in the game’s development is not currently compatible with this type of gameplay.” Apparently, Roguelike mode would have featured a procedurally generated castle and was a major culprit behind the incompatibility issues.

However, this turn of events is not a total loss, as the development team has been working on a different mode to replace the now-abandoned roguelike dungeon: Randomizer.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with randomizers, they are special mods (or in this case, official game modes) that swap the placements of items and enemies in games, so you never know what you will encounter and when.

Bloodstained’s Randomizer mode will let players choose eight different parameters, including what items drop from specific enemies, save and warp rooms locations, and item crafting recipe requirements. Moreover, the Randomizer game mode will feature a timer that keeps track of a player’s progress.

We now know one of the two mystery announcements NIS America has planned for the week, as the publisher announced a localisation of charming-but-gross survival title Void Terrarium, which launched on PS4 and  Nintendo Switch in Japan back in January.

Void Terrarium, (or void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium to give it its full title), is a unique survival game set in a weirdly attractive but wholly grim post-apocalyptic universe. Players control a humble service droid, who awakens after a long period of disservice to find the world under siege from toxic plantation.

Not long after reactivation, the little droid comes across a young human girl called Toriko, injured but alive, and houses her in a small glass dome to protect her from the hazardous atmosphere. From there, players take over the roles of both characters, as the droid ventures out into the wasteland for supplies and medicine, while Toriko attempts to make a habitat of her viral-free homestead.

Void Terrarium blends several gaming genres, such as survival games, rougelikes, and dungeon crawlers, all painted in a strange, juxtaposed style that is at once adorable and kind of stomach churning. You can check out a brand new announcement trailer below.

Publisher Cygames has prematurely leaked the identity of the fifth DLC character headed to its delightful 2D fighter Granblue Fantasy: Versus. Joining the previously revealed quartet of Beelzebub, Narmaya, Soriz and Djeeta is The Arbiter of the Skies, Zooey.

In the Granblue Fantasy series, Zooey is depicted as a kind-hearted, overly-empathetic girl, charged with keeping balance in the skies of the universe. Despite her diminutive stature and gentle nature, Zooey is more than adept in battle with her sword and shield. Zooey's inclusion was leaked via the Asian PlayStation Store, which included the gal's name as part of a Color Pack purchase featuring only the Granblue Fantasy: Versus DLC characters. Zooey has since been removed from the page.

The Valorant characters roster is what developers Riot Games hope will set the game apart from its venerable competition in the tactical shooter genre. With each character sporting four unique abilities to help turn the tide of battle, there’ll be an awful lot to learn when this free-to-play FPS releases in the summer. So why not get a headstart now by reading this here Valorant characters guide, so you’ll know exactly what to expect from each Agent and their abilities!

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After leaving New York to visit Washington, D.C. in The Division 2, Ubisoft have now returned to the location of the first game in a new expansion. Warlords Of New York is its name, and hunting down the first game’s baddie through is its game. The expansion launched on PC yesterday (consoles today) annnd now it might be worth a go, after a hasty hotfix targeting problems like not being able to talk to key NPCs. Bit of a problem, that. But the hotfix launched a few hours ago so go on, escape to New York.

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Everyone from Taylor Swift to Tyler, The Creator has written a song about flowers. Fancy restaurants scatter them over melting chocolate bombes. Van Gogh even had a crack at painting some once, I believe. And after all, why not? Flowers bloom all around the world, and symbolise so much to so many different cultures. Final Fantasy is far from the only video game series to lean into flower metaphors – but few have done it better.

As with so many of Final Fantasy’s strengths, the best examples can be found in Final Fantasy VII. Already considered by many to be the pinnacle of the series, the upcoming remake (eagerly awaited but a PlayStation exclusive until April 2021) has seen Cloud’s battles against Sephiroth back in the headlines. It’s been talked about so much since its original 1997 release that it’s hard to imagine anything about it remains underrated, yet the flowers are a seldom appreciated piece of Final Fantasy VII’s world building which the high definition makeover really must get right if it’s to get anything right at all.

Sony and Square Enix are teaming up for a Final Fantasy VII Remake PS4 top cover and wearable speaker.

The post Final Fantasy VII Remake Collaboration PS4 Top Cover and Wearable Speaker Revealed by Sony appeared first on Siliconera.

void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium will let you spend your summer diving into dungeons to get the supplies needed to keep a young woman alive.

The post Keep Toriko Alive Worldwide in void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium This Summer appeared first on Siliconera.

Game awards season isn't over quite yet, as the British Academy of Film and Television Arts has revealed its nominees for the 2020 BAFTA Games Awards. Remedy Entertainment's Control was one of the most-celebrated nominees, competing in 11 different categories, including Best Game. It was also nominated in categories like Performer in a Leading Role, Animation, Game Design, and Music. Its incredible Ashtray Maze scene could be the reason for the latter nomination.

Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding continues to impress with nominations in categories like Performer in a Leading Role, Technical Achievement, Audio Achievement, Animation, Artistic Achievement, and Best Game. Kallie Plagge was also a big fan, calling it "unrelenting in its earnestness and optimism" in GameSpot's Death Stranding review.

Every time I've had the chance to play Doom Eternal, I came away impressed with how its single-player campaign is building on 2016's great foundation while rethinking challenge in FPS combat. It's controlled chaos, pushing you to use the many weapons and tools to rip and tear demons with grace, and reasonably punishing you if you don't. A lot of effort has been put into making these systems work, and recreating that experience for multiplayer has led to what's called Battlemode.

Doom isn't really known for its multiplayer; the somewhat lackluster showing for Doom in 2016 comes to mind. And when we visited id Software recently, Doom Eternal's game director Hugo Martin and executive producer Marty Stratton told us that they knew they had to do something different. There, we got our first hands-on with Battlemode, and saw just how drastically this new multiplayer approach is deviating from convention, yet capturing--sometimes intensifying--the adrenaline rushes you get through the campaign. You'll see what I'm talking about in the video below.

Here are the basics; it's an asymmetrical 1v2 competitive mode with one player as Doom Slayer, equipped with all the single-player capabilities, against two players as demons, with multiple to choose from, each acting like different class-types. In each round, Doom Slayer has to kill both player-demons before either one respawns on a 20-second countdown while the demons just need to kill Doom Slayer. But since Doom Slayer has every capability from the campaign--a full loadout, and the chainsaw, glory kill, and flame belch to keep resources replenished--the demon team has to strategize to win.

Spring isn’t officially here for another few weeks but it’s already over 50 degrees outside, new growth is starting to bud, and I’m feeling nostalgic for the dozen or so colorful indie games that I’ve accumulated on my Vita over the years.

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Oh, to be a mobile gamer with an ongoing raid

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This is the way ... to get The Child into your game

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A new batch of PlayStation 4 games are coming to Sony’s PS Now streaming service this month and the three titles are surprisingly very good, like Game Pass-level good.

In a new blog post on the official PlayStation Blog, the senior marketing manager for PS Now, Brian Dunn, confirmed that Eidos Montréal’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Remedy’s Control, and MachineGames’ Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus will be available on the service starting today.

PS Now subscribers will be able to stream these games by using an internet connection or you can choose to download them straight to your PS4 console. It’s worth noting that these titles can only be played on PS4 and not on PC.

Control and Shadow of the Tomb Raider will be available until August 31 but it seems that The New Colossus will stay on the service for much longer.

If you’re not subscribed to PS Now, the service lets you stream PS2, PS3, and PS4 games from the cloud for $9.99 a month. Only PS2 and PS4 games can be downloaded to your console though.

The post PS Now’s March Titles Announced and They’re Actually Very Good appeared first on Twinfinite.

The 2020 BAFTA Game Awards nominees have been announced with Control and Death Stranding leading with 11 nominations, Disco Elysium with seven nominations, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Life is Strange 2, and Outer Wilds tied with five nominations.

There are 18 categories for this year’s awards including new categories such as Animation and Technical Achievement, while the Best Performer award has been split into two: “Performer in a Leading Role” and “Performer in a Supporting Role.”

The nominees for Best Game are Control, Disco Elysium, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Outer Wilds, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Untitled Goose Game. Most of the titles in the list were nominated for other game of the year awards, such as the D.I.C.E. Awards and now-postponed GDC Awards, though Untitled Goose Game already won the D.I.C.E Game of the Year Award and was also nominated for the Independent Games Festival Award as well.

Today NIS America announced the upcoming western release of another of Nippon Ichi Software’s most recent games, void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium.

The game will come to North America and Europe in Summer 2020 for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. 

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, below you can check out a trailer.

We also get an official description, and handy bullet-points providing a quick look at what void tRrLM(); //Void Terrarium is all about.

In a world contaminated with toxic fungi, a discarded maintenance robot finds a girl named Toriko on the brink of death among the discarded junk in a scrapyard. After nursing her back to health, it is revealed that she may very well be the last remaining human, and is highly vulnerable to the deadly conditions of the outside world.

To ensure her survival, the robot and his newfound friend, a decommissioned AI known as factoryAI, creates a refuge for her within a terrarium.

To reinforce the terrarium as well as Toriko’s poor health, the lone robot must venture into the wasteland to gather resources while battling the vagrant machines and mutated creatures that roam there. Along the way, the uncertain future of Toriko’s existence and with her, the entire human race, will slowly come to light…

Key Features:

It's been a while since our last Bloodstained update.

The development team was hard at work fixing the Switch version (there's still more work to be done) and getting the other versions in sync with each other. This week's Kickstarter update addresses both of those notions and more.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, the update touches on a big change that was originally promised in the Kickstarter campaign: a roguelike game mode. That mode is "not currently compatible" with the current incarnation of the game, and has been canned. Instead, there will be a new "randomizer" mode that will arrive with the Zangetsu playable character DLC for free. You can randomize things like item spawn methods and enemy drops (more info here), with the option to share a level seed with others. Next up, a correction: boss revenge mode will not come at the same time as Zangetsu, despite an earlier update stating it would. Instead, it will arrive in the next content update.

In better news, all versions seem to be synced up now and have content parity with version 1.04. Going forward, content drops should be in sync. And that's really it. There's no date for any of this, as developer ArtPlay and publisher 505 Games has learned the hard way that making any promises is a road to disappointment. They even mention in the latest post that they're going to be doing less "updates about updates" for their Kickstarter and more substantial news pieces going forward.

This whole project has been a fascinating case study, along with Mighty No. 9, of common crowdfunding missteps. Thankfully in the end, despite jank, Bloodstained will be remembered more fondly.

There are sadly no cheat codes in real life, but we’ve got the next best thing! Our ultimate guide to The Sims 4 cheats contains everything you need to know about how to enable cheats, and then how to use said cheats to fulfil your sims’ every need… or brutally murder them. To each their own.

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It's time to earn some new accessories and items, as Final Fantasy XIV's Little Ladies Day celebration has returned.

The post Final Fantasy XIV Opens Little Ladies Day 2020 Event appeared first on Siliconera.

Erica developer Flavourworks has raised an additional $650,000 to continue developing its cross-platform Touch Video technology. ...

Hardcore mode is back in the latest PUBG Mobile update today, giving you the chance to show off your small-screen skills. The mode is available in the game's Arcade section, and several changes and additions have also arrived to Classic mode.

In Hardcore mode, the game is made much more challenging by removing sound prompts and making item pickups manual. This means you'll need to stay much more aware of your surroundings and keep track of every entrance and exit in a building.

Among the biggest new features added to Classic mode is a death replay function, letting you see exactly how you died so you can better prepare for the next round. Universal Marks were added, as well, with doors, death crates, vehicles, locations, and supplies all available to mark alongside enemies.

One of Amazon's current Deals of the Day will help alleviate your storage woes. Whether you keep having to delete games and apps on your PS4, Xbox One, or Switch, or you simply need a backup storage device for your computer or electronics, the one-day-only sale on SanDisk and Western Digital memory and storage devices is filled with great deals on microSD and SD cards, external hard drives, and flash drives.

Xbox One S Digital Edition Console | $159 | Walmart | Add to cart to see the price | Also available at Amazon

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Donnnnnng. The classic Mac chime is a glorious way to let yourself know that your Mac is booting back up after a shutdown or reboot. But if I’m right, this friendly noise has been missing most new Macs for years. (I only have a MacBook Pro, and I can confirm that booting my MacBook has been boring and quiet for as…

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