August 2020

When The Boys first premiered on Amazon Prime Video, it became an instant hit and was quickly greenlit for a second season. Season 2 will be arriving this September, and the show’s just gotten a new proper trailer to show it off.

You can check out the trailer for yourself down below:

We get a glimpse of a few new characters, as well as an extended look at some story beats coming in the second season, and Antony Starr’s continued impressive performance as Homelander.

Here’s a brief description of what you can expect in The Boys season 2:

“In a more intense, more desperate Season 2 of THE BOYS, Butcher, Hughie and the team reel from their losses in Season 1. On the run from the law, they struggle to fight back against the Superheroes. As Vought, the company that manages the heroes, cashes in on the panic over the threat of Supervillains, and a new hero, Stormfront, shakes up the company and challenges an already unstable Homelander.”

The post The Boys Season 2 Gets a New Crazy Trailer, Airs in September appeared first on Twinfinite.

Since its release back in December, Nintendo has been consistently supporting Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with updates and new content. Update 8.1.0 is now available for the game, and it adds a new stage to the game, along with a couple of music options for two select stages.

The new stage is called Small Battlefield, and you can check it out for yourself in the screenshots in the gallery down below:

Humanity is living through difficult times, and in a period of widespread negativity, messages of hope are always welcome. Today we get one from Gundam.

The official channel of the most popular mecha anime franchise from Japan just released a heartwarming video titled “Message from Gundam: Beyond.”

The video brings together heroes and mecha from several Mobile Suit Gundam series (and their voice actors) starting with Amuro Ray and Char Aznable to convey a message of hope and unity to humanity as a whole.

The video encourages the world to “be of one mind” to restore our regular lives.

The message is so relevant that they went through the trouble to subtitle it in several languages including English (you can activate subtitles by pressing the “cc” button). 

If you’re a Gundam or anime fan, be ready to shed a few tears as you watch the video below.

This reminds me of the time in which Japanese Twitter users dedicated pictures of robots to their fellow mecha fans in Italy to express their moral support at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Final Fantasy VII Remake finally released for the PS4 earlier this year, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time with it. The game was a near faithful remake of the original Midgar portion, though it certainly wasn’t without a few surprising twists and turns towards the end, and it also featured a gorgeous recreation of the original soundtrack as well.

Sega released its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year, related to the period between April 1 and June 30.

Below you can see the financial figures for the company as a whole.

Net sales dropped considerably year-on-year and the company actually incurred losses on the income side.

A Super #SmashBrosUltimate update, Ver. 8.1.0, is available now! This update includes a new stage, Small Battlefield. Plus, you’ll now be able to select from all music tracks when playing on Final Destination and Battlefield stages! pic.twitter.com/eqo3Hu7Ije

Does anyone here remember Muscle Men? Not actual muscle men, they're still a thing, but those little pink rubber figures from the 80s that were about two inches tall. Remember them? I can still smell them, that rubbery waft, and I can still almost feel them, that slight give in an otherwise solid rubber skin.

I distinctly remember the moment they turned up in my life. I was in my pyjamas at the top of the stairs, watching people come into the house for a party. I had to go to bed and was throwing a bit of a wobbler about it. I was a child just in case that isn't clear. I might still be in my pyjamas now but I can go to bed when I like!

Anyway, one of the people coming into the house doesn't disappear below but comes upstairs bearing gifts. I honestly can't remember who they were but I remember what they brought: a strange tiny dustbin with see-through sides containing a load of little rubber men. Muscle Men, the label says.

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I had a mate at university who got home pissed at 2am and decided to boil himself an egg. Great idea at the time. But he passed out on the floor, the saucepan boiled dry, and the egg began to combust. When my mate woke up, it was because his whole building was being evacuated because of the billows of rancid egg smoke from his kitchen. See that egg, in your mind’s eye? That’s ARK: Survival Evolved, that is.

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After nearly two years, IDOLA Phantasy Star Saga will be coming Westward with an English release.

The post IDOLA Phantasy Star Saga English Release Will Be Handled by Boltrend Games appeared first on Siliconera.

However many people enter the RPS treehouse, the same number of people eventually leave. There’s no fighting inside, just fun and games. In this Dave Irwin leaving RPS guide, I’ll say goodbye to Dave, thank him for his work, and explain how you can do the same.

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As Riot's Spirit Blossom event continues across League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics, and Legends of Runeterra, the studio is giving artists the chance to win some exclusive Spirit Blossom-themed loot.

Announced on the League of Legends website, the new competition challenges artists to draw a one-page manga based around the Kin of the Stained Blade anime-style cinematic.

To enter, artists just need to post their submissions to Twitter, making sure to tag @UK_LoL and use the hashtag #SpiritBlossomManga. Despite the use of the UK Twitter handle, the competition is open to artists from around the world.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the battle royale game Warzone have grown again, and in a big way, with the launch of the huge Season 5 update on August 5.

The update has now gone live through a very large patch. The patch began its rollout on PS4, Xbox One, and PC at around 11 PM PT on August 4. While you wait for the download to install, you can check out the full patch notes below, as posted by Infinity Ward on its website.

The Season 5 update adds new multiplayer maps for Modern Warfare, a new Ground War map, and a new Mini Royale mode for Warzone. There is also a new Battle Pass and more Operators, while the Warzone mode is getting refreshed with new areas and a freight train.

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes, an upcoming game from Suikoden alumni Yoshitaka Murayama and Junko Kawano, launched its Kickstarter campaign on July 28, and has already hit most of the scope-broadening stretch goals that have been announced so far.

The project from newly formed Rabbit & Bear Studios hit its minimum goal of $500,000 within three hours (crashing Kickstarter along the way), and is well on its way to reaching the current top stretch goal of $2.85 million. At the time of writing, the campaign is around $2,687,000, with the next stretch goal at $2.7 million.

Already unlocked stretch goals have added a Fortress Town mode, cooking, fishing and battle mini-games, console releases, a New Game Plus, Chinese and Korean localisation, new sound effects and a full orchestra score, and new characters including Perielle, Yuferius VII, Maxim, and Hildi.

Final Fantasy VII Remake released back in April, and now that players have had time to immerse themselves in the new iteration of Midgar, one of the game's developers has opened up about some elements of the world and the processes behind developing it. Motomu Toriyama, the game's co-director and scenario designer, has answered some questions for the official Final Fantasy site, and they've revealed some interesting details--including a strange insight into an internal nickname for one character.

Toriyama talks about the game's soundtrack, why there are cats everywhere in Midgar (it's because of Wedge, apparently), and touches on a few details about the design of the game world. It's mostly pretty trivial, and occasionally speculative, but when asked about the fact that Cloud's mother and Tifa's father were given names for this entry, he lets an odd detail slip.

"They both had names in the original FFVII character design documents, so we decided to use them in Remake," Toriyama says.

After giving us one of the most charming games of 2019, House House is doubling down on the appeal of Untitled Goose Game by making sure the physical PS4 "Lovely Edition" releases with 100% environmentally friendly packaging.

Production company iam8bit has just released a thread on their design for the Untitled Goose Game packaging, and how every bit of material used is recycled, recyclable, and still durable enough to live up to Sony's standards.

Former Xbox boss Albert Penello has shared his thoughts on Sony's recent announcement that DualShock 4 controllers cannot be used to play PlayStation 5 games.

In a series of tweets, Penello started off by saying it's "fair enough" that Sony wants to prioritize its new controller to make use of its new features, such as haptic feedback.

However, Penello mentioned that Sony's announcement "feels off."

The two Pillars of Eternity games, both the original and its sequel Deadfire, reviewed well and have fans. Unfortunately, a third game in Obsidian's series doesn't look likely anytime soon. The sequel suffered from low sales, and at the time director Josh Sawyer said that making another one would require a major re-examination of the series. Now, Sawyer has touched on the subject again, and it's still sounding unlikely.

In a Tumblr response to a fan, who has been playing and loving the games during the pandemic, Sawyer said that he and the rest of the team at Obsidian are pleased that the games have fans--but this isn't necessarily the issue. "I don’t think the fans need to convince me/Obsidian/MS of anything," Sawyer says, referring to Obsidian owner Microsoft.

"I think that we need to believe that if we try to make a game in this style again, the existing fans will enjoy it, new players will enjoy it, and ex-fans who were disappointed by Pillars 1 and/or 2 will come back to it," Sawyer adds. But the main issues is that the developers would "need to be excited about making it," and right now there's not a lot of excitement around it.

"Even devs who really enjoy working in the Pillars universe were burned out after the end of Deadfire, especially if they went on to work on the DLCs," Sawyer explained. "To put in all of that work and have the game limp over the finish line, sales-wise, doesn’t get people jazzed up about rolling on to a sequel."

Every Tuesday afternoon, Steam carries out scheduled maintenance on its systems, sometimes causing outages while in progress. This week, after maintenance was completed, players found that some games in their library that had already been bought were showing a "purchase" button instead of "play." Even if the player tried to purchase it again, it would cause an error saying the content was already in their library--rendering the games unable to be played.

The bug is described in a Resetera thread, with a number of reports showing up on the Steam subreddit. Dead By Daylight seems to be adversely affected, as well as Bethesda games--with one player describing issues with Fallout: New Vegas, and another saying that all Bethesda games in their library had been affected. One Reddit user has said that the issue is affecting all games in their library that are currently on sale on Steam. This checks out with Dead By Daylight, which is currently 60% off in the Steam store, while Bethesda is also having a sale on most of its content.

The Dead By Daylight Twitter account has put out a notice about the issue, though it appears to be an issue on Steam's side.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has just received a new patch with Update 8.1.0, and it has made a surprising addition--a new stage. Small Battlefield--which is like Battlefield, but smaller--is now available for all players.

As of this update, you will be able to pick Small Battlefield as a preferred rule for online matches, which is good if you want a tighter arena for you and your opponent to battle on. You can also now pick any usually stage-specific music for this level, as well as Battlefield, Big Battlefield, and Final Destination.

This update includes some adjustments to online, including a lower eligibility to qualify for Elite Smash in the quickplay menu. This means that more players will be allowed into this mode. "Additionally, the way initial values for Global Smash Power are calculated has also been adjusted," the update reads.

Diablo Immortal, the mobile spin-off Diablo game, is still in the works despite lots of blowback from fans, and Activision Blizzard has spoken more about it in the context of their mobile strategy. As part of second quarter calendar 2020 results conference call, CFO Dennis Durkin has spoken about Activision's mobile slate, citing the success of Call of Duty Mobile as a good model.

PC Gamer picked up on the comments from Durkin, who said that "there's a lot more to come" for Activision's mobile releases. "CoD Mobile is off to a really great start, but we're just scratching the surface of what that franchise can be on mobile," he says, in direct response to a question about Diablo Immortal and how Call of Duty has impacted it.

Durkin says that the success of Call of Duty on mobile serves as a good indicator of the success of franchise releases on mobile. "And it certainly applies to a lot of other franchises that we have," he says. "We see that our current players really want more ways to engage with their favorite IP, be it through mobile or other platforms, and that offering authentic and really deep experiences on new platforms can drive much much higher engagement."

Quantic Dream's latest game, Detroit: Become Human, has reached a new sales milestone. The French developer said in a news release that the game passed 5 million sales across all platforms following its release on Steam. The game launched earlier on PC through the Epic Games Store.

Detroit started out as a PS4-exclusive, but Quantic Dream has since ended its publishing agreement with Sony and is now planning to be a multiplatform game developer and "boutique" publisher.

Quantic Dream also announced that Detroit's Twitch extension, Community Play, was a big success. Nearly 500 streamers used the Twitch overlay to call on their viewers to vote for what decisions should be made in the game. In total, more than 1.5 million votes were cast.

Akihiro Suzuki talked about Dynasty Warriors 9's reception while teasing multiple 20th anniversary titles in an interview with Famitsu.

The post Dynasty Warriors Producer Teases Multiple Titles to Celebrate 20th Anniversary appeared first on Siliconera.

The "Famitsu DX Pack" will add more to the already bulky SMT III: Nocturne HD Remaster Collector's Editions.

The post SMT III Nocturne HD Remaster “Famitsu DX Pack” Will Include a Plethora of Collector’s Items appeared first on Siliconera.

Sometimes it's fine to just talk about the weather. The past couple of days a friend has been telling me, over one of the WhatsApp groups that's kept me sane the past few months, about the storm that's been hitting his part of the world. Storm Isaias hit the Carolinas earlier this week before tearing a path up through Virginia, New Jersey and the east coast of America. It's a ferocious thing, leaving millions without power - it left my friend in Connecticut in the dark - and sadly much worse, claiming lives on its way. I was curious to see it up close, from the safety of my own home, via the new Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Real-time weather - or as close to real-time as you can reasonably get - is a key feature here, with data being pulled in from Meteoblue, where observations are combined with complex predictions to get something approaching accuracy. I'm no meteorologist, so I can't speak precisely to its authenticity - and I'm afraid my own methodology when exploring how accurate it is isn't particularly scientific. All I know is that when I went to check the progress of Isaias on smart weather visualization site Windy and tabbed back into Microsoft Flight Sim, it was close enough to not be bothered by the difference.

So I set off at first from Richmond International Airport, heading north into the tail-end of Isaias. And it is, as you expect, absolutely miserable, with next-to-no visibility. I'm still a relative newcomer to this flight sim lark, so while I should be beholden to instrument flight rules and use the intricate array of dials and software to guide me I simply head straight into the murk to get a feel for what it's like flying in such extreme conditions.

Fortnite's vehicle update is now live, and it weighs in at around 2.3GB on PC.

With it, the game's first four proper road vehicles are unlocked. The flat bed Bear truck shown in the video below has a beefy 1000 health and can speed along at 50mph.

On the downside, you'll need to stop off at one of the island's petrol stations to keep it topped up with fuel. There, players must grab a nozzle and waggle it at the car to fill up. There are four tanks within the car - so a full squad can refuel simultaneously to save time.

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Activision has announced Call of Duty: Warzone now has over 75 million players - and signalled its intent to reveal this year's title in its battle royale.

Overnight, to coincide with its financial results, Activision confirmed both Treyarch and Raven Software are co-developing the next premium Call of Duty game, which Eurogamer has reported to be called Black Ops Cold War.

This much about the game - and its troubled development - was known. And while Activision has already teased Black Ops within Warzone with the odd Easter egg, executives last night gave the clearest indication yet that a big reveal of Black Ops Cold War is around the corner.

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Finally! Almost! Japan’s latest one-to-one scale Mobile Suit Gundam statue is nearly finished.

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Today’s selection of articles from Kotaku’s reader-run community: Nier Automata: The Best Shump I’ve Ever Played • Kaiju Crush: Dev Diary - The Final Push, Day 17 • TAY Retro: Nintendo Entertainment System - WWF WrestleMania Challenge [TV Commercial, NA]

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The anime studio known as Arms has declared bankruptcy. It was best known for the Ikki Tousen (above) and Queen’s Blade anime.

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You could accuse Digital Extremes of being a bit on the nose with their latest Warframe expansion. The world is in the grip of a pandemic and up they pop at their annual TennoCon convention (now streamed, for full social distancing) with Heart Of Deimos: a gooey, pulsating update revolving around a trip to a moon in the grip of a parasitic infestation. But unlike real life, on Deimos you can distract yourself from lockdown woes by riding a giant dragonfly. Imagine steering one of those bad boys to Durham Castle.

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What Is Slime Climb?

The Beginning