September 2020

Following the game’s reveal earlier today Sega and Delightworks released the first gameplay trailer of Sakura Kakumei: Hanasaku Otome-Tachi, which translates as Sakura Revolution: Blooming Maidens.

Not only the trailer shows plenty of gameplay, but we also take a look at cutscenes and we get to listen to the theme song “Sakura Hikaru Revolution” performed by Aki Hata.

The trailer also showcases many more characters compared to today’s reveal, which isn’t surprising considering that this is a mobile gacha game for iOS and Android. 

The gameplay comes in turn-based tactical JRPG flavor, which should actually be welcome among older fans of the series. 

You can watch it below. If you want to see more, you can also enjoy the anime prologue and announcement trailer from earlier today.

Sakura Revolution: Blooming Maidens will release in Japan this year for iOS and Android.

RAVPower 16750mAh Portable Charger | $14 | RAVPower | Promo code NEW19

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As a wheelchair user I applaud Crystal Dynamics for going out of its way to include a wheelchair-using character in Marvel’s Avengers. It’s heartening to see someone with a disability taking part in the grand battle between good and evil. I just wish Cerise had more to do than just scoot back and forth in place.

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The Trump administration’s plan to lease Alaska’s coastal plain for oil and gas drilling has hit a tiny snag: It could be a human rights violation. The United Nations is calling for an investigation into whether the policy violates the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination…

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In this 2020 GDC Summer talk System Era Softworks' Aaron Biddlecom & Elijah O'Rear walk you through how they made extensive changes to Astroneer's crafting system without destabilizing the game.  ...

Over 6 million players logged time in Marvel's Avengers across all platforms, with enough doing so on PlayStation 4 to set a new record. ...

Back in the halcyon days of, uh, last week, CD Projekt revealed it would be bringing the Witcher-y world of Geralt and friends to iOS and Android in the form of a free-to-play, augmented-reality "location-based RPG". What it didn't do, however, was show much in the way of gameplay, but the studio has now remedied that with a brisk new trailer.

The Witcher: Monster Slayer, as the mobile game is officially known, is the work of developer Spokko, and serves a prequel to the existing Witcher games.

Players, in the role of a fledging Witcher, must scour the untamed Continent in order to track, study, and battle creatures "both new and familiar", with much of the action superimposed onto a corrupted version of the real-world through the technological wizardry of AR.

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David Blaine’s balloon flight was equal parts exciting and peaceful

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In the industry, we call this “going full Kirby”

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This is the first Labor Day Weekend I have to chill out in a decade, because I'm always in Seattle under the guise of highly important games blogging. PAX West is my favorite show every year because it's the only one that strikes a perfect balance between "laid back enough to not be stressful" and "essential enough to warrant going." And it's all in a city I adore when the weather's always gorgeous.

But, as we all know full-well, PAX West isn't happening this year -- at least not in its traditional form. It's an online event like all the other events, as it'll try to create a facsimile of the PAX-going experience. One aspect is getting some panels on-stream.

Gearbox is doing its usual news-announcing panel for PAX, where it'll touch on the future of its publishing arm, and, more importantly, Borderlands:

Even the chaos of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout can begin to feel routine once you've competed in a couple hundred rounds, and while some players have taken it upon themselves to keep things fresh, a new brand of mayhem is brewing at Mediatonic beyond the Season 2 stages lined up for October.

Big Yeetus is the answer to everyone who's asked for more variety in the current levels.

I've got a SPICY LEAK for you all

We're working on a little something that we have been calling...

B I G Y E E T U S

Big Yeetus will randomly appear in levels - to shake things up

Big Yeetus is Chaotic Neutral

Big Yeetus is not your friend

Big Yeetus is not your enemy pic.twitter.com/nIBBKcf5qM

— Fall Guys 👑 (@FallGuysGame) September 2, 2020

A randomly-appearing hazard with a silly name is on-brand for Fall Guys, that's for sure. And if you've ever passed the time in Team Tail Tag by hurling yourself into a swinging hammer, you'll see the appeal.

The game's jovial Twitter account likes to crack jokes, and the lines are often blurred.

Is Big Yeetus just a bit?

Do androids dream of bigger hard drives? CD Projekt Red says no.

Yesterday's Cyberpunk 2077 technical showcase from the new Nvidia 30XX cards had some people worried that it looked a little too good. Basically, folks were worried that achieving that sort of visual fidelity would require an absolutely ridiculous file size. Not so, apparently:

Hello Games has seen the good and the bad with No Man's Sky. It has seen the dangers of unchecked expectations and the blowback of unrealized promises. It has made right on an underwhelming game, eventually redeeming No Man's Sky by turning it into something vast and detailed and excellent. It has been quite the ride, and it shouldn't be lost on anyone that a title with the potential to deliver so many in-game stories ended up as a rollercoaster of real-world stories.

But Hello Games and its founder, Sean Murray, are about ready to create new stories. Hopefully, this ride won't be quite so bumpy.

In an interview with Polygon, Murray reveals that the studio is in the very early phases of planning its next major project. Murray says it's "a huge, ambitious game like No Man's Sky," but emphasizes that it's not a sequel. Making sequels is antithetical to the reason Murray and Hello Games' other employees went indie in the first place.

That's all the information we have for now. Murray seems gunshy about divulging too much too fast. He has a history with that sort of thing. Ultimately, he's happy with where No Man's Sky ended up, but regrets the emotional wringer that the initial launch put his employees through. He'll probably look to avoid that with this next game, and that might mean publicizing it less.

"A lot of [press] opportunities were put in front of us, and we were told that they were the right things to do and I look back and I’m not sure that they were super, super important to the overall outcome kind of thing," Murray says. Whatever No Man's Sky successor ends up being, Hello Games likely won't promise the world this time.

Whatever anyone thought of space simulation No Man’s Sky when it launched—or now, several years and updates later—it can be said without question that it shot for the stars. Whole procedural planets can be explored, bases built, ships outfitted, and more. Their next project after the universe-size simulation was a small puzzle adventure called The Last Campfire that just launched last week. As for what comes next, Hello Games founder Sean Murray says that the studio is headed back into the thick of it with another “huge, ambitious game like No Man’s Sky.”

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Crusader Kings 3

 sounds absolutely lovely, but the harsh reality I’m currently facing is that I just won’t play it. I still need to finish Yakuza Kiwami 2, start Spiritfarer, and earn a crown in Fall Guys.

I simply cannot fathom fitting medieval strategy onto my list of shame but I am riveted by the stories other folks are telling about their wayward conquering. I just want to funny bits of emergent storytelling without the centuries of campaign preceding them. Fortunate for me, then, that Crusader Kings 3 tales are almost best when stripped of surrounding context. Here, I’ll show you.

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The PS Vita is no longer in production, but it continues to dominate the market for used gaming hardware in Japan.

The post PS Vita Continues to Reign as the Best-Selling Used Video Game Hardware on eBay Japan appeared first on Siliconera.

Paying off your mortgage in Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn’t the worst thing in the world. You can get bells from literally doing anything on your island and it’s never entirely a stressful experience. But, what if you had to pay real-life money for your rent/mortgage on your fully-upgraded New Horizons home?

Thanks to new data from Money.co.uk (a UK-based price comparison website) we now have a rough estimate of the most expensive fictional houses from video games, films, and television shows.

The data report features iconic video game locations such as Bowser’s Castle, Croft Manor from Tomb Raider, and even Joel’s home from The Last of Us Part II.

To get straight to the point here, a fully upgraded Animal Crossing home in real life would cost you about $482,561 or a monthly payment of $2,058 for the mortgage based on a 25-year term with a 10% deposit –yeah, that’s pretty pricy.

You can check out the infographic down below of the upgraded New Horizons home:

If you’re wondering just how these property values were calculated, Money.co.uk explains its methodology in the article:

The value of each fictional property was calculated individually based on canon information from the game, television show or film using location data and bedroom count and collated with real-life comparisons of average property prices in a corresponding area or a conversion from fictional to real currency.

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic hinted today on Twitter to the addition of a new element to maps called the Big Yeetus.

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At the elementary school lunch table, after I was finished with my chicken nuggets or whatever else the cafeteria had served up for the day, my friends and I would mix all our leftovers together. We’d use empty milk cartons as the vessel for our alchemical experiments, throwing in whatever we weren’t eating anymore to…

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Preordering a game on the Switch eShop used to be essentially the same as buying it; you were charged for the game immediately, and could not cancel the preorder. However, that process has now changed thanks to a recent eShop update.

As detailed on the Nintendo support page, you can now cancel preordered software – assuming that it is more than seven days away from release. That's the point when preordered games are typically available to pre-load, so that's when your purchase becomes final.

It appears that this new feature only applies to new preorders; if you have preorders from before the new update, you cannot cancel them for a refund.

Back in June, gamers finally got a chance to play Atlus' revered Persona 4 Golden on PC. Today, the first patch was released, resolving various performance issues. 

The fixes include a new lower playback mode for cutscenes to include smoother play on older machines and also resolve a known progression issue when enterting Yukiko's Castle. You also shouldn't experience crashes when removing your Xbox One controller. 

If crashes and bugs detered your enthusiasm for the game, you should download the new 1.1 patch and head back into the adventure. We bet Nanako misses you and is just itching for a trip to Junes. And you probably should just get the latest patch to ensure you have the best experience possible. 

 Below is a complete list of everything the new patch resolves:

At Embodied, our Game Designers are champions for overall quality of experience and creators of innovative activities designed for children. ...

Part two of this interview with Massive's lead AI programmer Philip Dunstan discusses the weird problems that arose when balancing systemic game design in the new Washington D.C. map. ...

Online matches on Xbox One will still require Xbox Live Gold however. ...

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Ubisoft's celebrated online shooter The Division (the 2016 original, not its 2018 sequel, clarification fans) is currently free to download and keep on PC.

The Division, if you're unfamiliar, casts players out onto the snow-covered streets of Manhattan, now a Quarantine Zone following a viral pandemic, in order to help restore order. All of which sounded considerably more fanciful back in 2016.

What follows is an open-world action-RPG that bolsters its thrilling third-person cover-based shooting (of both the PvE and PvP variety) with all the loot, load-outs, perks, and XP you'd expect to be showered with in an online-focussed game these days.

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What if Medieval Europe, but less bigoted?

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In today's giveaway, you can snag some free content for World of Warships!

While I never delved into it, myself, my old roommate would hop into World of Warships to take battle on the high seas. Despite my extreme fear of the ocean, it was actually kinda fun to sit and watch him play! I guess that's why it's been around for five years now, and still going strong.

Celebrate their big milestone by redeeming a key for an in-game content pack featuring approximately $28 USD worth of bonus content. And if you're new to the game, we've got a special redemption offer to allow you up to $50 of in-game content to help get you into the groove!

NieR Replicant has been more or less unheard from ever since Square Enix announced it's being remastered remade upgraded. This new take on the Japan-only PS3 version of NieR is supposed to launch before the year's done, but all this silence hasn't inspired much confidence.

Quietly, there's reason for optimism. NieR Replicant Ver.1.22474487139... (which is its ridiculous-but-official name) has been given a rating by the Taiwan Digital Game Rating Committee:

Today Gearbox Publishing released a brief teaser video of its upcoming looting-slashing game Godfall.

The trailer showcases a duel between a player in their valor plate using a variety of weapons and an enemy equipped with an enormous shield.

It also comes in 4k resolution and 60 FPS, so it should provide a decent idea of what the game might look like on PS5.

You can check it out below and see if it piques your interest.

Godfall is developed by Counterplay and it’s coming in Holiday 2020 just in time for the launch of PS5, alongside a version for PC on the Epic Games Store.

When TCL tossed three pairs of headphones and earbuds into a box and shipped them to my doorstep, I was excited for a Loot Crate-style look at the lineup it hopes will garner respect in the personal audio world. My “haul” consisted of the true wireless SOCL500 earbuds, some on-ears with active noise cancellation in…

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A “walk cycle” is the part of video game animation that covers the most basic, default movement of your character. It’s maybe the thing you see the most in a game alongside a HUD, and as such might also be something you take for granted! Today, let’s not take them for granted.

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Just in time for the series’ 35th anniversary, Puma is about to release an official Super Mario Bros. shoe.

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The upcoming Gotham Knights game has unveiled the voice cast. Are you ready to shake things up with Batgirl, Nightwing, Redhood, and Robin? And of course, Alfred's in there too! Even Bruce Wayne's voice is there, who they insist is still quite dead in this game. In a Twitter thread today, the voice actors were revealed, tied to their in-game counterparts. Take a look at the the entire thread here:

The voices beyond the masks. #GothamKnights

a thread;

— Gotham Knights (@GothamKnights) September 2, 2020

@America_Young is #Batgirl. pic.twitter.com/PsAM0o2hT3

I'll be honest: there's been a block-shaped hole in my life since we capped off our group Minecraft streams a little while back. Not only was it a fun weekly event, having a big group multiplayer show to look forward to as our last thing every Friday, but also, Minecraft is still just a damn good game. Once we went and fought that ender dragon, then enabled cheats and blew a gigantic hole in the side of our beloved home base, I had a feeling the end was nigh for that feature, and sure enough after a little over three months it seems we've wrung as much as we could out of the game... at least for now.

Perhaps in a vain effort to keep the dream alive, in the hearts and minds of you the viewer if not on further streams, I thought I'd open up our humble little world for everyone else to expand on, break, or fiddle around in as you all see fit. You can download the files below and drop them into your game to play around in our world locally, or throw them onto a server and build your own multiplayer world on top of ours.

There's an issue with Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition's multiplayer in Australia and New Zealand... so Square Enix temporarily stopped selling it there.

The post Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Australian Sales Suspended Due to Multiplayer Issue appeared first on Siliconera.

Karl Sisson is a matte painter at WETA.

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PlayStation 4 users can now grab some extra goodies for Call of Duty: Warzone, but only for a limited time. The "Warzone Combat Pack" is now available for PS Plus users on PS4.

The bundle, which is available all month, includes a series of cosmetic items like the Lock and Stock skin, the Drill Bit weapon blueprint, and the box cutter tactical knife. The bundle also comes with a Price Check weapon charm and a token for double XP, among other things.

You can see the Combat Pack in action in the video below, while we've collected some images of the items in an image gallery further down the page. Of note, the video displays some items that we did not come across in our own experience--for example, we found the Yellow Belly handgun blueprint instead of the Drill Bit, so your experience may vary.

Welcome to Elk, a narrative-heavy adventure game with some intriguing twists, has announced a release date. The game will be available on Steam and Xbox One on September 17, letting players experience Elk Island and all the stories it holds.

The announcement trailer, below, shows how the game mixes story-telling with puzzles and mini-games, and also introduces one of the game's most interesting elements--many of the events in it are based on real events, and the game features footage of people telling their stories.

These events are often horrible moments within people's lives, and the trailer suggests that the game will switch tones throughout.

GameSpot previously covered Welcome to Elk in the article 6 Upcoming Narrative Games To Get Excited About. The brief playable demo we played raised a lot of questions: "Is the island limbo? What's the connection between the real-world stories and the ones told in game? The Welcome to Elk demo was all of 10 minutes long, but I am already surprisingly invested in exploring this island."

If you want to experience Welcome to Elk before release, you can play the recently released demo, Welcome to Elk: The First Stories, on Steam.