May 2020

A couple of days ago, Square Enix published the partiton of Final Fantasy’s Chocobo Theme by Nobuo Uematsu, encouraging fans to play along.

The tweet, which you can see below launched the hashtag “#HomedeChocobo,” giving fans from all over the world stuck at home due to the COVID-19 emergency a new reason to come together, at least virtually.

Music and games is certainly a combination which can bring many together, as demonstarted by Project Aces with their #ACE7Music initiative. 

Considering the massive popularity of the Final Fantasy series, it shouldn’t surprise that the hashtag has been extremely successful, gathering hundreds of fans with the purpose of offering their own version of catchy the Chocobo Theme.

During the Rayark Live livestream, a new beautiful concept video for Deemo II was released, showing off another young girl meeting Deemo.

The post Deemo II Concept Video Reveals a Transparent Deemo in Beautiful Concept Video appeared first on Siliconera.

As EA begin to wind down support for the latest Battlefront game, a surprise update has brought back online multiplayer for the original Star Wars: Battlefront, released back in 2004.

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The Xbox Series X games showcase on May 7 promises to be a big and exciting event, featuring next-generation gameplay footage for a series of titles. But there is something very important to remember. Microsoft has said this event will focus on titles from its "global development partners."

This means you should expect to see footage of titles like Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Valhalla and others from third-party publishers, but not games from Xbox Games Studios like Halo Infinite.

Xbox marketing executive Aaron Greenberg confirmed on Twitter that Microsoft is planning a separate, later event to showcase the work of Microsoft's various Xbox Games Studios teams. Greenberg said Microsoft has "some big summer plans" for showcasing first-party titles.

A new month is here, which means New Releases is taking a wide look at the biggest games May has to offer. There's a lot of variety, as the vocaloid crowd can get down with Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix, and Platinum Games fans can relive a cult-classic action game with The Wonderful 101: Remastered. That's not the only re-release on the horizon, either: both Star Wars Episode I: Racer and Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition also launch in May. Last but not least, Minecraft Dungeons is ready to be explored.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer -- May 12

Available on: Switch

The racing game you might have played a long, long time ago is back. It's got modern controls, but you'll still be racing across the same tracks as Anakin Skywalker, Sebulba, and more. There's no online multiplayer, unfortunately, but you can race others via splitscreen or the Switch's LAN connection. PS4 players will sadly have to wait a bit longer, as that version of the game has been delayed.

It appears the battle royale game Warzone will be supported on the soon-to-release next-generation consoles. Infinity Ward's Taylor Kurosaki told GamerGen that the plan is to support the game for "quite some time," and this will include a release for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X.

"I know that our plan is Warzone is going to be around for quite some time, so as soon as those new systems are out and available I’m sure we'll support them," he said.

Presumably, Infinity Ward is also planning for Modern Warfare to be supported on the next-gen consoles as well. The two games exist in the same universe and are built on similar technology. They share the same Battle Pass, including weapons, items, gear, and more.

A Chinese food delivery company has been testing an exoskeleton its couriers could wear which would allow them to carry a lot more stuff. And while they’re at it look like the world’s most expensive Death Stranding cosplayers.

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Last weekend’s shocking leak of footage from The Last Of Us Part II was likely committed by hackers who exploited a security vulnerability in prior Naughty Dog games, according to a person who said they were familiar with the hack. Kotaku has confirmed some of the details with a second source who is familiar with how…

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Victoria Police has charged five Australians over deliberately losing and simultaneously betting in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matches, the first charges of their kind in Australia.

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While it may be sometime longer until we finally see Halo Infinite gameplay, developer 343 Industries continues to share neat behind-the-scenes videos about how the team made the game.

This latest video, posted on Instagram, shows how the Halo Infinite audio team captured the sounds of bullets flying overhead. Earlier, the team actually captured real rounds flying overhead, but in this video, the studio got more creative. As you can see in the video below, they used a slingshot to launch bullet casings, washers, and various other objects overhead to capture more unique sounds.

An unprecedented Nintendo leak from a hacked server breach has revealed a boatload of information on the Wii, N64, and Pokemon.

The post Massive Nintendo Leak Reveals Wii Code, N64 Demos, and Early Pokemon Designs appeared first on Siliconera.

Ken Niimura is a cartoonist and illustrator (and co-creator of I Kill Giants) currently based in Tokyo.

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Call of Duty's free-to-play battle royale game, Warzone, is performing incredibly well right now, and Activision is apparently going to continue to support the game even after the next mainline Call of Duty game comes out later this year. In a new interview, Infinity Ward's Taylor Kurosaki teased that Warzone will be the "through line that connects all the various sub-franchises of Call of Duty."

Reading between the lines here, it sounds like Warzone will continue to be supported with content based on the year's new Call of Duty game.

"We're in kind of uncharted territories here," Kurosaki told GamerGen. "Call of Duty has been on a very regular cadence for many many years, and Warzone has made us rethink exactly how best to release new content and how to integrate it. Call of Duty is a genre in itself, there are different branches in the Call of Duty tree, but they're all connected in some ways. Warzone will be the through line that connects all of the different various sub-franchises of Call of Duty."

A Vagrant Story 2 prologue was posted on Twitter by creator Yasumi Matsuno, a few days after teasing fans.

The post Yasumi Matsumo Posted a Vagrant Story 2 Prologue Summary on Twitter appeared first on Siliconera.

Now that hedges have been added to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, a whole load of new designs are now possible for island landscaping--including this iconic location from Ocarina of Time. A Twitter user has recreated the Hyrule Castle garden where Link and Zelda first meet, complete with the hedged garden, statues, and a nice little surprise at the end.

Japanese Twitter user @penpen_0907 posted a video of the intricate Animal Crossing design, saying it was their favorite place in the Zelda series, and that they were planning to add more details to the scene, including the patrolling troops.

Track: Evil Eye | Artist: Fu Manchu | Album: The Action Is Go

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Despite a delay in development due to coronavirus, the team at Amazon Games' Irvine, California studio are forging ahead with New World, and have dropped new details on the epic-sounding PVP encounters in the 17th Century-themed MMO.

New World sees players claim territory on the cursed island of Aeternum, where they'll have to contend with both PVE and PVP attacks as that territory is contested. A new developer blog has released information about the latter, detailing what will be involved in a player war.

Unlike other PVP games, attacking another player's territory isn't just a free-for-all. Firstly, players have to join one of three Factions, allowing them to team up with some players and wage war on others. In order to declare war on a territory, the controlling Faction's influence must first be weakened by completing missions.

A new set of challenges is live in Fortnite now, with one asking you to collect metal from either Hydro 16 or Compact Cars. If you're looking to get these crossed off quickly, here's where to go, and how to get the most out of your metal harvesting.

The new assignment asks you to collect metal in three tiers, for a total of 90,000 bonus XP:

• Stage 1 of 3 - Collect metal at Hydro 16 or Compact Cars (250): 10,000 XP
• Stage 2 of 3 - Collect metal at Hydro 16 or Compact Cars (750): 25,000 XP
• Stage 3 of 3 - Collect metal at Hydro 16 or Compact Cars (1,500): 55,000 XP

As you can only hold 999 metal at once, the final stage will either have to be completed over a few matches, or you can drop or use some extra metal to free up space.

Originally conceived back in 1996 as a way to offer an RPG franchise on the Sega Saturn, the original Sakura Wars series was a mix of visual novel, dating sim and round-based strategy combat. It follows an all-female theatre troupe based at Tokyo's Imperial Theatre, putting on shows as the Flower Troupe to keep the spirits of the populace high, while also acting as the Imperial Combat Revue, a paramilitary operation tasked with defending the capital from monsters. To do so, they use mechs called Kobu, powered by the strength of their spirit.

With its anime stylings and a cast of lovable protagonists, the franchise became a wild hit in Japan before its fate was sealed along with the Dreamcast. The west only saw the localisation of the last Sakura Wars game, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love, its New York setting and all-new cast considered a good entry point into a series often deemed to be too Japanese.

This new Sakura Wars constitutes a soft reboot, set a decade after the events of the originals and using established gameplay but featuring a completely new cast. You take the role of Navy ensign Seijuro Kamiyama, who becomes the Flower Troupe's new captain. It's your job to help restore the Imperial Theatre to glory and keep Tokyo safe. In order to make a gaggle of women into a real team, you need to get to know them, help them overcome personal struggles and realise their true potential.

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After disappearing from the face of the earth for a few years, metroidvanias are everywhere. If you boot up Steam now and check New Releases, I’ve no doubt you’ll see two or three games that promise a pixelated creature jumping around on a 2D plane, unlocking doors and paths for ten or so hours.

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Bringing the Master Chief Collection (MCC) to PC is a big undertaking--with two games live and needing support, and three games still to be released, the team has a big job ahead of them. This is only complicated by the added need to work from home, but a new dev blog shows that the MCC team is taking this well in stride.

The new post showcases some of the team's home offices as they work to bring the MCC to PC, with setups ranging from a backyard farm with multiple goats to a desk set up in the garage to ensure work-life separation. You can check out the rest of the teams set ups in the post, featuring many pictures of developers' pets and PCs.

The blog also includes updates on the progress of Halo 2 after April's Insider testing. The team received 2000 tickets from the test period, and will now work on bringing Halo 2 to PC "in the not too distant future."

Seafaring trade simulator Port Royale 4 has released its beta as a pre-purchase, with players who purchase the game now getting a discounted rate and instant access to the beta.

The latest in a series dating back to 2003's Port Royale, the trading sim takes players back to the golden age of seafaring in the Caribbean, acting as the governor of an island-based colony. In a new twist for the series, sea battles will now be turn-based, with up to 8 different ships involved in each battle.

See what else is new in the series with the closed beta, available now for players who purchase the game through the Kalypso store. The beta will allow players to play through the entire tutorial, plus the full Spanish campaign. It will also feature Free Mode again just for Spain, with four playable characters.

Clambering over rubble that, moments earlier, was a stout brick wall, Sergeant Nelson’s squad find themselves on the ground floor of a windowed two-storey west-facing storeroom. To the south the coast seems clear. To the north, in the chamber codenamed ‘LEAD’ by Colonel Croesus, a sandbagged Pak 40 anti-tank gun waits patiently for passing trade. The gun crew are expecting dawdling side-on Shermans 50 metres away. They are not expecting a dozen grizzled GIs within spitting distance.

(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 action. For a scenario outline and accounts of earlier turns, click here) (more…)

Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord does allow you to develop settlements into money making machines, but in order to get the most gold flowing through your town, you need to ensure that you have the right infrastructure in place. Workshops are key to this and there are some that are better for your specific town than others.

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Remnant: From the Ashes – Swamps of Corsus Review on PC

The Souls-like shooter Remnant: From the Ashes was well-received by fans of the genre when it launched in 2019, and critics, too. We thought it was great, and we weren’t the only ones. Gunfire Games have just released the game’s first major DLC, the Swamps of Corsus. It’s quite a meaty offering that serves to enrich the game as a whole, especially its titular Swamps.

The most substantial part of the package is the new Survival Mode, and rather than being some kind of wave-based spin on the Horde mode other shooters might feature, it serves to turn Remnant into something of a roguelike.

Survival Mode is separated from both the main game and Adventure Mode, and you can jump into it immediately. You begin in a safe zone with several pillars that function as merchants that can be used to outfit your character, and you have nothing but 1,000 Scrap to your name.

The inventory offered by these pillars is randomized, so it can sometimes feel like you have been dealt a rough hand if the gear offered is wildly different from that of your chosen play style. You can remedy this simply by restarting until it does, although that probably isn’t entirely in keeping with the spirit of the mode. Survival Mode is so challenging (even on Normal difficulty) that that might not bother you if you are anything like me.

Today the Japanese video game rating board CERO announced on its official site that it will resume operations this week.

To be more precise, the board will reopen on May 7. Business hours will be from 10 am to 4 pm in order to help employees avoid the rush hour during their commute.

On top of that, preparations are ongoing to implement teleworking where possible.

CERO temporarily closed at the beginning of April due to the state of emergency declared by the Japanese government to slow down the spread of COVID-19.

Since employees were required to be at the office in order to rate new games, this also brought a temporary stop to new ratings for upcoming titles.

While it caused concerns among some that the closure would cause delays, it’s difficult to say how games coming in the next several months have been affected, if at all.

Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED commented mentioning that the temporary closure would not affect the upcoming RPG, because it had already received its rating in Japan.

CERO is basically the Japanese equivalent of ESRB and PEGI, rating video games on a scale between A and Z, ranging from games for everyone to titles requiring to be 18 or older.

The post Japanese Rating Board Will Reopen This Week Following Temporary Closure Due to Coronavirus Emergency appeared first on Twinfinite.

Square Enix and People Can Fly released a batch of screenshots of the upcoming cross-generation co-op RPG shooter Outriders.

The screenshots were released on the game’s official Twitter account (sources 1, 2, 3, 4) also providing more information about the setting, powers, and enemies.

You can check them out below. Interestingly, they were distributed in super-high 6K resolution.

Dominique “SonicFox” McLean has made a name for themselves as a fighting game great. Back in 2018, Kotaku first profiled the esports competitor, who has become famous for their excellent play and their now iconic fursuit. SonicFox is adding not one but two new suits to their line-up of fur-covered wear.

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Mount And Blade 2 Bannerlord has you potentially command large armies in big battles, but first, you’re going to have to win them over. Keeping their loyalty, feeding them, and upgrading them to stronger troop types will be the key to conquering the land. It’ll take a lot of work, so we’ll explain how to do it here.

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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 in your army will be companions, who are people that can be assigned roles and who can be upgraded in similar ways to your player controlled character.

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If you think being locked down for the last month has been hard on you, then pity your poor CPU: it’s just not used to this kind of focused attention. The good news is that you can now give it the gift of early retirement without breaking the bank thanks to a pretty solid sale on processors over at Newegg.

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