August 2020

Hikaru Nakamura is officially joining an esports org

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Swedish mobile game company MAG Interactive is acquiring all shares of Sventertainment AB, developer of Swedish live trivia app Primetime, for SEK 20 million cash ($2.3 million). ...

A three-part trip that aims to bridge the gap between writers and designers by breaking down conventional structures, removing standard features, and exchanging techniques. ...

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Alpaca Ball: Allstars is an upcoming soccer game from Austrian developer Salt Castle Studio. It features alpaca using their long necks as clubs to score goals. I will buy it when it launches on October 15. I hope developers never stop making games that are just “soccer but silly.”

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Stronghold: Warlords Digital Special Edition Contents

• Full Steam copy of the game

• Soundtrack

  • Completely new full soundtrack

  • Same Stronghold atmosphere and epic battle feeling, but with a completely new set of instruments and historical inspirations

  • Created by fan-favourite series composer Robert Euvino, who has scored every Stronghold game to date

  • Based on music Japanese, Chinese, Cambodian, Mongolian and Vietnamese culture

  • Taking influence from musicians like Yo-Yo Ma and master Shakuhachi players

  • Cover a wide geographical area and hundreds of years of history

  • Available in high quality original format

• Art Book

  • Over thirty pages of original Stronghold artwork from the game's artists

  • Everything from 2D concepts and character models to in-game renders, environmental illustrations and more

  • Includes key art created by polish artist Mariusz Kozik

Two Genshin Impact PS4 exclusive items and a pre-order promotion bundle have been revealed ahead of its September launch.

The post Genshin Impact PS4 Exclusives and Pre-order Bundle Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

Ikenfell has a release date! Find out what's going on at this magical academy and look for your missing sister in October.

The post The Ikenfell Release Date Is October 8, 2020 (Update) appeared first on Siliconera.

These Kaworu and Shinji Nendoroids wear matching plugsuits, will both launch in May 2021, and may be worthy of your grace.

The post The New Kaworu and Shinji Nendoroids Wear Matching Plugsuits appeared first on Siliconera.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is out on October 27, and in true MMO fashion, Blizzard is already prepping folks for the next big thing: the first raid.

As is customary with WoW, its inaugural raid will debut a bit after the launch of the game so folks have time to get ready for it and prep their world-first Twitch runs. On November 10, Castle Nathria will debut, which is a 10-boss raid located in Revendreth: the vampiric realm of the Venthyr covenant, which I am totally joining as quickly as possible.

On November 17, the Mythic version opens (the real challenge), as well as the first wing of the Raid Finder (LFR, or "looking for raid") system. On December 1 the second wing will open on LFR, followed by the third on December 15 and the final wing on January 4. As a note, the first season of the game will also kick off on November 10.

For those of you who don't play WoW, LFR is a wonderful tool that can basically be classified as "easy mode raids." It allows everyone to use matchmaking to enter endgame raid content and at least see it and experience the story. For the hardcore players, they can still tackle the Mythic version and reap the rewards/glory.

It's a win-win and I wish more games implemented it (cough Destiny).

Shadowlands: Castle Nathria and Season 1 Goes Live November 10 [World of Warcraft]

Bethesda teased the "One Wasteland" update for Fallout 76 recently, but this week they're going all-out on telling us what it exactly entails.

In short? The aim is to improve open world gameplay through various tweaks. Aim is the operative word here, as we all know that Fallout 76 patches are not known for their consistency. Digging into it, One Wasteland is going to bring level-scaling to Fallout 76 so the game feels more approachable on multiple levels.

In groups, enemies will dynamically scale with players of different levels. The example Bethesda gives is a level 300 character playing with another who is level 30. The former will see stronger enemies while the latter will see a weaker one: but they'll still be the same enemy character model for visual parity.

There's a lot that can go wrong here, but I'm hopeful that partying will be much more enticing overall, as picking up the game dirt cheap and playing with a friend can at least provide solace for a rainy-day weekend. The philosophy of allowing new players to pick up the game and do higher-end content is extremely promising, as you don't need to "grind to get to the good stuff." In theory.

You can test the system out in the PTS now, and I suggest some of you do so if you're still into this game: the kinks should all be caught before this goes live! As a reminder, you can access the PTS at any time so long as you have the game via the Bethesda launcher.

Inside the Vault [Bethesda.net]

During last night's gamescom Opening Night Live presentation, Activision offered new details pertaining to its upcoming platforming sequel Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. Unfortunately Crash himself was unable to make the presentation, having not gotten the memo and showing up to gamescom's regular haunt, the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany.

Despite this faux-pas, Activision released a new video featuring Crash Bandicoot 4's new "Flashback" stages. These are essentially double-tough "puzzle-rooms" based on classic locales from the original Crash Bandicoot releases. The Flashback stages will not be easy to access however, as they require the player to collect several "Flashback Tapes" throughout the main game's stages, but without losing a single life. Should this task be completed, then the player will be whisked off to take on the challenging side-levels.

You can check out the full Crash Bandicoot 4 gamescom presentation in the video below, courtesy of Gamespot. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time launches October 2 on PS4 and Xbox One.

Journey developer thatgamecompany has announced that the Switch port of its ethereal mobile title Sky: Children of the Light has slipped from its 2020 release date. It will now arrive on the Nintendo platform at some point in 2021.

"As a small indie studio, it's been challenging to pull off so many releases back to back," said the developer on Twitter. "Due to the remote slowdown during COVID & our utmost priority to protect our team’s health, we're pushing Sky on Nintendo Switch back by a few months into 2021. Through the pandemic, we’ve done our best to release Sky on Android, manage a live game, and launch two new adventure seasons. We’ve been excited to finally bring this game to console as much as you have, and thank #thatskygame fans for their patience while we work on its release."

Captain Tsubasa: Rise Of New Champions

is an arcade football meets sports anime with all the wild special shots you’d expect from that intersection. Super-powerful special moves and summoned animals and other extremely anime bits accompany the usual dribbling and scoring of proper football. Kickoff is coming because Captain Tsubasa it out now alongside a new ridiculous trailer.

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Seeing as not many people played Kingdoms Of Amalur: Reckoning in the first place, let’s just pretend that the impending remaster is a brand new game. Forget that it came out in 2012. Forget that it flopped. Forget that it took its creators down with it. Forget that this all made a disappointed John Walker shout “Why didn’t everyone play Kingdoms Of Amalur?!” Breathe in, breathe out, and… we’re a clean slate.

Oh hey look, here comes the first so-called “gameplay trailer” for Kingdoms Of Amalur: Re-Reckoning, which might look a fair bit like another World Of Warcraft-esque MMORPG but is actually a singleplayer game. That could be neat!

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Time loop games seem to be all the rage right now don’t they? You’ve got stuff like Arkane’s Deathloop and Luis Antonio’s 12 Minutes, and now the upcoming FPS Lemnis Gate, which we saw a shiny new trailer for during Gamescom Opening Night Live. It’s a strategic first-person shooter in which players duke it out across five turns which each take place in a 25-second time loop. It sounds… different, and it looks kinda cool. Check out the new trailer for yourself below.

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Three-way mega-battle FPS MMO PlanetSide 2 is about to unveil another big update. The Shattered Warpgate will introduce hazardous storms to one of its maps and some new equipment, but most importantly, a campaign.

Its big update back in March, Escalation, bought thousands of players back, but where that was focused largely on organised groups of experienced players, Rogue Games’ Andy Sites declared that “our goal for The Shattered Warpgate was to improve the experience for a much broader audience”. Central to that goal is a series of campaign missions, and a host of smaller side quests that will reward more of PlanetSide’s many playstyles, even if all you’re interested in is driving around for a while.

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Gamescom 2020

has kicked off, though of course it’s not exactly taking place in a crowded hall in Germany this year. The Indie Arena booth has adapted somewhat like other virtual offerings the A Maze festival and Devolverland Expo from earlier in the FakE3 summer. The Indie Arena is now a quite neat browser MMO where you can check out trailers and demos for a huge harvest of 185 indie games while walking around the colorful virtual show floor.

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Chinese developer miHoYo has today announced that Genshin Impact, an upcoming free-to-play open-world action-RPG, will launch for PS4 on Sept. 28, alongside PC and mobile versions.

Further, the article listed two pieces of PlayStation exclusive bonus content: The Sword of Descension, and the Wings of Descension. The former is apparently an impressive AOE weapon that boosts attack damage, while the latter is an exclusive glider that’ll help players traverse the landscape quickly.

For the unitiated, Genshin Impact takes players to the fantasy landscapes of Teyvat, a distincitly Zelda Breath of the Wild-looking land ruled by seven elemental gods known as the Archons. Players will take on the role of the “Traveler,” embarking on a journey to find out what has happened to their lost sibling and unveils mysterious secrets about this unknown land along the way. 

New Orleans Saints (93|Overrated)

Only one team wouldn’t be overrated in the number one spot in Madden 21 and that’s the underrated Kansas City Chiefs. Don’t get me wrong, the Saints are still fantastic, but they should not be the best team overall. They’re probably the most balanced team but are certainly not the best.

With an aging QB in Drew Brees, it’ll be interesting to see if he maintains his high level of play throughout yet another season. In reality, his deep balls have noticeably lost power and accuracy. Yet, he has a deep pass accuracy stat of 89 in Madden 21.

If his accuracy drops off in reality it’s likely that his stats in Madden will also decline. And if that’s the case, then I doubt that an offense run by backup Taysum Hill will get anywhere near the 96 rating that their offense is currently at.

10.

The Elder Scrolls is a fantasy universe that has long been celebrated for its deep and compelling lore, and Skyrim is perhaps its most lauded and popular chapter.

More than just offering players enormous open-worlds to explore, its stories, characters, landmarks, and nomenclature combine to create a high fantasy role-playing experience only rivaled today by the very best of the genre — even 10 years after Skyrim’s original launch!

By this point, fans are likely to have embarked on countless adventures across Skyrim. But how well do you actually know the lore of the game? Can you really call yourself a true Dovahkiin if you don’t know your Daedras from Draugrs?

Here we’re giving you a chance to test your Skyrim knowledge in a 20-question trivia to determine whether you deserve the honor of being named Dragonborn.

And if you enjoyed this quiz, we have a bunch more right here for you.

Over two years have passed since the initial reveal of Starfield by Bethesda at E3 2018, but the game remains mostly mysterious.

Today Bethesda hosted a livestream to celebrate the online version of Gamescom, and the German community managers quizzed public relations vice president Pete Hines on the status of Starfield.

Hines mentioned that the reveal is still a while away, but he believes that we’ll think it was worth the wait when it finally happens.

“Look, my life would be a lot easier […] if we were ready to show and talk about what the team is working on. Anybody can do marketing when the game is ready to show, right? Just show the game.

If the game is not ready to show, there is not a whole lot we can do until it’s ready. I don’t know, what do you want from me? I can’t make it up.”

“The only thing that I can tell you is that when we finally get around it, when we finally get around to talk what it’s up to, I think you will be impressed. I think you will be excited. I think you will say “That looks like it’s worth the wait.

But we’ll see. It’s gonna be a while til we get there.”

Unfortunately, we don’t know much about Starfield just yet. Last year, Bethesda game studios director and executive pèroducer Todd Howard provided a few hints at E3 2019, but we’re still mostly in the dark.

Evil Genius 2: World Domination, the Rebellion-developed sequel to Elixir Studios' cult-classic management sim, will no longer release this year as originally announced, and is now expected to arrive on PC in the first half of 2021.

For those unfamiliar with the series, the original Evil Genius released back in 2004 (its developer, Elixir Studios, was founded by former Lionhead and Bullfrog alumni Demis Hassabis) and cast players, appealingly, as an international super villain intent on global domination.

In real terms, that meant an enjoyable, wonderfully campy experience focussed primarily on base building and defense, with players carving out an underground lair for their villainous machinations, bossing around minions, and simultaneously attempting to stave off attack from do-gooders determined to thwart their evil schemes.

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Layers of Fear developer Bloober Team has finally confirmed that, yes, its striking sci-fi horror revamp, Observer System Redux, will be making its way to Steam alongside the previously announced next-gen console releases. And in equally pleasing news, there's a big discount for existing users, and a limited-time demo of the upgraded experience is out today.

The original version of Observer released back in 2017, and delivered a compelling blend of dystopian murder mystery and surreal, visually arresting, horror.

Set almost exclusively in a dilapidated Kraków apartment block, populated by some extremely odd tenants, players are cast as Observer detective Daniel Lazarski (voiced by the late Rutger Hauer) on the hunt for his estranged son. The deeply atmospheric end result is part methodically paced investigation adventure, and part breathless hallucinatory nightmare, with players able to enter the minds of witnesses in search of clues.

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When you ask Ubisoft fans what games they'd love to see return one day, chances are that more UbiArt the Prince of Persia series falls somewhere on their list. While 2008's rendition wasn't everyone's cup of tea, the reboot is remembered for its gorgeous stylized graphics and satisfying traversal that the series is known for.

Join Andrew Reiner, new hire Jason Guisao, and me as we return to the stylish sands of 2008's Prince of Persia.

We went live earlier but you can watch the full archive of the stream above! If you can't get enough of our live shows, remember to subscribe on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook to get notified when we go live each week!

Professional sports have charted a path for the video game industry to grow into something better

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Pick up three armor pieces and the fusion rifle for going Flawless this week

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Head to Titan for some Exotics

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The truly lackluster comic book movie was better left in limbo

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This week British game studio Frontier Developments launched its first third-party publishing label, Frontier Foundry, with the promise of already having signed five games to the label in the past year. ...

Today Unity unveiled the Unity Distribution Portal, a new tool designed to help mobile game devs efficiently submit, monitor, and update their game across multiple Android storefronts worldwide. ...

The podcast revolution has led to many of us subscribing to dozens of podcasts—and if you’re anything like me, you found yourself with a buffet problem: You’ve put way too much on your plate. More than you could possibly consume. Our feeds are bloated with series we no longer listen to and incoming episodes add to a…

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That ear-splitting screech you hear, that’s me screaming about new Dragon Age 4 information. While the 4-minute short played during yesterday’s Gamescom opener didn’t reveal any gameplay, story, or character information, nevertheless the keenest of Dragon Age stans (i.e. me) will have caught more than a few hints…

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Bounce music is the heartbeat of New Orleans.

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