May 2020

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was one of our favorite games of 2019, and we called it one of the best modern Metroidvania games we’d played in a while. Ever since it got fully funded on Kickstarter, the developers have certainly paid attention to fan feedback and have adjusted and improved the game accordingly, and it’s getting one of the promised major free updates later this week.

On May 7, 505 Games will release a new update for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The Switch update will come a little later, possibly at the end of May or beginning of June.

This update will finally introduce Zangetsu as a playable character, voiced by none other than David Hayter. While Zangetsu played a key role in the campaign of the game, he wasn’t actually playable. For players who have already beaten the game and gotten the good ending, you’ll be able to start a new playthrough with him.

A Zangetsu playthrough will be vastly different from a Miriam playthrough. For starters, there will be no cutscenes, and the crafting and equipment systems will also be disabled. Zangetsu doesn’t have access to Shard abilities, so you’ll have to rely on his katana skills and other special abilities that consume MP.

Aside from just adding Zangetsu, this new update will also introduce the randomizer mode that essentially turns Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night into a rogue-like game. You’ll have the ability to customize the game’s parameters such as warp and save room locations, enemy drops, as well as goals and win conditions.

Power Moons by Location

When I think back to the launch of Final Fantasy XV back in 2016, I still can’t quite believe that Square Enix managed to get away with it all. Everyone might be kicking off now about separating the Final Fantasy VII Remake into multiple who-knows-how-many parts, but at least we know (hopefully) that they’re all going to be actual games. If you wanted to understand what the heck was going on in Final Fantasy XV, you had to watch a 110 minute CG movie called Kingsglaive first, then a five-part anime series called Brotherhood.

There was also an entirely separate (albeit promotional) game detailing the life and fun adventure times of the main character’s dad called A King’s Tale, and a real-life version of the in-game minigame, Justice Monsters Five. You didn’t need to play the last two to understand the story, but man alive, what a mad old set of affairs, eh? And that’s before we get to the whole DLC debacle.

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You've heard of the Way of the Dragon, but have you come across the Way of the Magic Right Arm? As you've probably guessed, it's a martial art where every move has to involve the right arm - effective at rattling jaws, less so at sweeping ankles. It's not, you've probably also guessed, an actual combat discipline but one of thousands dreamt up by players of Sloclap's Absolver, the unbearably stylish fighting game which lets you pick from over 120 beautifully animated kicks and punches to create a bespoke martial art, or "deck", of up to 16 moves.

Launched in 2017, Absolver's idyllic open world and RPG trappings such as looting are a little deceptive. This is a duelling simulation above all and as such, many player-created decks are works of painstaking optimisation, born of hours spent weighing up frame counts and hit ranges. There are plenty, however, that are more whimsical than competitive, and the game would be much poorer without them.

Some decks are purely about showing off, stringing together high-stakes moves like the MeiaLua, a grandiose kick which begins with you pointing your arse at your opponent's head. Others trade on creative handicaps, such as boxer decks that keep your feet firmly on the ground. There are monkish decks that seek to recreate as closely as possible the martial arts (including Kung Fu and Jeet Kune Do) from which Sloclap took inspiration. At the sillier end of the scale are decks which only use moves that spin you clockwise, and "Chad decks" - as lovingly described by r/absolver member Morklympious - which chain together meaty hits with wind-ups so exaggerated you might as well be fighting in slow motion. They're guilty pleasures for veterans looking to blow off some steam.

How far would you go to get your lost daughter back? In Someday You’ll Return, you’ll undergo a desperate search of the Czech Republic’s Moravian forest – alone, on foot, and struggling to maintain a hold of your own sanity. Yet what will really test your resolve will be the stop-start stealth sections, half-baked game mechanics, and uneven puzzle design you’re forced to suffer along the way. This supernatural nature walk could have been a compelling cross between Firewatch and Silent Hill, but Someday You’ll Return lacks the sharp writing and engaging performances of the former, and can’t pull off the scares of the latter.

It certainly gets off to a decent start, though, and I enjoyed hiking around Someday You’ll Return’s woodland setting for the first few hours. The absence of objective markers on the HUD means that navigating between landmarks and campsites is entirely based around studying maps and observing the colour-coded trail markers in order to get from A to B, which felt true to my real life experiences of orienteering through nature.

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Artist Tokyo Genso imagines what Tokyo, the world’s biggest city, would look like in ruins. The results are beautiful and haunting.

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Brimstone is widely considered one of the most valuable Valorant agents to have on your team. His ability to control the map is second to none, and his Incendiary grenades and Orbital Strikes offer a rare amount of damage potential. And lucky for you, our Valorant Brimstone guide is packed with numerous top tips on perfecting your use of all four Brimstone abilities.

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Viper sets herself apart from the other Valorant agents in a couple of ways. From her focus on area control and damage-over-time to her reliance on fuel to power her abilities, there’s a lot to wrap your head around if you want to master this particular agent. But our Valorant Viper guide is a great place to start, providing numerous practical tips for each of her four deadly abilities.

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Five people were charged this Sunday with fixing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches, according to Victoria Police. If found guilty, they could face up to a decade in prison.

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The clumsy fliers currently inspiring piscine aerobatics down at my local chalk stream live longer than the average friendly in a game of communal Combat Mission. Usually by this point – turn 4 – the Comment Commanders have managed to lose at least one tracked, wheeled, or booted asset. The fact that Colonel Croesus’ swarm of goldbugs have yet to sustain so much as a stubbed toe is a testament to cautious shepherding and, it has to be said, a fair-sized helping of good luck.

(Colonel Croesus is an open-to-all game of Combat Mission: Fortress Italy in which Allied forces are orchestrated by commenters while German units are computer controlled. Each daily turn covers one minute of WeGo action. For a scenario outline and accounts of earlier turns, click here) (more…)

Felix Kjellberg AKA PewDiePie was one of the earliest success stories of online gaming content, having had millions of followers and pulling in millions in revenue for years.

Despite being one of YouTube's breakout gaming stars, he found himself in hot water with the company after creating an anti-Semetic stunt, with YouTube cancelling his reality show and pulling him from many of its ads. But now it appears PewDiePie is back in the good books, having partnered with YouTube to stream exclusively with them, the Washington Post reports.

While he pulls in a large audience, PewDiePie has repeatedly created controversy, usually followed by an apology, followed by dropping a racial slur in a livestream, followed by yet more apologies. After dodging any major controversies in the last few years, YouTube is giving him a second chance.

Half-Life: Alyx was one of the most anticipated VR launches ever, and now it's got the numbers to back that hype up. Thanks to data crunched by Road To VR, we can now see just how big Alyx's impact on the VR market was, with a dramatic spike in the number of VR headsets connected to Steam in the month of April.

The data tracks the number of VR headsets that are connected to Steam within a given month--so while it can't tell us whether they were actually used or not, it's a close enough metric to look at active VR users.

The figures from the monthly Steam hardware survey show that 1.91% of Steam users connected a headset during the month of April, and thanks to Road to VR's tracking of these stats we can tell what a big jump that is--it's triple the spike in VR connections that happened over the December-January holiday period.

The Shenmue legend continued in 2019 after a long break with Shenmue III, a game that broke Kickstarter records but did not sell particularly well at retail. It also attracted middling reviews, which has many series fans wondering if the series will continue. Director Yu Suzuki, who also directed the first two games in the series, believes that it will--but it'll need to be designed with mainstream success in mind.

In an interview with IGN Japan (translated by VGC), Suzuki says that while Shenmue III was made "for the fans," a Shenmue 4 would have to go wider. "If I have the opportunity to make Shenmue 4--and I think I will--I know how to satisfy casual users, so I want to make a game that everyone can be satisfied with," he said.

He noted a few things the next game in the series would need to include, such as quest markers, easier fast travel and time-skip options, and an improved user interface. He noted that a more general audience would wish to move through the game faster than a hardcore Shenmue fan might.

World of Tanks has a new mode live now, and it'll be available until May 18. It's called Road to Berlin, and it's a player vs. enemy mode that will let players choose between five different units to combat their enemies. Each unit features a unique set of combat boosts (like the ability to call in airstrikes or special shells), and you can play it in teams of five.

The battles in this mode each consist of five sequences, called Battle Missions, which will feature different objectives that need to be completed to progress. There's a brand new map to play on--Berlin--and three others to move through. The Berlin map will not be available until May 9, which is the 75th anniversary of the ceasefire that ended World War II.

You can learn more about this mode in the trailer below.

Death Stranding just released in November 2019, but its strange premise is already one step closer to reality. Ele.me, a Chinese food delivery company, has teamed up with ULS Robotics to test out a new wearable exoskeleton that will allow the user to carry much heavier loads than they usually would--much like Death Stranding protagonist Sam Porter Bridges.

News site Sixth Tone has posted footage of the exoskeleton, calling it "straight out of a video game". You can watch the video below.

This ekoskeleton allows the user to carry weights of up to 50kg (110 pounds) with relative ease, so it's still some way off of replicating what Sam's capable of in the game.

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is set to be the biggest Lego Star Wars yet when it launches later this year. Now, in a new interview with TT Games' Jonathan Smith and Lucasfilm Games' Craig Derrick on StarWars.com, we've gotten a better sense of just how big it might be.

You'll be able to start the game at any point in the Saga, so you can skip the prequels or even jump right into The Last Jedi if you want to. It will also include space combat missions, and the whole game is brand new, so don't expect to retread missions from previous Lego Star Wars games.

According to Smith, the game contains "the complete collection, from Admiral Ackbar to Zorii Bliss," and Derrick says that "there are nearly 500 characters in this game, with many of them playable." He says that they tried to say "yes" to every character, giving one specific example of a fun addition--The Phantom Menace's Yaddle, the Yoda-like alien who has a famously fascinating and bizarre backstory.

Indivisible is getting its first piece of DLC on May 7, in the form of the Razmi's Challenges pack. The expansion, which will cost $8, presents players with 40 new challenges that can be played through once players have reached Mt. Sumeru. Razmi will appear in Ajna's Inner Realm and offer up challenges that must be completed with a limited set of abilities.

These challenges will present platforming and combat scenarios for Ajna to conquer, and will hopefully provide some additional challenge to both new players and those who have finished the game previously.

This is the game's first paid DLC; it has previously received a New Game Plus and co-op modes for free. Screenshots from Razmi's Challenges are below.

WWE 2K19, while not perfect, is vastly superior to the game that followed it, WWE 2K20. Because of this, many wrestling game fans looking for a fix are more likely to turn to the 2018 iteration of the franchise rather than last year's train wreck, and recently received a rude shock when an in-game notification told them that the game's servers would soon go offline. However, it seems that this is not actually happening anytime soon.

The WWE 2K Twitter account has assured fans that this was an error, and that the game's servers would remain live for "the foreseeable future". They've previously promised this on the back of numerous fan requests.

If your favourite wizard just wasn’t quite zapping right in Legends Of Runeterra, that might be because they were one of four broken cards. Rejoice, for the wizards now work: Sejauani, Lee Sin, Vi and Twisted Fate have all been patched up.

Riot have also taken the time to explain their approach towards bug fixing, which I find succinct and agreeable. It would have been even more agreeable if these worked in the first place, but hey ho.

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Going by a little Steam database leak, it seems that Yakuza: Like A Dragon is coming to PC – and presumably soon-ish. Sega’s wonderful beefy-dads-with-hearts-of-gold RPG series only started coming to PC in 2018, 13 years after it started on PlayStations, and now it looks like we’re skipping a few games ahead. Set after Yakuza 6, Like A Dragon introduces a whole new star, turning away from best dad Kazuma Kiryu. In another break from tradition, it also turns the beat ’em up combat into a turn-based RPG. Curious!

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A fan-made port of Super Mario 64 has Nintendo's classic running at 4K resolution on PC.

We've seen plenty of retro games running with improved performance on PC via emulators before - the difference here is that this is a port, put together by fans with access to the game's source code.

Mario 64 is one of a trio of plumber classics getting a re-release for Nintendo Switch later this year - along with other Mario games old and new. Just don't expect the Switch to hit 4K like this.

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Every writer has words they never think they’d get to write again, locked in a drawer of unspoken dreams. For me, these words were “MicroProse announces…”

Looks like I’ll have to find something new to store in my closet of impossible pipe dreams because I just received the press release announcing the return of Microprose. 

If you’re unfamiliar with MicroProse, it’s responsible for some of the most iconic strategy and simulation games of the eighties and nineties, including the Civilization series, the Falcon X.0 series, MechCommander, the XCOM series, and many more.

The company’s closure in 2003 was mourned by many fans of the genres they specialized in, including yours truly. 

Since then, the brand has changed hands a few times, and apparently its owners have decided to bring back in style.

With “in style” i mean with strategy simulation games, three of them.

We’re getting Sea Power developed by Triassic Games, Second Front by Hexdraw, and Task Force Admiral by Drydock Dreams Games.

Below you can find a trailer, screenshots, and an official description for each. They’re all coming to Steam with no release dates just yet.

Last month, Kotaku posted what could have been this year’s last cosplay gallery. For an in-person show, that’s probably true! This spring’s Comiket, always a big cosplay draw, was canceled. However, the show was reborn in an online iteration, with cosplayers doing their thing even while in quarantine.

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You may not be able to play Animal Crossing proper on your PC, but now there’s an Island Planner that lets you design your very out village layout. Created by Rob Fichman, the Island Planner lets you figure out your terraforming plans before you commit to them in your actual game. It’s great because the terraforming in Animal Crossing itself kinda sucks, and the Planner makes it much easier to organise where you want to put houses, rivers, bridges and all that good stuff. But I don’t think you even need to have Animal Crossing to enjoy this free game, because it’s quite fun just to mess around making cute little island designs.

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Have you exhausted your Steam library? Okay, let me rephrase that: have you run out of things you’re excited to play in your Steam library? Well, if you’re a fan of Capcom games, then the latest discounts from Fanatical are well worth a look, with Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry 5 and Monster Hunter: World‘s Iceborne Master Edition all going cheap today.

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Looks like Blizzard are starting to realise that most Overwatch players aren’t all in the Top 500, as they’ve removed hero pools for lower competitive ranks. Players from Bronze up to Diamond will no longer have to deal with the weekly hero bans because, let’s face it, those of us at these levels never use the same compositions as the Overwatch League, do we?

“Competitive play at lower skill tiers already sees a tremendous amount of hero composition diversity in their matches, and we don’t think they need a system like hero pools to encourage even more,” the devs say.

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Gaming monitor deals

, as you may have noticed, are in somewhat short supply at the moment for pretty obvious coronavirus-shaped reasons. So if you’re shopping for a new screen, then any saving is cause for a mini celebration – although it’s clear this specific deal won’t be for everyone. Today, Scan has shaved £64 off Alienware’s AW3418DW ultrawide gaming monitor, taking its price down from its usual £1014 to £950.

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May the fourth is over for another year, but it didn't end without one final surprise last night, as Respawn released a free update for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order which adds a bunch of extra features for veteran players.

For those who want some extra challenge, the update adds a new game mode hub called meditation training, which can be accessed via the meditation points scattered throughout the game. Within this, players can undertake combat challenges which pit Cal against waves of enemies, using backdrops and aliens from the main narrative and different sets of unique challenges, with each of the 12 challenge levels coming with a three-star completion rating. Unlocking all of those will earn you some extra BD-1 skins, but be warned, as the challenges are intended for experienced players and will be hard to complete at the early stages of a playthrough.

The other mode provided by meditation training is called the battle grid, which is essentially a sandbox mode for players to build their own encounters. You can pick the location, size of the skirmish, tinker with various difficulty options and add enemies of your choice. You can even fight against unique enemies seen in Cal's dark visions. I just wonder if you can create a battle with three Oggdo Bogdos.

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Animal Crossing New Horizons has, largely by virtue of being exactly the right form of escapism at exactly the right time, become something of a cultural phenomenon as players use it to live out some semblance of a surrogate existence during lockdown. It's been used to build capitalist empires, to host weddings, birthdays, romantic dinners, even protests. And as it's gone mainstream, everyone wants in on the action: be they celebrities, museums finding an educational angle, The Financial Times, and, now, the fashion world.

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI (PC DVD-ROM) | $17 | Amazon

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Track: Sunday Morning | Artist: The Velvet Underground & Nico | Album: The Velvet Underground & Nico

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Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader-run community: Dubs w/ Dil: Fate/stay night (2006) & Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works • A Simple Challenge Could Tear The Battlefront 2 Community Apart • TAY Retro: Nintendo Entertainment System - Knight Rider [TV Commercial, NA]

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Amazon Games' announced that its free-to-play title Crucible is coming to PC on May 20. What is Crucible? Start by checking out the trailer right here!

Crucible has 10 characters to play, each with their own weapons and skills, and is launching with three modes. The three modes are quite different, each one boasting varying team sizes and objectives:

Heart of the Hives - Two four-player teams battle against boss Hives. Hives house a heart, and the first team to collect three hearts wins. You're going to have to balance between battling the other teams and the NPC hive monsters to win.

Harvester Command - Two teams of eight players try to capture and hold Harvesters on the map.

Alpha Hunters - Eight teams of two fight to be the last team remaining in a sort of duo-mini-battle royale.

Crucible is being developed by Relentless Studios, a team that is part of Amazon Games. Find out more at playcrucible.com.

In new Morrigan and Chun-Li art for the upcoming Udon x Capcom Sketchbook Alpha, the two Capcom icons face off in the field of virtual battle.

The post Gaming Morrigan and Chun-Li Fight on the UDON X Capcom: Sketchbook Alpha Covers appeared first on Siliconera.

Amazon Game Studios today announced a May 20th release date for Crucible, their free-to-play multiplayer shooter where two teams compete while battling big monsters. Players get to pick from characters with different abilities, hunt monsters, level up… it’s got a lot of familiar-sounding bits from other multiplayer PvE and PvP and PvEvP games, and I’m curious. Seeing as it’ll be F2P, yeah, I’ll give it a go. I’m curious about Amazon’s venture into making games too, which got off to a bumpy start. Have a peek at a new trailer below.

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