April 2020

CyGames has released the newest update for its artistic fighting title Granblue Fantasy: Versus. Version 1.31, which is live now on both PC and PS4 platforms, brings the last of the game's initial batch of DLC characters, along with a laundry list of in-game tweaks.

Zooey, accompanied by her serpentine pals Dyrn and Lyrn, has graced the GF:V universe with her presence in order to prevent the bringing of chaos through The Singularities - namely Djeeta, Gran, and Beelzebub. A master of swordsmanship, with her attacks boosted by her command of lightning, Zooey's shit-list is a pretty bleak place to be. There's a storm coming...

Zooey comes loaded with a selection of new missions, combo trials, in-game avatars, and other lobby goodies. Also available right now is a glossy new stage: The Jewel Resort. Both Zooey and The Jewel Resort are available as part of the GF:V season pass, or can be purchased separately. Further characters are expected to launch this fall.

Plus a deal on the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Companion Guide

Continue reading…

I refuse to settle for the settlers

Continue reading…

You have a week to watch three hours of Call of Duty streamers

Continue reading…

Fleet Carriers are coming, and in-game explorers have big plans

Continue reading…

Throughout the day, Ubisoft has been exhibiting a livestream of artist BossLogic as he creates a digital piece that shows off the next setting for the Assassin’s Creed game. With the piece now complete, it’s clear that the next installment of the long-running series will transport players back to some variation of the Viking world. As the stream came to an end, we also got an official name: Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Details remain scarce about the new game, but the first piece of key art offers some clear suggestions of what we can expect, including Viking longboats, medieval forts, and of course, fierce melee combat.

We’ll be following the game closely over the coming days and months. Stay tuned for Valhalla's world premier trailer tomorrow, April 30 at 8 AM Pacific time.

The Animal Crossing: New Horizons Ichiban Kuji raffle has been delayed once again, but will is scheduled to finally start on August 15, 2020.

The post Animal Crossing: New Horizons Ichiban Kuji Raffle Scheduled For August 15, 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.

Square Enix plans to release a pair of soft and cute Sora and Kairi Kingdom Hearts plushes in August 2020.

The post Chibi Sora and Kairi Kingdom Hearts Plush Dolls Are on the Way appeared first on Siliconera.

Anyone else have a sticky note of games they’ve got an eye on called “Stardew but…”? Just me? Alright, well here’s a Stardew but stone age game just announced called Roots Of Pacha. Even I grow slightly weary of pastoral anywheresville so I quite like seeing the farm and life sim trend breaking ground in new settings. Look, instead of cows you have big bison things. Cute! Pacha’s announcement trailer shows off all the farmlife sim activities you know and grind.

(more…)

As have many game studios during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, Zenimax Online’s developers have been working from home. Zenimax previously acknowledged that this could impact the release date for The Elder Scrolls Online‘s next expansion set in Western Skyrim. They’ve now piped up to say that they’re pushing back its release date, but only by a week. You’ll be able to head to the Blue Palace on Tuesday, May 26th.

(more…)

Following a curious build-up through a livestreamed drawing, Ubisoft today announced Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. This time, Vikings seem to be the stars of the sandbox murder simulator. For now, all Ubisoft have to show is a seven-hour drawing and all they have to say is mutterings about the lads coming “to conquer a new land” and that. We’ll learn more tomorrow when a trailer arrives.

(more…)

Moonsprout Games and Dangen Entertainment have announced via a press release that Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling will be coming to Switch, PS4, and Xbox One in May.

Bug Fables is a paper-styled RPG that takes lots of inspiration from the classic, turn-based Paper Mario games from the N64/GameCube era, specifically, fan-favorite, The Thousand-Year Door.

The title released on Steam back in November of 2019 and the reviews are overwhelmingly positive.

The game will only be available digitally on consoles and will cost $24.99 across the digital storefronts, although, you can purchase the game on Steam for just $19.99 at the moment.

Here’s a synopsis of the game and a new trailer down below for you to check out:

In Bug Fables, players control three aspiring heroes, Kabbu the beetle, Vi the bee, and Lief the moth, each with their own personalities, as they traverse vast overworlds and dungeons using their unique abilities to solve puzzles and make their way across the kingdom in search of The Everlasting Sapling.

Key locations include the Ant Kingdom, the treacherous Snakemouth Den, the picturesque Golden Hills, The Lost Sands and Vi’s home, the Bee Kingdom. Bugaria is sprinkled with an eclectic cast of NPCs who offer help and initiate quests for the heroes to undertake while following the main story.

The game’s Cooking System allows players to collect rare ingredients throughout the world and create their own unique items for use inside battle and out.

Following a long livestream that lasted several hours, Ubisoft officially announced Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. 

The game, which is the next title of the popular Assassin’s Creed series, appears to be set during the Viking age, likely somewhere around the 8th or 9th century, possibly at least in part in Britannia. 

Below you can check out the  artwork that was created during the livestream. It shows a Viking warrior holding a bearded Axe with the emblem of the Assassins (made with axes), the typical longships navigating a fjord, and a battle that appears to be set in Britannia. 

Today, Microsoft announced its financial results for the third quarter of the fiscal year 2020, , related to the period between January 1 and March 31.

First and foremost, we get an update on the performance of the More Personal Computing business, which includes Microsoft’s gaming division and the Xbox brand.

All the relevant data can be found in the slides below.

In this article, Ubisoft Quebec gameplay engineer Bartlomiej Waszak presents details of the simulator for the physics of trains in Assassin's Creed Syndicate. ...

In this GDC 2020 virtual talk Ubisoft's David Lind walks you through the challenges faced and solutions found to optimize game server performance in Tom Clancy's The Division 2. ...

Jay “Sinatraa” Won isn’t just any Overwatch League player. After a stellar 2019 in which his team, the San Francisco Shock, took home championship gold, he was declared the league’s MVP. This means that the game’s developers at Blizzard will release an in-game skin to commemorate his exploits. Yesterday, during the…

Read more...

There are lots of ways to pass the time right now. You could read more books. Watch more TV. Take longer family walks after dinner. Or—or—you could build paper models of the computers you grew up with so your kids can see (and appreciate, dammit!) how far technology has come and how lucky they are, what with their…

Read more...

I felt guilty while watching the credits roll on Final Fantasy VII Remake early this morning. This game wasn’t meant for me, I thought. I didn’t earn this. Sure, technically I played the game for 30 hours and finally beat the final boss after a couple of frustrating attempts. That was me. But without the context of…

Read more...

Disney+ is home to many beloved films, but there are plenty of other movies on the platform that deserve a viewing. So much so, we’ve gone from A to Z to find them. Are they all pinnacles of cinema and not varying degrees of me being serious depending on my mood? Definitely (maybe).

Read more...

Fact: Every Animal Crossing: New Horizons resident wants a killer art collection. Last week, Nintendo’s pastel capitalist vacation sim introduced its players to a new way to acquire great art: the scurrilous rube, Jolly Redd.

Read more...

I’m hoping you never need to search for a COVID-19 testing site, period. (Stay quarantined! Stay safe!) But if you do, and you’re on your iPhone or iPad, you can now easily find the nearest testing location via Apple Maps.

Read more...

_{[CJ and Holmes Disagree is a series where Destructoid Features editor CJ Andriessen and washed-up Dtoid Show host Jonathan Holmes disagree about video games. Who will you agree or disagree with?]}

Sheltering at home hasn't been too tough for me, but for my four-year-old son, it's been a huge adjustment. With no pre-school, parks, trips to the mall, or playdates with friends, we've had to get creative in order to stave off boredom and keep him learning. The Wii U has helped a lot with that, much more so than the Switch. Not only is the Wii U GamePad more resilient to accidental falls than its younger, more successful sibling, but the touch screen + TV interaction has done a ton to make games more interesting and fun for him. 

That's true for me too. When the new update for Super Mario Maker 2 was announced last week, I was instantly excited. Then I remembered, "Wait, if I'm going to play this on the TV, that means no touch-screen user interface for building new levels," and my interest dropped like a stone down a warp pipe.

After a marathon stream that took eight hours or so, artist BossLogic is done creating the reveal art for the new Assassin's Creed game. All those rumors that have persisted for more than a year turned out to be true: The next Assassin's Creed game is Viking-themed.

We knew all of that early into the stream, and told you as much this morning. However, the finalized art comes with some new information. Ubisoft has confirmed that the official title will be Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and a cinematic reveal trailer will go live tomorrow morning at 8am Pacific.

Every day feels the same, but if you focus on the little things that you have some power over, you might be able to make things better. It's just going to take some time, which is bad news, because time is running out. Doom is in the air, in the sky and all around us. Maybe we can prevent it and maybe we can't. All we can do is look at what our options are in the present moment and pick the best one. Everything else is out of our control.

Maybe that's why people are acting so weird. Politicians are fighting with the service workers about if the threat is real and what to do about it. Traveling the world reveals that everybody is going through something similar, but without contact with those outside of their individual communities, they have no idea how not alone they are. Do you want to visit one of those places, or otherwise leave the confines of your immediate surroundings? If so, you better bring a mask, more than one if you have one. 

I feel as though Ninjala has always existed on the precipice of mainstream relevance. For almost two years now, it's been building toward its release, never really garnering that much attention outside of its constant comparisons to Splatoon. Even though they're two distinctly different games, it's always lived in the shadow of Nintendo's kid-and-squid shooter. If Ninjala wanted the spotlight on itself, it could do so with a successful open beta.

It did not do that.

Rather than giving players a taste of the bubblegum-brawler gameplay, the recent Ninjala Exclusive Ninja Club beta left most people pursuing an endless series of error codes until emergency maintenance blocked anyone from playing. That more-or-less describes my experience with it, so rather than write-up an impressions piece of a game I really don't have any impressions of, I thought I'd share with you the most balls-to-the-wall error codes I ran into when attempting to play this game.

Former president of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aimé hasn't had much time for rest and relaxation in the year since he retired. Reggie has stayed busy with high-profile activities like lecturing Cornell students about economics and joining the board of directors at GameStop. At least he's kicking up his feet a bit, albeit in Animal Crossing.

While we've missed him in Nintendo Directs (speaking of: we've been missing Nintendo Directs altogether), we'll soon get Reggie's sweet dulcet tones delivered straight to our eardrums. Reggie's starting a podcast! It's a collaborative effort with the New York Videogame Critics Circle, as Reggie's accompanied by journalist Harold Goldberg in the bluntly-titled Talking Games with Reggie and Harold. It's scheduled to be a seven-episode series, and Geoff Keighley is the first guest.

It's nice that he isn't disappearing from our lives completely, but the podcast has nobler aims than merely a one-way hotline to Reggie. The podcast is a charitable effort, as it's raising money to provide youths in New York-area homeless shelters with video games. Anyone who's interested in donating can check out the GoFundMe campaign.

Wadjet Eye Games - the studio behind modern-day point-and-click adventure classics including Unavowed and the Blackwell supernatural detective series - has revealed its latest publishing endeavour: developer Curiosity Engine's vampire-themed urban fantasy yarn Nighthawks.

Nighthawks, which was borne from a successful Kickstarter back in 2018, unfolds in a world where the existence of vampires has been exposed, casting players as a newly turned creature of the night trying to forge a life of awkward co-habitation with humans in a city, and a modern world, where "your existence is tolerated, your new thirst is not". It's essentially a rags-to-riches story, placing an emphasis on running your own nightclub.

Nighthawks is written and designed by Richard Cobbett (who has provided words for the likes of Failbetter's Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, and, full disclosure, has contributed amply to Eurogamer in the past), and deviates from Wadjet Eye's usual output in numerous ways.

Read more

Warning: There are going to be spoilers, obviously. Read on at your own risk.

The impressive thing about Final Fantasy 7 Remake is how grounded so much of it feels. Even if you're not familiar with Midgar, mako, or Materia, for the most part, the remake does a remarkably good job of dropping you into its world without leaving you to flounder. That's thanks to its expanded character development and focus on the human side of its major events--you might be wandering through a fantasy world, but you can relate to the people who live there and their universal hardships and triumphs.

Sure, there are scenes where a guy with a five-foot sword and a giant man with a gatling gun for an arm ride a subway and discuss being inconspicuous. But there are also more human moments, like when the members of Avalanche consider the collateral damage of their mission to blow up dangerous mako reactors, or when Shinra's employees express the fears they have about simply going to work with terrorist attacks on the rise.

With the release of the acclaimed Final Fantasy VII Remake, we've been seeing a ton of great deals around older Final Fantasy games, which is perfect timing for those who are itching to go back and play some of their favorites. PS4 and Xbox One players have sales of their own to take advantage of this week featuring deals on the original FFVII and later entries like X/X-2 HD Remaster and XII: The Zodiac Age. But if you're looking to go further back and play some of the older Final Fantasy games, a new Square Enix sale offers discounts for those classic games on iOS and Android. You'll also find deals on the Dragon Quest franchise and other classics like Chrono Trigger.

The sale includes markdowns spanning from the first Final Fantasy, which is just $4 right now, to the original Final Fantasy VII, which is on sale for $9. Several of these games regularly go for about $15, so it's a good chance to grab some of these older FF games for less than $10. You can also snag the excellent Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions for just $7 (the iPad version is discounted to $8).

At the end of the livestream revealing the Viking setting of the next Assassin's Creed game, Ubisoft announced the game's official title: Assassin's Creed Valhalla. A full trailer is scheduled to release tomorrow, April 30, at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET.

As previously rumored, Valhalla takes place during The Viking Age. Occurring between the ninth and eleventh centuries, The Viking Age occurs roughly 100-400 years prior to the events of the original Assassin's Creed. That could mean that this game will continue the origin stories of how the Hidden Ones and The Order of Ancients went on to become the Assassin Brotherhood and Templar Order, respectively--a narrative first started in Origins and continued in Odyssey.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons' latest update brought back two returning characters: the shrub-selling Leif and shady art vendor Redd. The latter operates a small merchant ship called Jolly Redd's Treasure Trawler, which is the only place you can purchase artwork to donate to the museum's new art wing.

As before, many of the pieces Redd sells are of...dubious origins, and since Blathers will only accept genuine works of art for the museum, you need to suss out the real pieces from the fakes before you make a purchase. This time, however, some of the forgeries are worth owning in their own right, because it appears they are haunted.

Since Redd arrived in New Horizons, players have been sharing clips of fake artwork they've purchased from him on social media. While many of the forgeries have subtle inaccuracies, some have apparently been seen doing unusual--and often creepy--things. We haven't stumbled upon any of these in the game ourselves yet, but people have shared clips of paintings opening their eyes, while the fake version of the ancient statue levitates when touched. You can take a look at some of the fakes below.

Picking up a new physical game isn't as easy as it was just a couple of months ago. Shipping delays and low stock have emphasized the importance and convenience of digital games. Luckily, most games are available digitally on PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. We've put together a list of the best digital game deals this week, and there are a lot of good titles up for grabs at discounted prices, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Outer Wilds, and Dishonored 2.

The PlayStation Store and Microsoft Store have multiple ongoing sales. PSN has a stellar Games Under $20 sale in addition to its Big in Japan sale. Meanwhile, Microsoft has an Activision publisher sale, Golden Week sale, and a massive sale on add-ons such as season passes. The Switch Eshop is a tad lighter on deals, but there's a solid NIS America publisher sale for Golden Week 2020. On PC, you can pick up a bunch of EA games for really low prices at Amazon.

Ubisoft has released a new video on the state of The Division 2. The video, below, sees the team discussing the upcoming Title Update 9.1 patch, connectivity issues, warhound convoy, and more.

First and foremost, Ubisoft has nothing to say about The Division 2's upcoming raid. "We don't have any information about the raid yet," community developer Chris Gansler said. "My goal is to give you at least two weeks of a heads up so you'll have plenty of time to look at getting ready for the raid and all that stuff." Gansler went on to say that the raid should come packaged in Title Update 10, but there's currently no word on when this drops for PC, PlayStation 4, Stadia, and Xbox One.

Ubisoft is continuing its investigation into The Division 2's connectivity issues. Gansler said the Delta/Foxtrot errors should occur less frequently following a recent backend update. However, the Delta errors persist in general and the team is "currently struggling to figure out what the underlying causes [are]." There's no word on when these connectivity problems will be fully resolved, but they are the team's "highest priority."

Since launch, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has been steadily growing in size thanks to its frequent, large updates. Following this week's latest patch and additional content DLC owners of the game, Modern Warfare no occupies close to 200GB on any given platform.

Modern Warfare on PC currently takes about just over 180GB of hard-drive space, while ringing in at just over 185GB on PS4 and Xbox One. This follows two patches that went live on April 28. On PC these were combined into a single 32GB download, while it was split into a 12GB title update and additional 18GB DLC download on consoles. Warzone players on console could skip the latter of the two, reducing their overall download requirement and file size.

Downloading big updates has become normal for Modern Warfare players, so much so that developer Infinity Ward addressed it specifically in February. During the lead up to Season 2, Infinity Ward stressed that the large update size at the time (in excess of 50GB) would help reduce update sizes in the future, while also improving the game's overall footprint on your hard drive. While 32GB is smaller, the game's growing size is concerning, especially as it inches closer towards 50% of the total internal capacity of both the PS4 and Xbox One S.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn't an "edutainment" game, but your submissions to Blathers' museum do carry a lot of real educational value. Both in the owl curator's explanation and the museum placards, you can learn a lot of interesting details on the donated fish, bugs, and dinosaur fossils. But science can be tricky, and a new dinosaur discovery has rendered one of the Animal Crossing fossils outdated. As reported by Science News, archeologists recently found the most complete tail bone of a spinosaurus ever recovered. And it shows that the spinosaurus tail was actually much wider than previously believed, making the dinosaur an excellent swimmer comparable to a crocodile.

Amused Animal Crossing fans quickly noticed this doesn't match up with the spinosaurus fossil found in the game, with its distinctly un-paddle-like tail.

[Update: The Ellie Edition is once again sold out. You can check out our The Last of Us Part 2 pre-order guide for more info on its other editions or just pre-order the standard edition, which still includes the game's pre-order bonuses.]

The Last of Us Part 2 has several special editions for PS4, but none of them have been as coveted as the $230 Ellie Edition, the most prestigious version. The Ellie Edition has been sold out since it was first announced, with one restock back in February that quickly ran out again. If you've been wanting to get your hands on the edition, you have another chance, as GameStop just opened pre-orders for the Ellie Edition again. We expect they'll sell out again quickly, so take advantage of this restock while it's available.

Developer Psyonix has announced that some of Rocket League's more-recent limited-time modes, such as Beach Ball and Heatseeker, will return in a month-long event on all platforms starting this May.

The car soccer game will hold a Modes of May event, a special month-long showcase that kicks off on Friday, May 1 with Dropshot Rumble. The LTE, which runs from May 1-4, combines "the action of Dropshot enhanced by the zany power-ups from Rumble." Modes of May will swap the modes each weekend in the month.

Beach Ball, an LTE where two teams of two contend with a ball that curves and floats around the field, comes back on May 7. May 14 will see Boomer Ball return, though Psyonix said "more [information] on that [mode]" will be revealed as we get closer to the date. Finally, wrapping up Modes of May is Heatseeker on May 21, a fast-paced 3v3 mode where the ball functions as a homing missile and gains speed after every touch.

There are some games that seem ubiquitous with virtual reality, specifically Beat Saber, Superhot, and the recently released Half-Life: Alyx. In a similar way to how Beat Saber made a name for itself quickly, Pistol Whip did the same last year when it launched on PC. And later this year, it's coming to PlayStation VR.

Inspired by the high-octane action sequences from films like John Wick, Pistol Whip is an on-rails first-person shooter where matching your shots to the beat of the music feels as good as getting it on target. The bass-heavy soundtrack and psychedelic visuals aim to get your blood pumping, as you're gently scrolled down corridors filled with enemies for you to shoot and melee.

Pistol Whip doesn't force you to stick to its musical rhythm if you don't want to either, giving players the space to just enjoy its shooting or aim for high scores by perfecting a balance between precision and timing. Pistol Whip will launch with multiple stages and modifiers, each of which can make stages more challenging or encourage new styles of play.