Rumors are circulating that Apple won’t be including a charger or earbuds in this year’s iPhones. As annoying as this is—since I doubt Apple will be dropping the price of the phone to match—the fact of the matter is that the bundled chargers weren’t that great anyway. If you have to buy another charger, skip Apple’s…
There comes a point in The Last Of Us II where you encounter a baby, and for a short moment, everything is good in the world.
Call of Duty’s Warzone just got a little more crowded with the addition of 200-player battle royale matches. You’d think this would be total chaos, but so far it doesn’t seem to have changed things much.
Ziggurat is currently seeking a full-time Brand & Marketing Manager to work with its over 200 game titles and help grow its brand and digital presence in the game universe. ...
In an interview with Can I Play That, Naughty Dog discusses how work done early in the development process laid the foundation for The Last of Us Part 2's in-depth accessibility options. ...
Nintendo has announced it will no longer permit European retailers to sell digital download codes for its games starting tomorrow, 1st July, meaning digital sales of its first-party titles for Switch will be restricted exclusively to its own online eShop.
Retailers have had the option to sell digital download codes for first-party Nintendo titles (which would frequently be discounted to prices significantly lower than those offered directly on eShop) alongside physical copies for some time now - but that changes tomorrow.
UK online store ShopTo.net first broke the news to customers yesterday evening, and Nintendo has since confirmed the decision in a statement provided to NintendoLife. The company didn't go into specifics, only saying it had ended digital download code sales for its "own-published software" after "careful examination of the evolving European marketplace in recent years."
Fortnite: Save the World has technically been in early access since its release in 2017, but that is no longer the case. Epic Games made an announcement explaining that this mode has left early access, and that the development of new content will be slowing down.
Save the World is essentially Fortnite's campaign mode, and players must pay to access it. This stands in contrast to the free Battle Royale mode, which stole the spotlight. Epic had previously announced plans to take Save the World free-to-play, but those never worked out. With this new announcement, the company confirms that Save the World "will remain a premium experience rather than going free-to-play."
All of your your current cosmetic purchases will continue to work in both modes, but Epic says that future cosmetic items released for Battle Royale won't be supported by Save the World. If you have more questions about Save the World content (including the upcoming Ventures feature), check out the full post from the Fortnite team.
Photo: Paramount Pictures
From a Terry Gilliam-style animated 1950s oddity to a recent cartoon classic
Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time will have no microtransactions, according to the game’s developer Toys For Bob in a tweet on Tuesday.
The clarification comes after some speculated the game would contain some sort of microtransactions since the Microsoft Store page lists “Offers in-app purchases” underneath the pre-order option.
The in-app purchases notice may have been caused by the Totally Tubular Skins pack, which is listed on its own with the game and pack together listed as a bundle.
The studio said in a tweet: “We’re seeing confusion about #MTX in
@CrashBandicoot 4 and want to be [crystal] clear: There are NO MICROTRANSACTIONS in #Crash4. As a bonus, the Totally Tubular skins are included in all digital versions of the game.”
In a bit of cruel irony, Mobius Final Fantasy Original Soundtrack 3 has been released, on the same day as the game's global shutdown.
The post Mobius Final Fantasy Original Soundtrack 3 Released, Coinciding With Global Shutdown appeared first on Siliconera.
The Bandai Namco Play Anime Live digital showcase will air on July 22. Bandai Namco will have news and announcements for its anime content.
The post Play Anime Live Digital Showcase Announced by Bandai Namco appeared first on Siliconera.
I’ve had a lot of fun with The Last of Us Part II, especially its more gruesome gameplay elements. As awful as it feels to admit, Naughty Dog made virtual murder fun. There’s a great sense of accomplishment in sneaking up on a pair of enemies, grabbing one, headshotting the other, and executing your captive in a few…
A strange new product appeared on Steam last week: a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator that translates the 2D pixel graphics of classic 8-bit games into 3D worlds built with voxels. It’s called 3dSen, it has standard and standard+VR versions, and it lets you experience a select slice of the NES library from…
Animal Crossing: New Horizons has been a real sandbox of creativity since the game first released three months ago, and its community has been consistently wowing us with incredible creations. Twitter user ffSade recently posted a video of their island, showing their recreation of iconic locales from the Resident Evil series.
In the video, the island itself has been modeled to look like the streets of Raccoon City, with rubbish and scattered papers all over the ground. The player house has been decorated to look like iconic buildings from Resident Evil.
This includes the first floor hallway of the Spencer mansion, the underground Umbrella lab office of the mansion, as well as the S.T.A.R.S office from the Raccoon Police Department in Resident Evil 2.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is now available exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection keeps chugging along with expansive new updates and added features, and also some lingering issues. Developer 343 Industries has updated its list of Known Issues for the game to let people know what what the studio is working on and what to expect in terms of when fixes may be delivered.
First and foremost, however, 343 mentioned that its current No. 1 priority currently is working to get Halo 3 (and the rest of the games) out the door on PC through The Master Chief Collection. That being said, 343 is concurrently working on fixing various issues and responding to feedback.
The items on the Known Issues list aren't being treated at the same rate due to scope. Some issues might be addressed with speed, while others might take longer. With those caveats out of the way, the current list of Known Issue for MCC as of June 30 includes things like general performance on Xbox One and issues with the pistol bullet spread for Halo: Combat Evolved.
Continue Reading at GameSpotBandai Namco has announced a new event for anime fans, and it'll focus on their upcoming slate of games that are anime focused. The event, called Play Anime Live, hasn't announced the games it will focus on yet.
The stream will begin on July 22 at 4 PM PT--that's a Wednesday. It's not yet clear how long the event will run for.
Bandai Namco publishes many anime games, including games based on Dragon Ball and Naruto. It's been a while since we've seen a new Naruto game, and the Dragon Ball FighterZ Fighters Pass 3 currently has several unannounced fighters, so we could see news about these series (although nothing has been confirmed).
It also seems likely that we'll see something from Scarlet Nexus, an upcoming RPG that's coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X, along with current-gen systems. Other upcoming anime-themed games coming from Namco Bandai include Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions, One Piece: Grand Cruise, Tales of Arise, and Digimon Survive.
You can sign up for the event now, which will put you in the running to win a "VIP box" prize containing $75 worth of anime-themed swag.
Stadia continues to roll out new features, and an important one has just been added that will benefit players who are using an Android mobile for their gaming. In the latest update on the Google Stadia community blog, it's been announced that the wireless Stadia controller now works with Android devices.
The latest Stadia update, which is availabble now, allows you to connect the controller as long as your device and controller are connected on the game Wi-Fi network. Follow the pairing instructions on your screen and you'll be good to go.
You'll also be able to experience audio through your headset once it's connected. This will be a feature that many players have been waiting on for a long time, so it's good that it has finally arrived.
Four new games have been added to Stadia Pro as well, as of July 1. Those games are Crayta (which is premiering on Stadia), Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, SteamWorld Dig, and West of Loathing. You'll be able to play them on your Android phone with a controller, too.
Stadia recently dropped the price of the Premiere Edition, which is designed for people who want to play their games on a television.
Even before Warzone added a whole second game to Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare's files, the size of the game's patch downloads and disk footprint were a problem the developers had to address. The file size ballooned after Warzone's release, and now some players' game sizes have broken 200 GB according to a Reddit thread picked up by US Gamer.
Reddit user kiwi_lad_1982 posted a screenshot of the combined Modern Warfare and Warzone package taking up 209 GB after the game's most recent patch, though another user in the replies said theirs was 222 GB. GameSpot's Mat Paget verified that his PC copy of the game was only at 196 GB, however.
When Skater XL launches on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on July 28, it will contain three maps created by the game's modding community during the game's Early Access period on Steam. The maps will be a part of the game for all players.
The three maps are Streets (by Jean-Olive), Hűdland Training Facility (by Pactole), and Grant Skate Park (by Theo). A trailer and screenshots for these maps have been released, showcasing the work of the game's community. Theo joined the development team after creating Grant Skate Park, which will debut in the game's 1.0 release.
In a statement released to press, developer Easy Days Studio co-founder Dain Hedgpeth praised the game's modding community, which consists of 84,000 people who "have created thousands of amazing maps, fake skate brands and gear" in the game. states Dain Hedgpeth, Co-founder of Easy Day Studios. “Their creativity and passion have not only inspired us, but has become an integral part of the Skater XL experience," he says, "and we want to pay homage to this by including some of their work at launch."
Hedgpeth notes that this is "just the beginning" of the studio's plans to highlight community-created content.
Originally released in 2007, The Lord of the Rings Online continues to receive new update some 13 years later. The latest one invites players to attend the wedding of Middle-earth heroes Aragorn and Arwen. Just like in the book, Aragorn and Arwen will celebrate their marriage in Minas Tirith, and you can attend this joyous event and earn special bonuses for doing so.
The new event is called Epic Volume V, Book 1: A Time of Celebration, and it runs through July 20. Players will automatically receive a quest that provides a map to Minas Tirith. Once you get there, you'll receive another quest that kicks off the Midsummer Festival. This is mean to celebrate Midsummer's Day, which is when Aragon and Arwen got married in the year TA 3019.
There are a variety of Midsummer-themed quests, and you can visit Thorin's Hall, Duillond, Bree-town, and the Party Tree to find them. Going forward, the Midsummer Event will be an annual event.
Continue Reading at GameSpotRecently, many people within the games industry have come forward and spoken, openly and bravely, about their experience with abusers. The sharing of these experiences, which have often involved high-level game producers and developers, as well as streamers and journalists, has brought to light how the industry has sheltered many abusers, and has led to some action.
Two Ubisoft executives have been suspended over abuse allegations, and the developer is reworking how it deals with employee complaints as it becomes clear that employees were not being adequately protected. Companies that were previously working with Chris Avellone have distanced themselves after multiple women have come forward with accusations of sexual assault and harassment. Twitch has suspended multiple streamers accused of abuse.
But this is all part of a wider, systemic cultural issue, and the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has released a statement calling for the industry to "recognize the failures that led to these situations." It includes links to resources for victims of harassment, and outlines some of the ways in which the games industry has failed to keep people safe from harassment and abuse.
Continue Reading at GameSpotDevolver Digital, the publisher that first tweeted about E3 being cancelled before the announcement was official, is gearing up for its annual Devolver Direct showcase. The event, which was promised in May and then was more recently suggested to be arriving in mid-July, will seemingly be dated--and possibly detailed--very soon.
In a tweet on the official Devolver Digital account, the publisher has promised "Devolver Direct news tomorrow," and that it will be good news. This means that we're likely to see a date for the event made official on July 1.
Devolver Direct news tomorrow. Good news, not bad news.
Game development is an iterative process. Features are often added and removed regularly during the development process as the team discovers what works best. For Cyberpunk 2077, developer CD Projekt Red worked on a wall-running feature, but it won't make it into the final game.
Level designer Max Pears told GameReactor that while wall-running has been cut for design reasons, the game will offer players "a lot of flexibility" with how they move through the world.
"Ah, the wall-running" Pears said. "That is something that we removed due to design reasons, but there's still going to be a lot of flexibility in how you move, that's for sure."
Continue Reading at GameSpotDreams, the PlayStation 4 exclusive game-and-art creation tool from Media Molecule, will receive a huge update soon that will make the game compatible with PlayStation VR. The update, which will arrive for free on July 22, will add new tools allowing users to create VR experiences.
As detailed on the PlayStation Blog, the update will include new tutorials and kits for VR creation, helping to familiarize you with the controls involved in VR crafting. You'll be able to both create and play in VR, and the developer has tested these options extensively with users.
The trailer below shows off some of the types of experiences you'll be able to craft and play.
Sculpting in VR will be "a very one-to-one experience" if you are using PlayStation Move controllers, the developer promises. You'll also be able to create games that can be played in VR even if you don't own the headset yourself, as new gadgets will be added to Create Mode. Creators will be able to tag if their game is playable in VR or not.
Continue Reading at GameSpotRetro Studios, the team behind Metroid Prime and the two Donkey Kong Country Returns games, has made a big hire as it works on Metroid Prime 4. VGC has announced that the studio has brought on Bharathwaj Nandakumar, a long-time Activision veteran who has worked on the Call of Duty: Black Ops series.
According to VGC, Nandakumar was most recently credited as lead engineer on Black Ops 4. Across the past decade, he has worked on the whole series. He was reportedly brought into the Nintendo-owned studio back in April, but it's only being reported on now.
Retro Studios is working on Metroid Prime 4, but this was not always the case. In fact, the game was being worked on by another team until early 2019, when development was restarted with the original trilogy developer at the helm.
Since then, it's been reported that about half the Metroid Prime 3 team is still at the studio, and that the director of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze was also working there again after a stint at Super Lucky's Tale developer Playful Corp.
While one team inside 343 Industries plugs away on Halo Infinite, another continues to work on Halo: The Master Chief Collection. The studio has continually introduced impressive updates for the game over the years, and this continues with a major update coming to Halo: CE in particular.
The game is getting a brand-new customization system for multiplayer. These include visors, weapon skins, and vehicle skins. You can see some work-in-progress images of the new system below.
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is changing its progression system for the upcoming Season 2 update. Developer 343 Industries announced that it will soon begin to allow people to purchase "seasonal items." [Update: following the publication of this story, Microsoft removed the word "purchase" from its blog post, so it seems microtransactions may not be coming to MCC]
MCC currently has a battle pass-style progression system that players grind through gameplay to unlock new stuff.
"We also heard feedback that players want more choice in the order they unlock items, so we are adding the ability to purchase seasonal items in a given tier in any order that players want," design director Max Szlagor said on the Halo website.
Continue Reading at GameSpot