April 2020

Sail across the icy North Sea to discover and conquer the broken kingdoms of England. Immerse yourself in activities like hunting, fishing, dice, and drinking games, or engage in traditional Norse competitions like flyting – or, as it's better known, verbally devastating rivals through the art of the Viking rap battle.

Ballistic-grade Mandalorian-style body armor was a one-off produced in 2016

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This trailer is lovely to look at

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A fast track to becoming a multi-bellionare

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Looks like our brush with the Almighty is going to be a lot closer than we thought

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Oh, and I also made 7 million bells in tips

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No, no one has been cast yet

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A young girl approaches you with her pick of the plague rats. A bartender asks what it’s like, y’know, drinking blood. That you died six months ago is barely a passing concern in Nighthawks. After a successful Kickstarter closed in 2018, the vampire RPG from Wadjet Eye and RPS chum Richard Cobbett has resurfaced once more with a new trailer, a spot on Steam, and a 2021 release window.

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Get ready to reunite with Soap and the gang, soldier. Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Campaign Remastered launches today, bringing a modern lick of paint to Infinity Ward’s globe-trotting 2009 war romp. It’s just the singleplayer bit that’s been given the graphical overhaul, mind – your 1v1 no-scope Rust throwbacks will just have to find themselves another home.

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Bandai Namco has introduced Kaito and Miu Shinonome, a pair of siblings who'll work with Dracmon and Syakomon in Digimon Survive.

The post Digimon Survive Introduces the Troubled Shinonome Siblings and Their Digimon Partners appeared first on Siliconera.

The Wonderful 101 Remastered physical copies will be delayed, as Kickstarter and retail copies have been delayed by COVID-19-related issues.

The post The Wonderful 101 Remastered Physical Copies Delayed by COVID-19 [Update] appeared first on Siliconera.

The Square Enix Stay Home and Play thing has expanded to a full on campaign, with the publisher announcing several new plans for free stuff.

The post Square Enix Is Giving Us More Reasons to Stay Home and Play appeared first on Siliconera.

Rather than delay an upcoming content drop altogether, the Guild Wars 2 team has made the call to launch the next episode of its Icebrood Saga arc without any voice acting for the time being. ...

Ubisoft's freshly unveiled next Assassin's Creed game, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, won't be up for purchase on Steam at launch (or possibly at any point in the future). ...

While GDC organizers look forward to meeting again in person as soon as possible, this August's GDC Summer will be transformed into an all-digital event in order to best serve our community. ...

Earlier this year, the annual Game Developers Conference was the first major video game industry conference to alter its plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Scheduled to take place March 16 to 20 in San Francisco, Calif., organizer Informa postponed the conference to August in hopes that the late-summer public-health situation would allow for safe large gatherings. Unfortunately, that does not appear as though it will be the case, and the organizers announced that the renamed GDC Summer will take place as an all-digital event.

The organizers released a statement, which you can see in its entirety below.

On this week's episode of The Game Informer Show, we have a massive crew in the house. Host Andy McNamara and producer Alex Stadnik are joined by Joe Juba and Matt Miller to talk Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Streets of Rage 4, and Gears Tactics in our first segment. Next up, Jeff Cork and Andy Reiner talk about their experience with Predator: Hunting Grounds, and finally Kim Wallace and Dan "The Jacket" Tack hop on the show to talk Trails of Mana and answer the always-entertaining and enlightening community emails. Ducks.

We do this week's show from our homes as we hunker down in quarantine, so please forgive us for any audio or video hiccups as we deliver content outside the studio.

Thanks for listening! Please make sure to leave feedback below, share the episode if you enjoyed it, and follow me @therealandymc to let me know what you think. 

As May Day draws closer every minute, so does the end of Alolan Exeggutor’s time as the Pokemon GO Research Breakthrough. In less than 24 hours the Flash Pokemon, Shinx, is going to take its spot as the weekly reward encounter.

This change to the May Research Breakthrough encounter will officially take place tomorrow, May 1 at 1 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. This marks the fifth month in a row where this encounter will feature a non-Legendary Pokemon.

The Pokemon GO Team also touched on the fact that no new Team GO Rocket Special Research has been added to the game. They also teased the eventual return of these quests, “We really don’t expect Team GO Rocket to be quiet all summer…”

There’s no confirmation yet on what Niantic is planning for this Summer when it comes to Team GO Rocket. All we can do is wait and see if they go back to their regular format or if they find a way to make these quests more conducive to social distancing recommendations.

Finally, they also revealed which Pokemon will be featured in the weekly Tuesday Spotlight Hours. Check out the table below to see which Pokemon will be featured this month and what bonuses you can expect as well. All these events start at 6 p.m. local time.

Following yesterday’s reveal of impressive numbers for Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass, division head Phil Spencer talked to CNBC about the current situation for the business.

Spencer talks about how gaming is helping to bring people together during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding to the picture a small but interesting piece of data: recently 23 million new friendships have been created on Xbox Live. The use of multiplayer games among Game Pass members has grown by 130% since March.

He also explains the effect of the pandemic on the pipeline of the release of the Xbox One X, reiterating that the console is scheduled for this year, but mentioning that there may be some issues on the game development side. The plan is to prioritize the safety of the teams without “unduly pushing” things that aren’t ready.

We also hear some insight into competition both with other sources of gaming and different media like live sports. Incidentally, the lack of live sports broadcasts has brought an uptick of interest in eSports.

You can watch the video below.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons gives you numerous tools that can help you recreate just about anything you set your mind to. In the world’s current state of social distancing, it can be therapeutic to build structures such as a baseball stadium in Animal Crossing that remind you of the things you love.

I’m glad that we’re slowly but surely going to beat this virus. Yet, I still miss professional baseball. The crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, the smoky scent of brats grilling, and the cold drink that washes it down all coalesce into a perfect summer night at a ballpark.

My original inspiration to create a baseball field was sparked when I saw this tweet from our glorious leader, Yami (she’s Twinfinite’s publisher). I figured it would be a good way to deal with my longing for our national pastime. Looking back, maybe I should have stuck with MLB The Show.

The Game Developers Conference has seen its fair share of unfortunate setbacks and changes over the past few months. Multiple companies pulled out of the event, and it was unsurprisingly postponed. Now, its been announced that GDC Summer will be a fully digital event this year.

GDC was initially set to take place in March, but a number of events worldwide had to be either canceled or altered drastically due to the COVID-19 pandemic. GDC Summer is now happening in August, but in a completely digital manner.

Sony and Facebook were some of the first companies to pull out of the event, followed by Kojima Productions. With those big names making those big statements during the current global pandemic, GDC needed to adapt.

In an update from their website, the GDC staff states the following:

As so many game developers embrace remote working arrangements and online collaboration, we’re inspired to adapt and deliver GDC in a digital format that will be available to everyone with an internet connection, and will work hard to deliver the high-quality content and networking opportunities GDC attendees have come to expect.

No specifics have been mentioned in terms of where GDC Summer can be watched, but the statement also says that more information is on the way soon.

Azur Lane has become very popular among fans of shipgirls and mobile games, and figure manufacturers keep portraying its characters.

This time around it’s Chinese manufacturer Hobby Max’s turn to make two new figures available for pre-order.

We’re getting deformed versions of Enterprise and Belfast, with pre-orders already up at retailers like Ami Ami. Each is priced at 6.060 yen, which translates approximately into $57.

They’re both rather small, between 11 and 12 cm tall (Enterprise is a bit taller), and they’re posable pretty much line Nendoroids.

That being said, while they’re certainly similar, they’re not Nendoroids, which come from a different manufacturer.

Both figures will be released in October 2020.

If you’re curious about what they look like, you can enjoy a gallery below with plenty of images.

Since most people in the world at the moment have to practice social distancing, there are folks that are required or encouraged to wear face masks out in public. To help serve those in need, Disney has just started to sell its own cloth face masks that feature Baby Yoda (The Child) from The Mandalorian, Marvel characters, Star Wars characters, and a couple of other Disney properties (Shoutout to GameSpot for spotting this).

The cloth face masks come in sets of four and cost $19.99 with the masks expected to begin shipping on June 29, 2020 –you can pre-order them now though.

Disney will also be donating all profits from the sales in the U.S. to MedShare, up to one million dollars, from now until Sep. 30, 2020. MedShare is a “humanitarian aid organization dedicated to improving the quality of life of people, communities, and our planet by sourcing and directly delivering surplus medical supplies and equipment to communities in need around the world.“

Not only will Disney be donating to MedShare but the company will be donating one million face masks for children and families in underserved communities in the United States.

It’s worth mentioning that while these adorable masks aren’t for surgical or industrial use, they do fall in line with the FDA’s regulations.

This video game SnowRunner has helped quench my thirst for off-road adventure, a little, and I’m hoping it could also be a tool for interacting with people reading Jalopnik. If you’re into trucks or games or just want to chat, I’d love it if you tuned in to my stream and let me try to entertain you this evening.

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There is a war raging in Grand Theft Auto Online, but not between drug dealers or criminal kingpins. Instead, players are donning green, purple, or white suits in a war of different colored aliens. It’s weird, even for GTA Online.

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Normally, The A.V. Club uses this space to preview all the major films coming to a theater near you. But with the world in the grips of a pandemic, nothing’s coming to a theater near you; theaters have closed their doors, and studios have pushed back their releases. So for the time being, we’ll instead be previewing…

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Apple AirPods (2nd Generation) | $139 | Amazon

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A headshot is like a tiny home run, or the world’s most densely packed bowling strike. You hit the target as perfectly as possible. Briefly, you are akin to a god, or at least one of history’s least-awful monarchs. These moments should stand out, especially when bullets are flying and chaos reigns. Valorant’s new…

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Women exist. This is a basic fact of life, but it’s also a frequent source of controversy for more… let’s say reactionary sections of the gaming community. In what appears to be an attempt to head off the usual tiresome complaints, Ubisoft has addressed its decision to allow players to choose between male and female…

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BPM: Bullets Per Minute would be cool enough if it was a typical FPS about raiding dungeons to stop the underworld from invading Asgard, but it has an eyebrow-raising twist: it's also a rhythm game.

Put another way, "all of your actions and the actions of your enemies are tied to the beat of the music."

The game is going for a "rock opera" feel and a roguelike hook. The energetic combat is informed by "retro shooters of the '90s," and as a Valkyrie, you'll be able to "double jump, dash, rocket jump, and bunny hop to evade your opponents." There are five characters and 40-some items to buff them.

Your goal is to take out seven bosses and face the final big bad, Nidhogg. Oh, and look cool doing it. All of your weapons have "a different behavior for firing and reloading to the beat of the soundtrack."

BPM: Bullets Per Minute isn't the first I've heard of a rhythm-shooter fusion (Audica, Pistol Whip, and Gun Jam come to mind), but Awe Interactive's execution looks fantastic. Again, if this monster-shooting concept had traditional gameplay without any on-the-beat mechanics layered on top, I'd still be semi-interested. It'd still be something. With the music angle, the game stands out even more.

Ubisoft formally revealed the next Assassin's Creed title today with one hell of a cinematic trailer, but there's more information available than simply a first look at the new game. There's a bunch of details about Valhalla that Ubisoft has dispersed in various places. You just have to do a bit of digging to find it.

Accompanying the trailer, Ubisoft released this 20-minute commentary breakdown that dissects every scene. Here's the Cliff Notes version, along with some additional tidbits that we rounded up from other sources.

It's not too late to (re)discover Amnesia: The Dark Descent – especially when it's free to keep.

The survival horror adventure has taken on a life of its own since its original PC release in 2010. You don't need to have played Amnesia to know (roughly) what it's about, why it got so popular, or how it influenced the genre for years. Many of us greatly prefer Frictional Games' 2015 underwater sci-fi horror game Soma over the original Amnesia, but it still deserves recognition. It's a gaming icon.

It's been a few years for me, but I'm pretty confident the "run away from horrible sanity-shattering monsters before it's too late" format still works in 2020. Maybe it's not quite as potent nowadays – the graphics don't hold up as well as they used to – but the paranoid tension should be there in spades.

With a sequel coming later this year in time for the tenth anniversary, a revisit might be in order soon. If you never managed to snag a PC copy of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it's free today on the Epic Games Store along with Crashlands, a crafting-centric action-RPG about a stranded galactic trucker.

The two games will be claimable until Thursday, May 7, at which point the next free game deal on the Epic Games Store – Death Coming, a twisted puzzle title inspired by Final Destination – will kick in.

Every year, Japan's Golden Week brings a slew of games sales across PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, and while Golden Week 2020 certainly looks different for many Japanese residents--they're being asked to hunker down at home during what is normally the busiest travel season of the year--there are still plenty of online bargains floating around. Steam's Golden Week 2020 Sale just kicked off, bringing hundreds of deals on popular Japanese-developed titles and franchises. The sale runs until May 6 at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET.

The Steam Golden Week Sale brings markdowns on most Final Fantasy games, which is perfect timing for those who just finished playing Final Fantasy VII Remake on PS4 and want to check out the older titles. You'll also find great discounts on Resident Evil 2 Remake, which is $20, and Resident Evil 7, which is down to $15. Meanwhile, Dragon Ball FighterZ is also discounted to $15, and Devil May Cry 5 is on sale for $20.

Visual novel fans should take advantage of the great deals on all three Danganronpa games, with the first two going for $8 each and the third game discounted to $16. The popular series revolves around a group of high school students who find themselves trapped in a sinister killing game. Another great visual novel, 428: Shibuya Scramble, is down to just $10, normally selling for $50.

May is nearly here, which means a new month of freebies from all of your various subscriptions. Amazon has revealed next month's free PC games for Twitch Prime users, all of which will be available starting May 1. They include the great puzzle-platformer, Snake Pass; the stunt racing Trials-like Urban Trial Playground; and the rhythmic music game, Avicii Invector. The rest of the free Twitch Prime games are Pankapu, The Little Acre, and Fractured Minds.

All six of these games can be claimed on the Twitch Prime hub. You'll also need to have the Twitch PC client to install and play them. The Twitch Prime hub is also home to all of the bonus loot you can claim throughout the month, so it's worth keeping an eye on this page as we make our way through May. These free games are available to anyone with an Amazon Prime account; all you need to do is link your Twitch and Amazon accounts, and you're good to go.

On Steam, all of these games have positive user ratings, except for Urban Trial Playground, which sits at a Mixed rating. Avicii Invector stands out with an Overwhelmingly Positive review rating. It was a project started by Hello There Games and late music producer Avicii back in 2015 and was finished after his passing in 2018. In Invector, you hit notes as you fly through various soundscapes set to the music of Avicii.

This past generation was treated to a great Hitman reboot, and if you haven't had the chance to play it for yourself, then now's your chance. Developer IO Interactive announced on Twitter that Hitman is available to play for free on PS4 until May 3. Hitman has plenty of content to keep you busy all weekend, and if you like what you played, you can snag select Hitman titles at a discount of up to 85% off. Hitman: Game of the Year Edition is $9, down from $60, and comes with all of its content. You can even pick up Hitman 2 for $18, which also has a regular price of $60.

The latest Hitman games are both excellent. GameSpot's Hitman review scored it an 8/10, while our Hitman 2 review also came with an 8/10, both praising its massively complex levels and seemingly endless possibilities. Each game was also celebrated in GameSpot's respective Game of the Year awards--Hitman was in our top 25 games of 2016, while Hitman 2 was chosen as one of 2018's best games.