Yesterday, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced the government’s plan to provide face masks to 50 million households in Japan, targeting those in areas where the novel coronavirus is spreading. Each household will get two washable masks. Online, people are reacting this as they always do: with memes.
My Hero One's Justice 2 will add Keigo Takami, also known as the Wing Hero Hawks, as its first DLC character this spring.
The post My Hero One’s Justice 2 Will Add Hawks as its First DLC Character in Spring 2020 appeared first on Siliconera.
Recruiting people to your cause in Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord is key to achieving your goals, whatever they may be. The most valuable people though will be companions, who are people you can assign roles within your army and who can be upgraded in similar ways to your player controlled character. Finding them in the first place is a challenge, but once you have them you’ll likely want more specialised companions.
NIS America may have chosen the notorious date of April 1 to announce it, but it appears there's no foolin' going on: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV is coming to PS4 in the west this fall, with PC and Nintendo Switch ports to follow in 2021.
Originally launched in Japan back in 2018, Trails of Cold Steel IV will be arriving in the west in two special edition formats, alongside a standard release. The "Frontline Edition" will include a boxed copy of the game with reversible artwork, a "Black Records" art book, and an "Echoes of Erebonia" soundtrack CD. The set will be priced around $60.
On March 18th, Sony finally broke cover with in-depth information on the technical make-up of PlayStation 5. Expanding significantly on previously discussed topics and revealing lots of new information on the system's core specifications, lead system architect Mark Cerny delivered a developer-centric presentation that laid out the core foundations of PlayStation 5: power, bandwidth, speed, and immersion. A couple of days prior to the talk going live, Digital Foundry spoke in depth with Cerny on the topics covered. Some of that discussion informed our initial coverage, but we have more information. A lot more.
But to be clear here, everything in this piece centres on the topics in Cerny's discussion. There's much to assimilate here, but what you won't get are any further revelations about PlayStation 5 strategy - and it's not for want of asking. In our prior meeting back in 2016, Cerny talked in depth about how Sony was wedded to the concept of the console generation and the hardware revealed certainly attests to that. So is cross-gen development a thing for first-party developers? While stressing again that he's all in on the concept of console generations (as opposed to PC-style, more gradual innovation) he wasn't going to talk software strategy, and to be fair, that's not really his area.
It begins with one of the loveliest interfaces I've ever handled, a fluorescent origami puzzle of panels, dials and buttons, at once tactile and ethereal, vintage and high-tech, like a holographic astrolabe. At its centre, a circle of ocean rendered in the style of an old-time sea chart, its delicately nested contours travelling beyond the dashboard into a turquoise haze.
A tap of space bar sends out a wailing sonar wave, populating that circle of water with triangular waypoints and coloured dots, darting through or forming undulating patterns - creatures, going about their lives without much heed for the fumbling, dive-suited human in their midst. Tap a waypoint to scan it, a brief but evocative description filling a fold-out panel to the right. Push one of the larger buttons to set that waypoint as a destination, a sextant arm locking across the view with a gratifying click. Hit another button to engage the suit's thrusters, then hit space on arrival to scan your surroundings anew.
This is the heartbeat of In Other Waters, a unique and mesmerising exploration game from Jump Over The Age, set on an alien planet. It's a tempo that carries you from sunlit shallows to waters clogged with poisonous microbes, from pillars decked with pollen to abyssal reaches that harbour dreadful secrets. There is little to break the rhythm - no in-game antagonist to defeat, and only a small handful of tools such as laser cutters that open up initially inaccessible regions. Even the occasional terrain hazards, which range from stinging veils to pools of corrosive brine, are more like encouragements to keep moving than threats.
Sony has announced that it will be committing $100 million in support of COVID-19 relief around the world. The fund is called the "Sony Global Relief Fund for COVID-19," with the intention of providing much-needed relief to those in need during this crisis.
Support will be divided into three main areas:
Assistance to individuals engaged in the medical field like doctors, nurses, and first responders efforts fighting the virus on the front-lines.
Implementing new forms of education for children and educators who can no longer attend school and must work from home.
Support for members of the creative community within the entertainment and gaming industries impacted.
Sony has pledged that $10 million of the fund will be sent to medical support, in conjunction with the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO powered by the UN Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). These foundations are devoted to assisting medical professions and workers currently assisting in the effort to prevent the further spread of the virus and contribute to the treatment of the public.
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When someone mentions Fountains Of Wayne, most Americans likely think of one song, “Stacy’s Mom.” And that makes sense. The Grammy-nominated 2004 single is the band’s only single to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 21 and becoming certified gold. But Fountains of Wayne—whose co-founder and bassist Adam…
Sony announced today it’s donating $10 million to the World Health Organization’s Solidarity Response Fund aimed at fighting the ongoing Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic as part of the company’s new $100 million relief effort.
Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader-run community: My Return To AAA Games Episode 5: Resident Evil 2 Is A Reminder Of So Many Things • Beating The Backlog: Resident Evil 2: Revelations • TAY Retro: Nintendo Entertainment System -Dragon Warrior [TV Commercial, NA]
Image: Antonio Jose Manzanedo/Wizards of the Coast
Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths will include cards based on the classic kaiju
The North Park Theatre in Buffalo, New York. | Photo: Libby March/The Washington Post/Getty Images
‘Now is the time to stand up for the local movie houses we love’
Image: Rare/Xbox Game Studios
Joins Halo, Gears 5 and State of Decay as big Xbox Game Studios releases
Image: Budrul Chukrut/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Support for those impacted by the novel coronavirus pandemic
Chucklefish has made a name for itself with some high-quality releases, including Starbound and Wargroove, and is also known for having stepped in to complete publishing duties on the wildly popular Stardew Valley. The UK game studio had more recently made waves with its announcement of Witchbrook, which many observers have described as looking like a cross between Stardew Valley and the Harry Potter stories. After a good deal of enthusiasm around the initial announcement, Chucklefish has remained very quiet on the project for some months. The reason for that now seems clearer, as the game has seen a dramatic facelift, and is sporting a new isometric artstyle.
To get a sense of what’s changed, look at this previously released screen, which shows off the old art style.
Witchbrook, old artstyle
And now, take a look at these new screenshots, just releasing today.
Today Bandai Namco released the usual accoladed trailer of Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, but this one hid a little secret at the end.
We get a brief tease of the first DLC for the game, titled “A New Power Awakens” and coming this spring.
It will include two boss battle episodes, and this tease is related to the first, which will include Super Saiyan God Goku and Vegeta, Beerus, and Whis.
You can enjoy it below, right at the end of the video.
If you’d like to learn more, you can talke a look at our guide wiki with plenty of help to get you started, and read our review.
Most Animal Crossing: New Horizons players are slowly getting their island together, collecting the perfect materials to craft that really cool-looking chair for their second room in their house or just fishing for seven straight hours to get that damn stringfish before March came to an end (oh, just me?).
But one player has gone above and beyond for their deserted island, going so far as to recreate the entire map of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Now, this isn’t a faithful 1:1 copy as the terraforming is a bit limited in New Horizons but it’s still very impressive of VaynMaanen.
They posted some photos on the Animal Crossing subreddit just a day ago and of course, it blew up.
After four grueling days, VaynMaanen to morph areas of their island into iconic locations from the SNES title such as Kakariko Village, Lost Woods, Hyrule Castle, Lake Hylia, and even Link’s House!
You can see all of the images down below of the awesome creation as well as a picture of the original Hyrule map compared to VaynMaanen’s Animal Crossing island map.
Investigating myself, I’ve found that if you download Final Fantasy 9 from your Steam library, it requests 0 MB of disk space, and downloads instantly (because it pulls down next to nothing). With it installed, you’re able to load the launcher from which you choose screen resolution, but clicking ‘play’ simply shuts the launcher down and nothing happens. Steam itself recognises that the game has closed, and resets its big UI button from ‘Stop’ to ‘Play’.
The PC Final Fantasy 9 community is relatively active, largely due to the fantastic Moguiri mod that makes the game look significantly more impressive than the PC port usually does.Sony's fund will offer $100 million in support to aid medical professionals, educators, students, and those in creative fields.
The post $100 Million Sony Global Relief Fund for COVID-19 Will Include Educational, Medical, and Game Dev Support appeared first on Siliconera.
Square Enix offered the different Final Fantasy VII Remake visual options PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro owners will have.
The post Final Fantasy VII Remake 4K Support Present on the PlayStation 4 Pro appeared first on Siliconera.
We saw Final Fantasy 9 deleted from Steam this morning due to some sort of technical mishap.
The post Square Enix Accidentally Deleted Final Fantasy IX on Steam appeared first on Siliconera.
It seems Microsoft corpirate has decided a Sea of Thieves Steam release wouldn't be a bad idea.
The post Sea of Thieves Steam Page Appears With a ‘Coming Soon’ Release Date appeared first on Siliconera.
Xbox Head Phil Spencer says Microsoft isn't working on a Scalebound revival with PlatinumGames.
The post Phil Spencer Says Microsoft ‘Not Working’ on PlatinumGames Scalebound Revival appeared first on Siliconera.
When you begin Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord, you’ll only have a paltry sum of gold to your name. In order to build up your army and keep them fed, you’ll need to make some smart investments with traders and caravans. Money talks as they say, but in Bannerlord, gold is especially important to succeeding and you’ll want lots of it.
Publisher Microsoft and developer Rare have just announced the PC edition of Sea of Thieves will be weighing anchor on the Steam platform soon, having previously been available exclusively on the Microsoft Store.
While no details have been released pertaining to date or price, this can only be a good thing for the seafaring "shared-world adventure." Through integrated cross-play capabilities, Sea of Thieves no doubt hopes to add the Steam audience to its already impressive playerbase, with 10 million downloads recorded to date.
I'm reminded of the missteps of Killer Instinct, an excellent fighting game, that was severely hampered by its exclusivity first to Xbox One, and then to the Microsoft Store, eventually arriving on Steam once the community had already started to move on. Hopefully Sea of Thieves will avoid this fate by making the move while the franchise remains popular.
Sea of Thieves is available on PC and Xbox One. Its most recent expansion, Heart of Fire, launched back in March. The Steam page is live right now, and we will keep you updated as and when Microsoft announces an official release date.
Sea of Thieves for PC coming to Steam [Gematsu]
Back in the budding days of online play, before ranking systems and anti-cheat measures were rampant, sore losers clung to anything they could to game the system. The easiest strategy? Yank out your ethernet cable when you're about to lose. Classic.
That method has come full circle in this new Pokemon Sword and Shield exploit, which basically involves the same concept. According to multiple users on ResetEra (and folks on Twitter), the idea is to press the power button at the exact right time right after losing an online match.
If your timing is right you won't lose rank points, and the winner doesn't earn points. It's like a double bug and a dangerous way to kill online play. Folks have been proving this works, too, so that it gets on Game Freak's radar and they change it sooner than later. Given that a lot of their competitive events run off the backbone of this system, I hope they get the message.
Ka_Cr_He [Twitter via ResetEra]
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been out for over a week now, and like most modern simulation games, it has a ton of bugs and a few exploits. Naturally Nintendo is inclined to squash out the latter first, but a new update just arrived in certain regions and will fix a few of the former.
It's version 1.1.2, and addresses at least four major bugs. Firstly, Nintendo notes that "under certain conditions," animals that were invited to move to your island didn't actually do so, and the vacant land stayed closed (yikes!). Nintendo says that although the bug has been fixed going forward, if you are directly impacted, the animals will not move in but the closed land will return to you so that you can offer it up again.
Another big one involves an issue where Tom Nook did not ask players to build plots for new residents, essentially stalling progress on the entire game. Nintendo says that so long as you finish the store (a very early objective) an event will trigger that will move this process along.
Nintendo also confirms that deleting a user, "under certain conditions," could make it impossible to relocate homes and facilities, and that a bug triggered by buying an item (which reduces the money you own and your miles) is fixed. Man these are nasty! Glad Nintendo got them sorted out sooner than later. Next up on the list: the balloon glitch that prevents players from earning balloon rewards after popping 300.
Lootbox design has often been equated to randomized progression seen in ARPGs, but today's post will dispel that myth and how random and randomized progression aren't the same for the player. ...
Activision has come out on top in a trademark lawsuit brought against it by Humvee maker AM General. ...
Historians Bob Whitaker and Ned Richardson-Little discuss the historical strategy game Through the Darkest of Times. ...
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Illustration: Nicholas DeWitt
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